To the great and
illustrious Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, a token of admiration for his works and
genius. DE BALZAC.
Mme. Vauquer (née de
Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the past forty years has kept a
lodging-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte- Genevieve, in the district that lies
between the Latin Quarter and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. Her house (known in
the neighborhood as the Maison Vauquer) receives men and women, old and young,
and no word has ever been breathed against her respectable establishment; but,
at the same time, it must be said that as a matter of fact no young woman has
been under her roof for thirty years, and that if a young man stays there for
any length of time it is a sure sign that his allowance must be of the
slenderest. In 1819, however, the time when this drama opens, there was an
almost penniless young girl among Mme. Vauquer’s boarders.
That word drama has
been somewhat discredited of late; it has been overworked and twisted to
strange uses in these days of dolorous literature; but it must do service again
here, not because this story is dramatic in the restricted sense of the word,
but because some tears may perhaps be shed intra et extra muros before it is
over
Will any one without
the walls of Paris understand it? It is open to doubt. The only audience who
could appreciate the results of close observation, the careful reproduction of
minute detail and local color, are dwellers between the heights of Montrouge
and Montmartre, in a vale of crumbling stucco watered by streams of black mud,
a vale of sorrows which are real and joys too often hollow; but this audience
is so accustomed to terrible sensations, that only some unimaginable and
well-neigh impossible woe could produce any lasting impression there. Now and
again there are tragedies so awful and so grand by reason of the complication
of virtues and vices that bring them about, that egotism and selfishness are
forced to pause and are moved to pity; but the impression that they receive is
like a luscious fruit, soon consumed. Civilization, like the car of Juggernaut,
is scarcely stayed perceptibly in its progress by a heart less easy to break
than the others that lie in its course; this also is broken, and Civilization
continues on her course triumphant. And you, too, will do the like; you who
with this book in your white hand will sink back among the cushions of your
armchair, and say to yourself, "Perhaps this may amuse me." You will
read the story of Father Goriot’s secret woes, and, dining thereafter with an
unspoiled appetite, will lay the blame of your insensibility upon the writer,
and accuse him of exaggeration, of writing romances. Ah! once for all, this
drama is neither a fiction nor a romance! ALL IS TRUE,--so true, that every one
can discern the elements of the tragedy in his own house, perhaps in his own
heart.
The lodging-house is
Mme. Vauquer’s own property. It is still standing in the lower end of the Rue
Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, just where the road slopes so sharply down to the Rue
de l’Arbalete, that wheeled traffic seldom passes that way, because it is so
stony and steep. This position is sufficient to account for the silence
prevalent in the streets shut in between the dome of the Pantheon and the dome
of the Val-de-Grace, two conspicuous public buildings which give a yellowish
tone to the landscape and darken the whole district that lies beneath the
shadow of their leaden-hued cupolas.
In that district the
pavements are clean and dry, there is neither mud nor water in the gutters,
grass grows in the chinks of the walls. The most heedless passer-by feels the
depressing influences of a place where the sound of wheels creates a sensation;
there is a grim look about the houses, a suggestion of a jail about those high
garden walls. A Parisian straying into a suburb apparently composed of
lodging-houses and public institutions would see poverty and dullness, old age
lying down to die, and joyous youth condemned to drudgery. It is the ugliest
quarter of Paris, and, it may be added, the least known. But, before all
things, the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve is like a bronze frame for a picture for
which the mind cannot be too well prepared by the contemplation of sad hues and
sober images. Even so, step by step the daylight decreases, and the cicerone’s
droning voice grows hollower as the traveler descends into the Catacombs. The
comparison holds good! Who shall say which is more ghastly, the sight of the
bleached skulls or of dried-up human hearts?
The front of the
lodging-house is at right angles to the road, and looks out upon a little
garden, so that you see the side of the house in section, as it were, from the
Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve. Beneath the wall of the house front there lies a
channel, a fathom wide, paved with cobble-stones, and beside it runs a graveled
walk bordered by geraniums and oleanders and pomegranates set in great blue and
white glazed earthenware pots. Access into the graveled walk is afforded by a
door, above which the words MAISON VAUQUER may be read, and beneath, in rather
smaller letters, "Lodgings for both sexes, etc."
During the day a
glimpse into the garden is easily obtained through a wicket to which a bell is
attached. On the opposite wall, at the further end of the graveled walk, a
green marble arch was painted once upon a time by a local artist, and in this
semblance of a shrine a statue representing Cupid is installed; a Parisian
Cupid, so blistered and disfigured that he looks like a candidate for one of
the adjacent hospitals, and might suggest an allegory to lovers of symbolism.
The half-obliterated inscription on the pedestal beneath determines the date of
this work of art, for it bears witness to the widespread enthusiasm felt for
Voltaire on his return to Paris in 1777: "Whoe’er thou art, thy master
see; He is, or was, or ought to be." At night the wicket gate is replaced
by a solid door. The little garden is no wider than the front of the house; it
is shut in between the wall of the street and the partition wall of the
neighboring house. A mantle of ivy conceals the bricks and attracts the eyes of
passers-by to an effect which is picturesque in Paris, for each of the walls is
covered with trellised vines that yield a scanty dusty crop of fruit, and
furnish besides a subject of conversation for Mme. Vauquer and her lodgers;
every year the widow trembles for her vintage.
A straight path beneath
the walls on either side of the garden leads to a clump of lime-trees at the
further end of it; line-trees, as Mme. Vauquer persists in calling them, in
spite of the fact that she was a de Conflans, and regardless of repeated
corrections from her lodgers.
The central space
between the walls is filled with artichokes and rows of pyramid fruit-trees,
and surrounded by a border of lettuce, pot- herbs, and parsley. Under the
lime-trees there are a few green-painted garden seats and a wooden table, and
hither, during the dog-days, such of the lodgers as are rich enough to indulge
in a cup of coffee come to take their pleasure, though it is hot enough to
roast eggs even in the shade.
The house itself is
three stories high, without counting the attics under the roof. It is built of
rough stone, and covered with the yellowish stucco that gives a mean appearance
to almost every house in Paris. There are five windows in each story in the front
of the house; all the blinds visible through the small square panes are drawn
up awry, so that the lines are all at cross purposes. At the side of the house
there are but two windows on each floor, and the lowest of all are adorned with
a heavy iron grating.
Behind the house a yard
extends for some twenty feet, a space inhabited by a happy family of pigs,
poultry, and rabbits; the wood- shed is situated on the further side, and on
the wall between the wood-shed and the kitchen window hangs the meat-safe, just
above the place where the sink discharges its greasy streams. The cook sweeps
all the refuse out through a little door into the Rue Nueve-Sainte- Genevieve,
and frequently cleanses the yard with copious supplies of water, under pain of
pestilence.
The house might have
been built on purpose for its present uses. Access is given by a French window
to the first room on the ground floor, a sitting-room which looks out upon the
street through the two barred windows already mentioned. Another door opens out
of it into the dining-room, which is separated from the kitchen by the well of
the staircase, the steps being constructed partly of wood, partly of tiles,
which are colored and beeswaxed. Nothing can be more depressing than the sight
of that sitting-room. The furniture is covered with horse hair woven in
alternate dull and glossy stripes. There is a round table in the middle, with a
purplish-red marble top, on which there stands, by way of ornament, the
inevitable white china tea- service, covered with a half-effaced gilt network.
The floor is sufficiently uneven, the wainscot rises to elbow height, and the
rest of the wall space is decorated with a varnished paper, on which the
principal scenes from Telemaque are depicted, the various classical personages
being colored. The subject between the two windows is the banquet given by
Calypso to the son of Ulysses, displayed thereon for the admiration of the
boarders, and has furnished jokes these forty years to the young men who show
themselves superior to their position by making fun of the dinners to which
poverty condemns them. The hearth is always so clean and neat that it is
evident that a fire is only kindled there on great occasions; the stone
chimney-piece is adorned by a couple of vases filled with faded artificial
flowers imprisoned under glass shades, on either side of a bluish marble clock
in the very worst taste.
The first room exhales
an odor for which there is no name in the language, and which should be called
the odeur de pension. The damp atmosphere sends a chill through you as you
breathe it; it has a stuffy, musty, and rancid quality; it permeates your
clothing; after- dinner scents seem to be mingled in it with smells from the
kitchen and scullery and the reek of a hospital. It might be possible to
describe it if some one should discover a process by which to distil from the
atmosphere all the nauseating elements with which it is charged by the
catarrhal exhalations of every individual lodger, young or old. Yet, in spite
of these stale horrors, the sitting-room is as charming and as delicately
perfumed as a boudoir, when compared with the adjoining dining-room.
The paneled walls of
that apartment were once painted some color, now a matter of conjecture, for
the surface is incrusted with accumulated layers of grimy deposit, which cover
it with fantastic outlines. A collection of dim-ribbed glass decanters, metal
discs with a satin sheen on them, and piles of blue-edged earthenware plates of
Touraine ware cover the sticky surfaces of the sideboards that line the room.
In a corner stands a box containing a set of numbered pigeon-holes, in which
the lodgers’ table napkins, more or less soiled and stained with wine, are
kept. Here you see that indestructible furniture never met with elsewhere, which
finds its way into lodging-houses much as the wrecks of our civilization drift
into hospitals for incurables. You expect in such places as these to find the
weather-house whence a Capuchin issues on wet days; you look to find the
execrable engravings which spoil your appetite, framed every one in a black
varnished frame, with a gilt beading round it; you know the sort of tortoise-
shell clock-case, inlaid with brass; the green stove, the Argand lamps, covered
with oil and dust, have met your eyes before. The oilcloth which covers the
long table is so greasy that a waggish externe will write his name on the
surface, using his thumb-nail as a style. The chairs are broken-down invalids;
the wretched little hempen mats slip away from under your feet without slipping
away for good; and finally, the foot-warmers are miserable wrecks, hingeless,
charred, broken away about the holes. It would be impossible to give an idea of
the old, rotten, shaky, cranky, worm-eaten, halt, maimed, one-eyed, rickety,
and ramshackle condition of the furniture without an exhaustive description,
which would delay the progress of the story to an extent that impatient people
would not pardon. The red tiles of the floor are full of depressions brought
about by scouring and periodical renewings of color. In short, there is no
illusory grace left to the poverty that reigns here; it is dire, parsimonious,
concentrated, threadbare poverty; as yet it has not sunk into the mire, it is
only splashed by it, and though not in rags as yet, its clothing is ready to
drop to pieces.
This apartment is in
all its glory at seven o’clock in the morning, when Mme. Vauquer’s cat appears,
announcing the near approach of his mistress, and jumps upon the sideboards to
sniff at the milk in the bowls, each protected by a plate, while he purrs his
morning greeting to the world. A moment later the widow shows her face; she is
tricked out in a net cap attached to a false front set on awry, and shuffles
into the room in her slipshod fashion. She is an oldish woman, with a bloated
countenance, and a nose like a parrot’s beak set in the middle of it; her fat
little hands (she is as sleek as a church rat) and her shapeless, slouching
figure are in keeping with the room that reeks of misfortune, where hope is
reduced to speculate for the meanest stakes. Mme. Vauquer alone can breathe
that tainted air without being disheartened by it. Her face is as fresh as a
frosty morning in autumn; there are wrinkles about the eyes that vary in their
expression from the set smile of a ballet-dancer to the dark, suspicious scowl
of a discounter of bills; in short, she is at once the embodiment and
interpretation of her lodging-house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the
existence of its mistress. You can no more imagine the one without the other,
than you can think of a jail without a turnkey. The unwholesome corpulence of
the little woman is produced by the life she leads, just as typhus fever is
bred in the tainted air of a hospital. The very knitted woolen petticoat that
she wears beneath a skirt made of an old gown, with the wadding protruding
through the rents in the material, is a sort of epitome of the sitting-room,
the dining-room, and the little garden; it discovers the cook, it foreshadows
the lodgers--the picture of the house is completed by the portrait of its
mistress.
Mme. Vauquer at the age
of fifty is like all women who "have seen a deal of trouble." She has
the glassy eyes and innocent air of a trafficker in flesh and blood, who will
wax virtuously indignant to obtain a higher price for her services, but who is
quite ready to betray a Georges or a Pichegru, if a Georges or a Pichegru were
in hiding and still to be betrayed, or for any other expedient that may
alleviate her lot. Still, "she is a good woman at bottom," said the
lodgers who believed that the widow was wholly dependent upon the money that
they paid her, and sympathized when they heard her cough and groan like one of
themselves.
What had M. Vauquer
been? The lady was never very explicit on this head. How had she lost her
money? "Through trouble," was her answer. He had treated her badly,
had left her nothing but her eyes to cry over his cruelty, the house she lived
in, and the privilege of pitying nobody, because, so she was wont to say, she herself
had been through every possible misfortune.
Sylvie, the stout cook,
hearing her mistress’ shuffling footsteps, hastened to serve the lodgers’
breakfasts. Beside those who lived in the house, Mme. Vauquer took boarders who
came for their meals; but these externes usually only came to dinner, for which
they paid thirty francs a month.
At the time when this
story begins, the lodging-house contained seven inmates. The best rooms in the
house were on the first story, Mme. Vauquer herself occupying the least important,
while the rest were let to a Mme. Couture, the widow of a commissary-general in
the service of the Republic. With her lived Victorine Taillefer, a schoolgirl,
to whom she filled the place of mother. These two ladies paid eighteen hundred
francs a year.
The two sets of rooms
on the second floor were respectively occupied by an old man named Poiret and a
man of forty or thereabouts, the wearer of a black wig and dyed whiskers, who
gave out that he was a retired merchant, and was addressed as M. Vautrin. Two
of the four rooms on the third floor were also let--one to an elderly spinster,
a Mlle. Michonneau, and the other to a retired manufacturer of vermicelli,
Italian paste and starch, who allowed the others to address him as "Father
Goriot." The remaining rooms were allotted to various birds of passage, to
impecunious students, who like "Father Goriot" and Mlle. Michonneau,
could only muster forty-five francs a month to pay for their board and lodging.
Mme. Vauquer had little desire for lodgers of this sort; they ate too much
bread, and she only took them in default of better.
At that time one of the
rooms was tenanted by a law student, a young man from the neighborhood of
Angouleme, one of a large family who pinched and starved themselves to spare twelve
hundred francs a year for him. Misfortune had accustomed Eugène de Rastignac,
for that was his name, to work. He belonged to the number of young men who know
as children that their parents’ hopes are centered on them, and deliberately
prepare themselves for a great career, subordinating their studies from the
first to this end, carefully watching the indications of the course of events,
calculating the probable turn that affairs will take, that they may be the
first to profit by them. But for his observant curiosity, and the skill with
which he managed to introduce himself into the salons of Paris, this story
would not have been colored by the tones of truth which it certainly owes to
him, for they are entirely due to his penetrating sagacity and desire to fathom
the mysteries of an appalling condition of things, which was concealed as
carefully by the victim as by those who had brought it to pass.
Above the third story
there was a garret where the linen was hung to dry, and a couple of attics.
Christophe, the man-of-all-work, slept in one, and Sylvie, the stout cook, in
the other. Beside the seven inmates thus enumerated, taking one year with
another, some eight law or medical students dined in the house, as well as two
or three regular comers who lived in the neighborhood. There were usually
eighteen people at dinner, and there was room, if need be, for twenty at Mme.
Vauquer’s table; at breakfast, however, only the seven lodgers appeared. It was
almost like a family party. Every one came down in dressing-gown and slippers,
and the conversation usually turned on anything that had happened the evening
before; comments on the dress or appearance of the dinner contingent were
exchanged in friendly confidence.
These seven lodgers
were Mme. Vauquer’s spoiled children. Among them she distributed, with
astronomical precision, the exact proportion of respect and attention due to
the varying amounts they paid for their board. One single consideration
influenced all these human beings thrown together by chance. The two
second-floor lodgers only paid seventy-two francs a month. Such prices as these
are confined to the Faubourg Saint-Marcel and the district between La Bourbe
and the Salpetriere; and, as might be expected, poverty, more or less apparent,
weighed upon them all, Mme. Couture being the sole exception to the rule.
The dreary surroundings
were reflected in the costumes of the inmates of the house; all were alike
threadbare. The color of the men’s coats were problematical; such shoes, in
more fashionable quarters, are only to be seen lying in the gutter; the cuffs
and collars were worn and frayed at the edges; every limp article of clothing
looked like the ghost of its former self. The women’s dresses were faded, old-
fashioned, dyed and re-dyed; they wore gloves that were glazed with hard wear,
much-mended lace, dingy ruffles, crumpled muslin fichus. So much for their
clothing; but, for the most part, their frames were solid enough; their
constitutions had weathered the storms of life; their cold, hard faces were
worn like coins that have been withdrawn from circulation, but there were
greedy teeth behind the withered lips. Dramas brought to a close or still in
progress are foreshadowed by the sight of such actors as these, not the dramas
that are played before the footlights and against a background of painted
canvas, but dumb dramas of life, frost-bound dramas that sere hearts like fire,
dramas that do not end with the actors’ lives.
Mlle. Michonneau, that
elderly young lady, screened her weak eyes from the daylight by a soiled green
silk shade with a rim of brass, an object fit to scare away the Angel of Pity
himself. Her shawl, with its scanty, draggled fringe, might have covered a
skeleton, so meagre and angular was the form beneath it. Yet she must have been
pretty and shapely once. What corrosive had destroyed the feminine outlines?
Was it trouble, or vice, or greed? Had she loved too well? Had she been a
second-hand clothes dealer, a frequenter of the backstairs of great houses, or
had she been merely a courtesan? Was she expiating the flaunting triumphs of a
youth overcrowded with pleasures by an old age in which she was shunned by
every passer-by? Her vacant gaze sent a chill through you; her shriveled face
seemed like a menace. Her voice was like the shrill, thin note of the
grasshopper sounding from the thicket when winter is at hand. She said that she
had nursed an old gentleman, ill of catarrh of the bladder, and left to die by
his children, who thought that he had nothing left. His bequest to her, a life
annuity of a thousand francs, was periodically disputed by his heirs, who
mingled slander with their persecutions. In spite of the ravages of conflicting
passions, her face retained some traces of its former fairness and fineness of
tissue, some vestiges of the physical charms of her youth still survived.
M. Poiret was a sort of
automaton. He might be seen any day sailing like a gray shadow along the walks
of the Jardin des Plantes, on his head a shabby cap, a cane with an old yellow
ivory handle in the tips of his thin fingers; the outspread skirts of his
threadbare overcoat failed to conceal his meagre figure; his breeches hung
loosely on his shrunken limbs; the thin, blue-stockinged legs trembled like
those of a drunken man; there was a notable breach of continuity between the
dingy white waistcoat and crumpled shirt frills and the cravat twisted about a
throat like a turkey gobbler’s; altogether, his appearance set people wondering
whether this outlandish ghost belonged to the audacious race of the sons of
Japhet who flutter about on the Boulevard Italien. What devouring kind of toil
could have so shriveled him? What devouring passions had darkened that bulbous
countenance, which would have seemed outrageous as a caricature? What had he
been? Well, perhaps he had been part of the machinery of justice, a clerk in
the office to which the executioner sends in his accounts,--so much for
providing black veils for parricides, so much for sawdust, so much for pulleys
and cord for the knife. Or he might have been a receiver at the door of a
public slaughter-house, or a sub-inspector of nuisances. Indeed, the man
appeared to have been one of the beasts of burden in our great social mill; one
of those Parisian Ratons whom their Bertrands do not even know by sight; a
pivot in the obscure machinery that disposes of misery and things unclean; one
of those men, in short, at sight of whom we are prompted to remark that,
"After all, we cannot do without them."
Stately Paris ignores
the existence of these faces bleached by moral or physical suffering; but,
then, Paris is in truth an ocean that no line can plumb. You may survey its
surface and describe it; but no matter how numerous and painstaking the toilers
in this sea, there will always be lonely and unexplored regions in its depths,
caverns unknown, flowers and pearls and monsters of the deep overlooked or
forgotten by the divers of literature. The Maison Vauquer is one of these
curious monstrosities.
Two, however, of Mme.
Vauquer’s boarders formed a striking contrast to the rest. There was a sickly
pallor, such as is often seen in anaemic girls, in Mlle. Victorine Taillefer’s
face; and her unvarying expression of sadness, like her embarrassed manner and
pinched look, was in keeping with the general wretchedness of the establishment
in the Rue Nueve-Saint-Genevieve, which forms a background to this picture; but
her face was young, there was youthfulness in her voice and elasticity in her
movements. This young misfortune was not unlike a shrub, newly planted in an
uncongenial soil, where its leaves have already begun to wither. The outlines
of her figure, revealed by her dress of the simplest and cheapest materials,
were also youthful. There was the same kind of charm about her too slender
form, her faintly colored face and light-brown hair, that modern poets find in
mediaeval statuettes; and a sweet expression, a look of Christian resignation
in the dark gray eyes. She was pretty by force of contrast; if she had been
happy, she would have been charming. Happiness is the poetry of woman, as the
toilette is her tinsel. If the delightful excitement of a ball had made the
pale face glow with color; if the delights of a luxurious life had brought the
color to the wan cheeks that were slightly hollowed already; if love had put
light into the sad eyes, then Victorine might have ranked among the fairest;
but she lacked the two things which create woman a second time--pretty dresses
and love-letters.
A book might have been
made of her story. Her father was persuaded that he had sufficient reason for
declining to acknowledge her, and allowed her a bare six hundred francs a year;
he had further taken measures to disinherit his daughter, and had converted all
his real estate into personalty, that he might leave it undivided to his son.
Victorine’s mother had died broken-hearted in Mme. Couture’s house; and the
latter, who was a near relation, had taken charge of the little orphan.
Unluckily, the widow of the commissary-general to the armies of the Republic
had nothing in the world but her jointure and her widow’s pension, and some day
she might be obliged to leave the helpless, inexperienced girl to the mercy of
the world. The good soul, therefore, took Victorine to mass every Sunday, and
to confession once a fortnight, thinking that, in any case, she would bring up
her ward to be devout. She was right; religion offered a solution of the
problem of the young girl’s future. The poor child loved the father who refused
to acknowledge her. Once every year she tried to see him to deliver her mother’s
message of forgiveness, but every year hitherto she had knocked at that door in
vain; her father was inexorable. Her brother, her only means of communication,
had not come to see her for four years, and had sent her no assistance; yet she
prayed to God to unseal her father’s eyes and to soften her brother’s heart,
and no accusations mingled with her prayers. Mme. Couture and Mme. Vauquer
exhausted the vocabulary of abuse, and failed to find words that did justice to
the banker’s iniquitous conduct; but while they heaped execrations on the
millionaire, Victorine’s words were as gentle as the moan of the wounded dove,
and affection found expression even in the cry drawn from her by pain.
Eugène de Rastignac was
a thoroughly southern type; he had a fair complexion, blue eyes, black hair. In
his figure, manner, and his whole bearing it was easy to see that he had either
come of a noble family, or that, from his earliest childhood, he had been
gently bred. If he was careful of his wardrobe, only taking last year’s clothes
into daily wear, still upon occasion he could issue forth as a young man of
fashion. Ordinarily he wore a shabby coat and waistcoat, the limp black cravat,
untidily knotted, that students affect, trousers that matched the rest of his
costume, and boots that had been resoled.
Vautrin (the man of
forty with the dyed whiskers) marked a transition stage between these two young
people and the others. He was the kind of man that calls forth the remark:
"He looks a jovial sort!" He had broad shoulders, a well-developed
chest, muscular arms, and strong square-fisted hands; the joints of his fingers
were covered with tufts of fiery red hair. His face was furrowed by premature
wrinkles; there was a certain hardness about it in spite of his bland and
insinuating manner. His bass voice was by no means unpleasant, and was in
keeping with his boisterous laughter. He was always obliging, always in good
spirits; if anything went wrong with one of the locks, he would soon unscrew
it, take it to pieces, file it, oil and clean and set it in order, and put it
back in its place again; "I am an old hand at it," he used to say.
Not only so, he knew all about ships, the sea, France, foreign countries, men,
business, law, great houses and prisons,-- there was nothing that he did not
know. If any one complained rather more than usual, he would offer his services
at once. He had several times lent money to Mme. Vauquer, or to the boarders;
but, somehow, those whom he obliged felt that they would sooner face death than
fail to repay him; a certain resolute look, sometimes seen on his face,
inspired fear of him, for all his appearance of easy good-nature. In the way he
spat there was an imperturbable coolness which seemed to indicate that this was
a man who would not stick at a crime to extricate himself from a false
position. His eyes, like those of a pitiless judge, seemed to go to the very
bottom of all questions, to read all natures, all feelings and thoughts. His
habit of life was very regular; he usually
went out after
breakfast, returning in time for dinner, and disappeared for the rest of the
evening, letting himself in about midnight with a latch key, a privilege that
Mme. Vauquer accorded to no other boarder. But then he was on very good terms
with the widow; he used to call her "mamma," and put his arm round
her waist, a piece of flattery perhaps not appreciated to the full! The worthy
woman might imagine this to be an easy feat; but, as a matter of fact, no arm
but Vautrin’s was long enough to encircle her.
It was a characteristic
trait of his generously to pay fifteen francs a month for the cup of coffee
with a dash of brandy in it, which he took after dinner. Less superficial
observers than young men engulfed by the whirlpool of Parisian life, or old
men, who took no interest in anything that did not directly concern them, would
not have stopped short at the vaguely unsatisfactory impression that Vautrin
made upon them. He knew or guessed the concerns of every one about him; but
none of them had been able to penetrate his thoughts, or to discover his
occupation. He had deliberately made his apparent good-nature, his unfailing
readiness to oblige, and his high spirits into a barrier between himself and
the rest of them, but not seldom he gave glimpses of appalling depths of
character. He seemed to delight in scourging the upper classes of society with
the lash of his tongue, to take pleasure in convicting it of inconsistency, in
mocking at law and order with some grim jest worthy of Juvenal, as if some
grudge against the social system rankled in him, as if there were some mystery
carefully hidden away in his life.
Mlle. Taillefer felt
attracted, perhaps unconsciously, by the strength of the one man, and the good
looks of the other; her stolen glances and secret thoughts were divided between
them; but neither of them seemed to take any notice of her, although some day a
chance might alter her position, and she would be a wealthy heiress. For that
matter, there was not a soul in the house who took any trouble to investigate
the various chronicles of misfortunes, real or imaginary, related by the rest.
Each one regarded the others with indifference, tempered by suspicion; it was a
natural result of their relative positions. Practical assistance not one could
give, this they all knew, and they had long since exhausted their stock of
condolence over previous discussions of their grievances. They were in
something the same position as an elderly couple who have nothing left to say
to each other. The routine of existence kept them in contact, but they were
parts of a mechanism which wanted oil. There was not one of them but would have
passed a blind man begging in the street, not one that felt moved to pity by a
tale of misfortune, not one who did not see in death the solution of the
all-absorbing problem of misery which left them cold to the most terrible
anguish in others.
The happiest of these
hapless beings was certainly Mme. Vauquer, who reigned supreme over this
hospital supported by voluntary contributions. For her, the little garden,
which silence, and cold, and rain, and drought combined to make as dreary as an
Asian steppe, was a pleasant shaded nook; the gaunt yellow house, the musty
odors of a back shop had charms for her, and for her alone. Those cells
belonged to her. She fed those convicts condemned to penal servitude for life,
and her authority was recognized among them. Where else in Paris would they
have found wholesome food in sufficient quantity at the prices she charged
them, and rooms which they were at liberty to make, if not exactly elegant or
comfortable, at any rate clean and healthy? If she had committed some flagrant
act of injustice, the victim would have borne it in silence.
Such a gathering
contained, as might have been expected, the elements out of which a complete
society might be constructed. And, as in a school, as in the world itself,
there was among the eighteen men and women who met round the dinner table a
poor creature, despised by all the others, condemned to be the butt of all
their jokes. At the beginning of Eugène de Rastignac’s second twelvemonth, this
figure suddenly started out into bold relief against the background of human
forms and faces among which the law student was yet to live for another two
years to come. This laughing-stock was the retired vermicelli-merchant, Father
Goriot, upon whose face a painter, like the historian, would have concentrated
all the light in his picture.
How had it come about
that the boarders regarded him with a half- malignant contempt? Why did they
subject the oldest among their number to a kind of persecution, in which there
was mingled some pity, but no respect for his misfortunes? Had he brought it on
himself by some eccentricity or absurdity, which is less easily forgiven or forgotten
than more serious defects? The question strikes at the root of many a social
injustice. Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything
that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or
indifference, or sheer helplessness. Do we not, one and all, like to feel our
strength even at the expense of some one or of something? The poorest sample of
humanity, the street arab, will pull the bell handle at every street door in
bitter weather, and scramble up to write his name on the unsullied marble of a
monument.
In the year 1813, at
the age of sixty-nine or thereabouts, "Father Goriot" had sold his
business and retired--to Mme. Vauquer’s boarding house. When he first came
there he had taken the rooms now occupied by Mme. Couture; he had paid twelve
hundred francs a year like a man to whom five louis more or less was a mere
trifle. For him Mme. Vauquer had made various improvements in the three rooms
destined for his use, in consideration of a certain sum paid in advance, so it
was said, for the miserable furniture, that is to say, for some yellow cotton
curtains, a few chairs of stained wood covered with Utrecht velvet, several
wretched colored prints in frames, and wall papers that a little suburban
tavern would have disdained. Possibly it was the careless generosity with which
Father Goriot allowed himself to be overreached at this period of his life
(they called him Monsieur Goriot very respectfully then) that gave Mme. Vauquer
the meanest opinion of his business abilities; she looked on him as an imbecile
where money was concerned.
Goriot had brought with
him a considerable wardrobe, the gorgeous outfit of a retired tradesman who
denies himself nothing. Mme. Vauquer’s astonished eyes beheld no less than
eighteen cambric- fronted shirts, the splendor of their fineness being enhanced
by a pair of pins each bearing a large diamond, and connected by a short chain,
an ornament which adorned the vermicelli-maker’s shirt front. He usually wore a
coat of corn-flower blue; his rotund and portly person was still further set
off by a clean white waistcoat, and a gold chain and seals which dangled over
that broad expanse. When his hostess accused him of being "a bit of a beau,"
he smiled with the vanity of a citizen whose foible is gratified. His cupboards
(/ormoires/, as he called them in the popular dialect) were filled with a
quantity of plate that he brought with him. The widow’s eyes gleamed as she
obligingly helped him to unpack the soup ladles, table- spoons, forks,
cruet-stands, tureens, dishes, and breakfast services-- all of silver, which
were duly arranged upon shelves, besides a few more or less handsome pieces of
plate, all weighing no inconsiderable number of ounces; he could not bring
himself to part with these gifts that reminded him of past domestic festivals.
"This was my wife’s
present to me on the first anniversary of our wedding day," he said to
Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little silver posset dish, with two turtle-doves
billing on the cover. "Poor dear! she spent on it all the money she had
saved before we were married. Do you know, I would sooner scratch the earth
with my nails for a living, madame, than part with that. But I shall be able to
take my coffee out of it every morning for the rest of my days, thank the Lord!
I am not to be pitied. There’s not much fear of my starving for some time to
come."
Finally, Mme. Vauquer’s
magpie’s eye had discovered and read certain entries in the list of
shareholders in the funds, and, after a rough calculation, was disposed to
credit Goriot (worthy man) with something like ten thousand francs a year. From
that day forward Mme. Vauquer (/nee/ de Conflans), who, as a matter of fact,
had seen forty-eight summers, though she would only own to thirty-nine of
them--Mme. Vauquer had her own ideas. Though Goriot’s eyes seemed to have
shrunk in their sockets, though they were weak and watery, owing to some
glandular affection which compelled him to wipe them continually, she considered
him to be a very gentlemanly and pleasant-looking man. Moreover, the widow saw
favorable indications of character in the well-developed calves of his legs and
in his square-shaped nose, indications still further borne out by the worthy
man’s full-moon countenance and look of stupid good-nature. This, in all
probability, was a strongly-build animal, whose brains mostly consisted in a
capacity for affection. His hair, worn in ailes de pigeon, and duly powdered
every morning by the barber from the Ecole Polytechnique, described five points
on his low forehead, and made an elegant setting to his face. Though his
manners were somewhat boorish, he was always as neat as a new pin and he took
his snuff in a lordly way, like a man who knows that his snuff-box is always
likely to be filled with maccaboy, so that when Mme. Vauquer lay down to rest
on the day of M. Goriot’s installation, her heart, like a larded partridge,
sweltered before the fire of a burning desire to shake off the shroud of
Vauquer and rise again as Goriot. She would marry again, sell her boarding-
house, give her hand to this fine flower of citizenship, become a lady of
consequence in the quarter, and ask for subscriptions for charitable purposes;
she would make little Sunday excursions to Choisy, Soissy, Gentilly; she would
have a box at the theatre when she liked, instead of waiting for the author’s
tickets that one of her boarders sometimes gave her, in July; the whole
Eldorado of a little Parisian household rose up before Mme. Vauquer in her
dreams. Nobody knew that she herself possessed forty thousand francs,
accumulated sou by sou, that was her secret; surely as far as money was
concerned she was a very tolerable match. "And in other respects, I am
quite his equal," she said to herself, turning as if to assure herself of
the charms of a form that the portly Sylvie found moulded in down feathers
every morning.
For three months from
that day Mme. Veuve Vauquer availed herself of the services of M. Goriot’s
coiffeur, and went to some expense over her toilette, expense justifiable on
the ground that she owed it to herself and her establishment to pay some
attention to appearances when such highly-respectable persons honored her house
with their presence. She expended no small amount of ingenuity in a sort of
weeding process of her lodgers, announcing her intention of receiving
henceforward none but people who were in every way select. If a stranger
presented himself, she let him know that M. Goriot, one of the best known and
most highly-respected merchants in Paris, had singled out her boarding-house
for a residence. She drew up a prospectus headed MAISON VAUQUER, in which it
was asserted that hers was "one of the oldest and most highly recommended
boarding-houses in the Latin Quarter." "From the windows of the
house," thus ran the prospectus, "there is a charming view of the
Vallee des Gobelins (so there is--from the third floor), and a beautiful
garden, extending down to an avenue of lindens at the further end."
Mention was made of the bracing air of the place and its quiet situation.
It was this prospectus
that attracted Mme. la Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil, a widow of six and thirty,
who was awaiting the final settlement of her husband’s affairs, and of another
matter regarding a pension due to her as the wife of a general who had died
"on the field of battle." On this Mme. Vauquer saw to her table,
lighted a fire daily in the sitting-room for nearly six months, and kept the
promise of her prospectus, even going to some expense to do so. And the
Countess, on her side, addressed Mme. Vauquer as "my dear," and
promised her two more boarders, the Baronne de Vaumerland and the widow of a
colonel, the late Comte de Picquoisie, who were about to leave a boarding-house
in the Marais, where the terms were higher than at the Maison Vauquer. Both
these ladies, moreover, would be very well to do when the people at the War
Office had come to an end of their formalities. "But Government
departments are always so dilatory," the lady added.
After dinner the two
widows went together up to Mme. Vauquer’s room, and had a snug little chat over
some cordial and various delicacies reserved for the mistress of the house.
Mme. Vauquer’s ideas as to Goriot were cordially approved by Mme. de l’Ambermesnil;
it was a capital notion, which for that matter she had guessed from the very
first; in her opinion the vermicelli maker was an excellent man.
"Ah! my dear lady,
such a well-preserved man of his age, as sound as my eyesight--a man who might
make a woman happy!" said the widow.
The good-natured
Countess turned to the subject of Mme. Vauquer’s dress, which was not in
harmony with her projects. "You must put yourself on a war footing,"
said she.
After much serious
consideration the two widows went shopping together--they purchased a hat
adorned with ostrich feathers and a cap at the Palais Royal, and the Countess
took her friend to the Magasin de la Petite Jeannette, where they chose a dress
and a scarf. Thus equipped for the campaign, the widow looked exactly like the
prize animal hung out for a sign above an a la mode beef shop; but she herself
was so much pleased with the improvement, as she considered it, in her
appearance, that she felt that she lay under some obligation to the Countess;
and, though by no means open-handed, she begged that lady to accept a hat that
cost twenty francs. The fact was that she needed the Countess’ services on the
delicate mission of sounding Goriot; the countess must sing her praises in his
ears. Mme. de l’Ambermesnil lent herself very good-naturedly to this manoeuvre,
began her operations, and succeeded in obtaining a private interview; but the
overtures that she made, with a view to securing him for herself, were received
with embarrassment, not to say a repulse. She left him, revolted by his
coarseness.
"My angel,"
said she to her dear friend, "you will make nothing of that man yonder. He
is absurdly suspicious, and he is a mean curmudgeon, an idiot, a fool; you
would never be happy with him."
After what had passed
between M. Goriot and Mme. de l’Ambermesnil, the Countess would no longer live
under the same roof. She left the next day, forgot to pay for six months’
board, and left behind her wardrobe, cast-off clothing to the value of five
francs. Eagerly and persistently as Mme. Vauquer sought her quondam lodger, the
Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil was never heard of again in Paris. The widow often
talked of this deplorable business, and regretted her own too confiding
disposition. As a matter of fact, she was as suspicious as a cat; but she was
like many other people, who cannot trust their own kin and put themselves at
the mercy of the next chance comer--an odd but common phenomenon, whose causes
may readily be traced to the depths of the human heart.
Perhaps there are
people who know that they have nothing more to look for from those with whom
they live; they have shown the emptiness of their hearts to their housemates,
and in their secret selves they are conscious that they are severely judged,
and that they deserve to be judged severely; but still they feel an
unconquerable craving for praises that they do not hear, or they are consumed
by a desire to appear to possess, in the eyes of a new audience, the qualities
which they have not, hoping to win the admiration or affection of strangers at
the risk of forfeiting it again some day. Or, once more, there are other
mercenary natures who never do a kindness to a friend or a relation simply
because these have a claim upon them, while a service done to a stranger brings
its reward to self-love. Such natures feel but little affection for those who
are nearest to them; they keep their kindness for remoter circles of
acquaintance, and show most to those who dwell on its utmost limits. Mme.
Vauquer belonged to both these essentially mean, false, and execrable classes.
"If I had been
there at the time," Vautrin would say at the end of the story, "I
would have shown her up, and that misfortune would not have befallen you. I
know that kind of phiz!"
Like all narrow
natures, Mme. Vauquer was wont to confine her attention to events, and did not
go very deeply into the causes that brought them about; she likewise preferred
to throw the blame of her own mistakes on other people, so she chose to
consider that the honest vermicelli maker was responsible for her misfortune.
It had opened her eyes, so she said, with regard to him. As soon as she saw
that her blandishments were in vain, and that her outlay on her toilette was
money thrown away, she was not slow to discover the reason of his indifference.
It became plain to her at once that there was some other attraction, to use her
own expression. In short, it was evident that the hope she had so fondly
cherished was a baseless delusion, and that she would "never make anything
out of that man yonder," in the Countess’ forcible phrase. The Countess
seemed to have been a judge of character. Mme. Vauquer’s aversion was naturally
more energetic than her friendship, for her hatred was not in proportion to her
love, but to her disappointed expectations. The human heart may find here and
there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom
stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred. Still, M. Goriot was a lodger, and
the widow’s wounded self-love could not vent itself in an explosion of wrath;
like a monk harassed by the prior of his convent, she was forced to stifle her
sighs of disappointment, and to gulp down her craving for revenge. Little minds
find gratification for their feelings, benevolent or otherwise, by a constant
exercise of petty ingenuity. The widow employed her woman’s malice to devise a
system of covert persecution. She began by a course of retrenchment-- various
luxuries which had found their way to the table appeared there no more.
"No more gherkins,
no more anchovies; they have made a fool of me!" she said to Sylvie one
morning, and they returned to the old bill of fare.
The thrifty frugality
necessary to those who mean to make their way in the world had become an
inveterate habit of life with M. Goriot. Soup, boiled beef, and a dish of
vegetables had been, and always would be, the dinner he liked best, so Mme.
Vauquer found it very difficult to annoy a boarder whose tastes were so simple.
He was proof against her malice, and in desperation she spoke to him and of him
slightingly before the other lodgers, who began to amuse themselves at his
expense, and so gratified her desire for revenge.
Towards the end of the
first year the widow’s suspicions had reached such a pitch that she began to
wonder how it was that a retired merchant with a secure income of seven or
eight thousand livres, the owner of such magnificent plate and jewelry handsome
enough for a kept mistress, should be living in her house. Why should he devote
so small a proportion of his money to his expenses? Until the first year was
nearly at an end, Goriot had dined out once or twice every week, but these
occasions came less frequently, and at last he was scarcely absent from the
dinner-table twice a month. It was hardly expected that Mme. Vauquer should
regard the increased regularity of her boarder’s habits with complacency, when
those little excursions of his had been so much to her interest. She attributed
the change not so much to a gradual diminution of fortune as to a spiteful wish
to annoy his hostess. It is one of the most detestable habits of a Liliputian
mind to credit other people with its own malignant pettiness.
Unluckily, towards the
end of the second year, M. Goriot’s conduct gave some color to the idle talk
about him. He asked Mme. Vauquer to give him a room on the second floor, and to
make a corresponding reduction in her charges. Apparently, such strict economy
was called for, that he did without a fire all through the winter. Mme. Vauquer
asked to be paid in advance, an arrangement to which M. Goriot consented, and
thenceforward she spoke of him as "Father Goriot."
What had brought about
this decline and fall? Conjecture was keen, but investigation was difficult.
Father Goriot was not communicative; in the sham countess’ phrase he was
"a curmudgeon." Empty-headed people who babble about their own
affairs because they have nothing else to occupy them, naturally conclude that
if people say nothing of their doings it is because their doings will not bear
being talked about; so the highly respectable merchant became a scoundrel, and
the late beau was an old rogue. Opinion fluctuated. Sometimes, according to
Vautrin, who came about this time to live in the Maison Vauquer, Father Goriot
was a man who went on ’Change and dabbled (to use the sufficiently expressive
language of the Stock Exchange) in stocks and shares after he had ruined
himself by heavy speculation. Sometimes it was held that he was one of those
petty gamblers who nightly play for small stakes until they win a few francs. A
theory that he was a detective in the employ of the Home Office found favor at
one time, but Vautrin urged that "Goriot was not sharp enough for one of
that sort." There were yet other solutions; Father Goriot was a skinflint,
a shark of a money-lender, a man who lived by selling lottery tickets. He was
by turns all the most mysterious brood of vice and shame and misery; yet,
however vile his life might be, the feeling of repulsion which he aroused in
others was not so strong that he must be banished from their society--he paid
his way. Besides, Goriot had his uses, every one vented his spleen or sharpened
his wit on him; he was pelted with jokes and belabored with hard words. The
general consensus of opinion was in favor of a theory which seemed the most
likely; this was Mme. Vauquer’s view. According to her, the man so well
preserved at his time of life, as sound as her eyesight, with whom a woman
might be very happy, was a libertine who had strange tastes. These are the
facts upon which Mme. Vauquer’s slanders were based.
Early one morning, some
few months after the departure of the unlucky Countess who had managed to live
for six months at the widow’s expense, Mme. Vauquer (not yet dressed) heard the
rustle of a silk dress and a young woman’s light footstep on the stair; some
one was going to Goriot’s room. He seemed to expect the visit, for his door
stood ajar. The portly Sylvie presently came up to tell her mistress that a
girl too pretty to be honest, "dressed like a goddess," and not a
speck of mud on her laced cashmere boots, had glided in from the street like a
snake, had found the kitchen, and asked for M. Goriot’s room. Mme. Vauquer and
the cook, listening, overheard several words affectionately spoken during the
visit, which lasted for some time. When M. Goriot went downstairs with the
lady, the stout Sylvie forthwith took her basket and followed the lover-like
couple, under pretext of going to do her marketing.
"M. Goriot must be
awfully rich, all the same, madame," she reported on her return, "to
keep her in such style. Just imagine it! There was a splendid carriage waiting
at the corner of the Place de l’Estrapade, and she got into it."
While they were at
dinner that evening, Mme. Vauquer went to the window and drew the curtain, as
the sun was shining into Goriot’s eyes.
"You are beloved
of fair ladies, M. Goriot--the sun seeks you out," she said, alluding to
his visitor. "Peste! you have good taste; she was very pretty."
"That was my
daughter," he said, with a kind of pride in his voice, and the rest chose
to consider this as the fatuity of an old man who wishes to save appearances.
A month after this
visit M. Goriot received another. The same daughter who had come to see him
that morning came again after dinner, this time in evening dress. The boarders,
in deep discussion in the dining- room, caught a glimpse of a lovely,
fair-haired woman, slender, graceful, and much too distinguished-looking to be
a daughter of Father Goriot’s.
"Two of
them!" cried the portly Sylvie, who did not recognize the lady of the
first visit.
A few days later, and
another young lady--a tall, well-moulded brunette, with dark hair and bright
eyes--came to ask for M. Goriot.
"Three of
them!" said Sylvie.
Then the second
daughter, who had first come in the morning to see her father, came shortly
afterwards in the evening. She wore a ball dress, and came in a carriage.
"Four of
them!" commented Mme. Vauquer and her plump handmaid. Sylvie saw not a
trace of resemblance between this great lady and the girl in her simple morning
dress who had entered her kitchen on the occasion of her first visit.
At that time Goriot was
paying twelve hundred francs a year to his landlady, and Mme. Vauquer saw
nothing out of the common in the fact that a rich man had four or five
mistresses; nay, she thought it very knowing of him to pass them off as his
daughters. She was not at all inclined to draw a hard-and-fast line, or to take
umbrage at his sending for them to the Maison Vauquer; yet, inasmuch as these
visits explained her boarder’s indifference to her, she went so far (at the end
of the second year) as to speak of him as an "ugly old wretch." When
at length her boarder declined to nine hundred francs a year, she asked him
very insolently what he took her house to be, after meeting one of these ladies
on the stairs. Father Goriot answered that the lady was his eldest daughter.
"So you have two
or three dozen daughters, have you?" said Mme. Vauquer sharply.
"I have only
two," her boarder answered meekly, like a ruined man who is broken in to
all the cruel usage of misfortune.
Towards the end of the
third year Father Goriot reduced his expenses still further; he went up to the
third story, and now paid forty-five francs a month. He did without snuff, told
his hairdresser that he no longer required his services, and gave up wearing
powder. When Goriot appeared for the first time in this condition, an
exclamation of astonishment broke from his hostess at the color of his hair--a
dingy olive gray. He had grown sadder day by day under the influence of some
hidden trouble; among all the faces round the table, his was the most
woe-begone. There was no longer any doubt. Goriot was an elderly libertine,
whose eyes had only been preserved by the skill of the physician from the
malign influence of the remedies necessitated by the state of his health. The
disgusting color of his hair was a result of his excesses and of the drugs
which he had taken that he might continue his career. The poor old man’s mental
and physical condition afforded some grounds for the absurd rubbish talked
about him. When his outfit was worn out, he replaced the fine linen by calico
at fourteen sous the ell. His diamonds, his gold snuff-box, watch-chain and
trinkets, disappeared one by one. He had left off wearing the corn-flower blue
coat, and was sumptuously arrayed, summer as well as winter, in a coarse
chestnut-brown coat, a plush waistcoat, and doeskin breeches. He grew thinner
and thinner; his legs were shrunken, his cheeks, once so puffed out by
contented bourgeois prosperity, were covered with wrinkles, and the outlines of
the jawbones were distinctly visible; there were deep furrows in his forehead.
In the fourth year of his residence in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve he was no
longer like his former self. The hale vermicelli manufacturer, sixty-two years
of age, who had looked scarce forty, the stout, comfortable, prosperous
tradesman, with an almost bucolic air, and such a brisk demeanor that it did
you good to look at him; the man with something boyish in his smile, had
suddenly sunk into his dotage, and had become a feeble, vacillating
septuagenarian.
The keen, bright blue
eyes had grown dull, and faded to a steel-gray color; the red inflamed rims
looked as though they had shed tears of blood. He excited feelings of repulsion
in some, and of pity in others. The young medical students who came to the
house noticed the drooping of his lower lip and the conformation of the facial
angle; and, after teasing him for some time to no purpose, they declared that
cretinism was setting in.
One evening after
dinner Mme. Vauquer said half banteringly to him, "So those daughters of
yours don’t come to see you any more, eh?" meaning to imply her doubts as
to his paternity; but Father Goriot shrank as if his hostess had touched him
with a sword-point.
"They come
sometimes," he said in a tremulous voice.
"Aha! you still
see them sometimes?" cried the students. "Bravo, Father Goriot!"
The old man scarcely
seemed to hear the witticisms at his expense that followed on the words; he had
relapsed into the dreamy state of mind that these superficial observers took
for senile torpor, due to his lack of intelligence. If they had only known,
they might have been deeply interested by the problem of his condition; but few
problems were more obscure. It was easy, of course, to find out whether Goriot
had really been a vermicelli manufacturer; the amount of his fortune was
readily discoverable; but the old people, who were most inquisitive as to his
concerns, never went beyond the limits of the Quarter, and lived in the
lodging-house much as oysters cling to a rock. As for the rest, the current of
life in Paris daily awaited them, and swept them away with it; so soon as they
left the Rue Neuve- Sainte-Genevieve, they forgot the existence of the old man,
their butt at dinner. For those narrow souls, or for careless youth, the misery
in Father Goriot’s withered face and its dull apathy were quite incompatible
with wealth or any sort of intelligence. As for the creatures whom he called
his daughters, all Mme. Vauquer’s boarders were of her opinion. With the
faculty for severe logic sedulously cultivated by elderly women during long
evenings of gossip till they can always find an hypothesis to fit all
circumstances, she was wont to reason thus:
"If Father Goriot
had daughters of his own as rich as those ladies who came here seemed to be, he
would not be lodging in my house, on the third floor, at forty-five francs a
month; and he would not go about dressed like a poor man."
No objection could be
raised to these inferences. So by the end of the month of November 1819, at the
time when the curtain rises on this drama, every one in the house had come to
have a very decided opinion as to the poor old man. He had never had either
wife or daughter; excesses had reduced him to this sluggish condition; he was a
sort of human mollusk who should be classed among the capulidoe, so one of the
dinner contingent, an employe at the Museum, who had a pretty wit of his own.
Poiret was an eagle, a gentleman, compared with Goriot. Poiret would join the
talk, argue, answer when he was spoken to; as a matter of fact, his talk,
arguments, and responses contributed nothing to the conversation, for Poiret
had a habit of repeating what the others said in different words; still, he did
join in the talk; he was alive, and seemed capable of feeling; while Father
Goriot (to quote the Museum official again) was invariably at zero
degrees--Reaumur.
Eugène de Rastignac had
just returned to Paris in a state of mind not unknown to young men who are
conscious of unusual powers, and to those whose faculties are so stimulated by
a difficult position, that for the time being they rise above the ordinary
level.
Rastignac’s first year
of study for the preliminary examinations in law had left him free to see the
sights of Paris and to enjoy some of its amusements. A student has not much
time on his hands if he sets himself to learn the repertory of every theatre,
and to study the ins and outs of the labyrinth of Paris. To know its customs;
to learn the language, and become familiar with the amusements of the capital,
he must explore its recesses, good and bad, follow the studies that please him
best, and form some idea of the treasures contained in galleries and museums.
At this stage of his
career a student grows eager and excited about all sorts of follies that seem
to him to be of immense importance. He has his hero, his great man, a professor
at the College de France, paid to talk down to the level of his audience. He
adjusts his cravat, and strikes various attitudes for the benefit of the women
in the first galleries at the Opera-Comique. As he passes through all these
successive initiations, and breaks out of his sheath, the horizons of life
widen around him, and at length he grasps the plan of society with the
different human strata of which it is composed.
If he begins by
admiring the procession of carriages on sunny afternoons in the Champs-Elysees,
he soon reaches the further stage of envying their owners. Unconsciously, Eugène
had served his apprenticeship before he went back to Angouleme for the long
vacation after taking his degrees as bachelor of arts and bachelor of law. The
illusions of childhood had vanished, so also had the ideas he brought with him
from the provinces; he had returned thither with an intelligence developed,
with loftier ambitions, and saw things as they were at home in the old manor
house. His father and mother, his two brothers and two sisters, with an aged
aunt, whose whole fortune consisted in annuities, lived on the little estate of
Rastignac. The whole property brought in about three thousand francs; and
though the amount varied with the season (as must always be the case in a vine-
growing district), they were obliged to spare an unvarying twelve hundred
francs out of their income for him. He saw how constantly the poverty, which
they had generously hidden from him, weighed upon them; he could not help
comparing the sisters, who had seemed so beautiful to his boyish eyes, with
women in Paris, who had realized the beauty of his dreams. The uncertain future
of the whole family depended upon him. It did not escape his eyes that not a
crumb was wasted in the house, nor that the wine they drank was made from the
second pressing; a multitude of small things, which it is useless to speak of
in detail here, made him burn to distinguish himself, and his ambition to
succeed increased tenfold.
He meant, like all
great souls, that his success should be owing entirely to his merits; but his
was pre-eminently a southern temperament, the execution of his plans was sure
to be marred by the vertigo that seizes on youth when youth sees itself alone
in a wide sea, uncertain how to spend its energies, whither to steer its
course, how to adapt its sails to the winds. At first he determined to fling
himself heart and soul into his work, but he was diverted from this purpose by
the need of society and connections; then he saw how great an influence women
exert in social life, and suddenly made up his mind to go out into this world
to seek a protectress there. Surely a clever and high-spirited young man, whose
wit and courage were set off to advantage by a graceful figure and the vigorous
kind of beauty that readily strikes a woman’s imagination, need not despair of
finding a protectress. These ideas occurred to him in his country walks with
his sisters, whom he had once joined so gaily. The girls thought him very much
changed.
His aunt, Mme. de
Marcillac, had been presented at court, and had moved among the brightest
heights of that lofty region. Suddenly the young man’s ambition discerned in
those recollections of hers, which had been like nursery fairy tales to her
nephews and nieces, the elements of a social success at least as important as
the success which he had achieved at the Ecole de Droit. He began to ask his
aunt about those relations; some of the old ties might still hold good. After
much shaking of the branches of the family tree, the old lady came to the conclusion
that of all persons who could be useful to her nephew among the selfish genus
of rich relations, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was the least likely to refuse.
To this lady, therefore, she wrote in the old-fashioned style, recommending Eugène
to her; pointing out to her nephew that if he succeeded in pleasing Mme. de
Beauseant, the Vicomtesse would introduce him to other relations. A few days
after his return to Paris, therefore, Rastignac sent his aunt’s letter to Mme.
de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse replied by an invitation to a ball for the
following evening. This was the position of affairs at the Maison Vauquer at
the end of November 1819.
A few days later, after
Mme. de Beauseant’s ball, Eugène came in at two o’clock in the morning. The
persevering student meant to make up for the lost time by working until
daylight. It was the first time that he had attempted to spend the night in
this way in that silent quarter. The spell of a factitious energy was upon him;
he had beheld the pomp and splendor of the world. He had not dined at the
Maison Vauquer; the boarders probably would think that he would walk home at
daybreak from the dance, as he had done sometimes on former occasions, after a
fete at the Prado, or a ball at the Odeon, splashing his silk stockings
thereby, and ruining his pumps.
It so happened that
Christophe took a look into the street before drawing the bolts of the door;
and Rastignac, coming in at that moment, could go up to his room without making
any noise, followed by Christophe, who made a great deal. Eugène exchanged his
dress suit for a shabby overcoat and slippers, kindled a fire with some blocks
of patent fuel, and prepared for his night’s work in such a sort that the faint
sounds he made were drowned by Christophe’s heavy tramp on the stairs.
Eugène sat absorbed in
thought for a few moments before plunging into his law books. He had just
become aware of the fact that the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was one of the queens
of fashion, that her house was thought to be the pleasantest in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain. And not only so, she was, by right of her fortune, and the name
she bore, one of the most conspicuous figures in that aristocratic world.
Thanks to the aunt, thanks to Mme. de Marcillac’s letter of introduction, the
poor student had been kindly received in that house before he knew the extent
of the favor thus shown to him. It was almost like a patent of nobility to be
admitted to those gilded salons; he had appeared in the most exclusive circle
in Paris, and now all doors were open for him. Eugène had been dazzled at first
by the brilliant assembly, and had scarcely exchanged a few words with the
Vicomtesse; he had been content to single out a goddess among this throng of
Parisian divinities, one of those women who are sure to attract a young man’s
fancy.
The Comtesse Anastasie
de Restaud was tall and gracefully made; she had one of the prettiest figures
in Paris. Imagine a pair of great dark eyes, a magnificently moulded hand, a
shapely foot. There was a fiery energy in her movements; the Marquis de
Ronquerolles had called her "a thoroughbred," but this fineness of
nervoous organization had brought no accompanying defect; the outlines of her
form were full and rounded, without any tendency to stoutness. "A thoroughbred,"
"a pure pedigree," these figures of speech have replaced the
"heavenly angel" and Ossianic nomenclature; the old mythology of love
is extinct, doomed to perish by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac, Mme.
Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He had contrived to
write his name twice upon the list of partners upon her fan, and had snatched a
few words with her during the first quadrille.
"Where shall I
meet you again, Madame?" he asked abruptly, and the tones of his voice
were full of the vehement energy that women like so well.
"Oh,
everywhere!" said she, "in the Bois, at the Bouffons, in my own
house."
With the impetuosity of
his adventurous southern temper, he did all he could to cultivate an
acquaintance with this lovely countess, making the best of his opportunities in
the quadrille and during a waltz that she gave him. When he told her that he
was a cousin of Mme. de Beauseant’s, the Countess, whom he took for a great
lady, asked him to call at her house, and after her parting smile, Rastignac
felt convinced that he must make this visit. He was so lucky as to light upon
some one who did not laugh at his ignorance, a fatal defect among the gilded
and insolent youth of that period; the coterie of Maulincourts, Maximes de
Trailles, de Marsays, Ronquerolles, Ajuda- Pintos, and Vandenesses who shone
there in all the glory of coxcombry among the best-dressed women of fashion in
Paris--Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouet, Mme.
de Serizy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, the Comtesse Ferraud, Mme. de Lanty, the
Marquise d’Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani, the Marquise de Listomere and the Marquise
d’Espard, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and the Grandlieus. Luckily, therefore,
for him, the novice happened upon the Marquis de Montriveau, the lover of the
Duchesse de Langeais, a general as simple as a child; from him Rastignac
learned that the Comtesse lived in the Rue du Helder.
Ah, what it is to be
young, eager to see the world, greedily on the watch for any chance that brings
you nearer the woman of your dreams, and behold two houses open their doors to
you! To set foot in the Vicomtesse de Beauseant’s house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain;
to fall on your knees before a Comtesse de Restaud in the Chaussee d’Antin; to
look at one glance across a vista of Paris drawing-rooms, conscious that,
possessing sufficient good looks, you may hope to find aid and protection there
in a feminine heart! To feel ambitious enough to spurn the tight-rope on which
you must walk with the steady head of an acrobat for whom a fall is impossible,
and to find in a charming woman the best of all balancing poles.
He sat there with his
thoughts for a while, Law on the one hand, and Poverty on the other, beholding
a radiant vision of a woman rise above the dull, smouldering fire. Who would
not have paused and questioned the future as Eugène was doing? who would not
have pictured it full of success? His wondering thoughts took wings; he was
transported out of the present into that blissful future; he was sitting by
Mme. de Restaud’s side, when a sort of sigh, like the grunt of an overburdened
St. Joseph, broke the silence of the night. It vibrated through the student,
who took the sound for a death groan. He opened his door noiselessly, went out
upon the landing, and saw a thin streak of light under Father Goriot’s door.
Eugène feared that his neighbor had been taken ill; he went over and looked
through the keyhole; the old man was busily engaged in an occupation so
singular and so suspicious that Rastignac thought he was only doing a piece of
necessary service to society to watch the self-styled vermicelli maker’s
nocturnal industries.
The table was upturned,
and Goriot had doubtless in some way secured a silver plate and cup to the bar
before knotting a thick rope round them; he was pulling at this rope with such
enormous force that they were being crushed and twisted out of shape; to all
appearance he meant to convert the richly wrought metal into ingots.
"Peste! what a
man!" said Rastignac, as he watched Goriot’s muscular arms; there was not
a sound in the room while the old man, with the aid of the rope, was kneading
the silver like dough. "Was he then, indeed, a thief, or a receiver of
stolen goods, who affected imbecility and decrepitude, and lived like a beggar
that he might carry on his pursuits the more securely?" Eugène stood for a
moment revolving these questions, then he looked again through the keyhole.
Father Goriot had
unwound his coil of rope; he had covered the table with a blanket, and was now
employed in rolling the flattened mass of silver into a bar, an operation which
he performed with marvelous dexterity.
"Why, he must be
as strong as Augustus, King of Poland!" said Eugène to himself when the
bar was nearly finished.
Father Goriot looked
sadly at his handiwork, tears fell from his eyes, he blew out the dip which had
served him for a light while he manipulated the silver, and Eugène heard him
sigh as he lay down again.
"He is mad,"
thought the student.
"Poor child!"
Father Goriot said aloud. Rastignac, hearing those words, concluded to keep
silence; he would not hastily condemn his neighbor. He was just in the doorway
of his room when a strange sound from the staircase below reached his ears; it
might have been made by two men coming up in list slippers. Eugène listened;
two men there certainly were, he could hear their breathing. Yet there had been
no sound of opening the street door, no footsteps in the passage. Suddenly,
too, he saw a faint gleam of light on the second story; it came from M. Vautrin’s
room.
"There are a good
many mysteries here for a lodging-house!" he said to himself.
He went part of the way
downstairs and listened again. The rattle of gold reached his ears. In another
moment the light was put out, and again he distinctly heard the breathing of
two men, but no sound of a door being opened or shut. The two men went
downstairs, the faint sounds growing fainter as they went.
"Who is
there?" cried Mme. Vauquer out of her bedroom window.
"I, Mme.
Vauquer," answered Vautrin’s deep bass voice. "I am coming in."
"That is odd!
Christophe drew the bolts," said Eugène, going back to his room. "You
have to sit up at night, it seems, if you really mean to know all that is going
on about you in Paris."
These incidents turned
his thought from his ambitious dreams; he betook himself to his work, but his
thought wandered back to Father Goriot’s suspicious occupation; Mme. de Restaud’s
face swam again and again before his eyes like a vision of a brilliant future;
and at last he lay down and slept with clenched fists. When a young man makes
up his mind that he will work all night, the chances are that seven times out
of ten he will sleep till morning. Such vigils do not begin before we are
turned twenty.
The next morning Paris
was wrapped in one of the dense fogs that throw the most punctual people out in
their calculations as to the time; even the most business-like folk fail to
keep their appointments in such weather, and ordinary mortals wake up at noon
and fancy it is eight o’clock. On this morning it was half-past nine, and Mme.
Vauquer still lay abed. Christophe was late, Sylvie was late, but the two sat
comfortably taking their coffee as usual. It was Sylvie’s custom to take the
cream off the milk destined for the boarders’ breakfast for her own, and to
boil the remainder for some time, so that madame should not discover this
illegal exaction.
"Sylvie,"
said Christophe, as he dipped a piece of toast into the coffee, "M.
Vautrin, who is not such a bad sort, all the same, had two people come to see
him again last night. If madame says anything, mind you say nothing about
it."
"Has he given you
something?"
"He gave me a
five-franc piece this month, which is as good as saying, ’Hold your tongue.’
"
"Except him and
Mme. Couture, who doesn’t look twice at every penny, there’s no one in the
house that doesn’t try to get back with the left hand all that they give with
the right at New Year," said Sylvie.
"And, after
all," said Christophe, "what do they give you? A miserable five-franc
piece. There is Father Goriot, who has cleaned his shoes himself these two
years past. There is that old beggar Poiret, who goes without blacking
altogether; he would sooner drink it than put it on his boots. Then there is
that whipper-snapper of a student, who gives me a couple of francs. Two francs
will not pay for my brushes, and he sells his old clothes, and gets more for
them than they are worth. Oh! they’re a shabby lot!"
"Pooh!" said
Sylvie, sipping her coffee, "our places are the best in the Quarter, that
I know. But about that great big chap Vautrin, Christophe; has any one told you
anything about him?"
"Yes. I met a
gentleman in the street a few days ago; he said to me, ’There’s a gentleman in
your place, isn’t there? a tall man that dyes his whiskers?’ I told him, ’No,
sir; they aren’t dyed. A gay fellow like him hasn’t the time to do it.’ And
when I told M. Vautrin about it afterwards, he said, ’Quite right, my boy. That
is the way to answer them. There is nothing more unpleasant than to have your
little weaknesses known; it might spoil many a match.’ "
"Well, and for my
part," said Sylvie, "a man tried to humbug me at the market wanting
to know if I had seen him put on his shirt. Such bosh! There," she cried,
interrupting herself, "that’s a quarter to ten striking at the
Val-de-Grace, and not a soul stirring!"
"Pooh! they are
all gone out. Mme. Couture and the girl went out at eight o’clock to take the
wafer at Saint-Etienne. Father Goriot started off somewhere with a parcel, and
the student won’t be back from his lecture till ten o’clock. I saw them go
while I was sweeping the stairs; Father Goriot knocked up against me, and his
parcel was as hard as iron. What is the old fellow up to, I wonder? He is as
good as a plaything for the rest of them; they can never let him alone; but he
is a good man, all the same, and worth more than all of them put together. He
doesn’t give you much himself, but he sometimes sends you with a message to
ladies who fork out famous tips; they are dressed grandly, too."
"His daughters, as
he calls them, eh? There are a dozen of them."
"I have never been
to more than two--the two who came here."
"There is madame
moving overhead; I shall have to go, or she will raise a fine racket. Just keep
an eye on the milk, Christophe; don’t let the cat get at it."
Sylvie went up to her
mistress’ room.
"Sylvie! How is
this? It’s nearly ten o’clock, and you let me sleep like a dormouse! Such a
thing has never happened before."
"It’s the fog; it
is that thick, you could cut it with a knife."
"But how about
breakfast?"
"Bah! the boarders
are possessed, I’m sure. They all cleared out before there was a wink of
daylight."
"Do speak
properly, Sylvie," Mme. Vauquer retorted; "say a blink of
daylight."
"Ah, well, madame,
whichever you please. Anyhow, you can have breakfast at ten o’clock. La
Michonnette and Poiret have neither of them stirred. There are only those two
upstairs, and they are sleeping like the logs they are."
"But, Sylvie, you
put their names together as if----"
"As if what?"
said Sylvie, bursting into a guffaw. "The two of them make a pair."
"It is a strange
thing, isn’t it, Sylvie, how M. Vautrin got in last night after Christophe had
bolted the door?"
"Not at all,
madame. Christophe heard M. Vautrin, and went down and undid the door. And here
are you imagining that----?"
"Give me my
bodice, and be quick and get breakfast ready. Dish up the rest of the mutton
with the potatoes, and you can put the stewed pears on the table, those at five
a penny."
A few moments later
Mme. Vauquer came down, just in time to see the cat knock down a plate that
covered a bowl of milk, and begin to lap in all haste.
"Mistigris!"
she cried.
The cat fled, but
promptly returned to rub against her ankles.
"Oh! yes, you can
wheedle, you old hypocrite!" she said. "Sylvie! Sylvie!"
"Yes, madame; what
is it?"
"Just see what the
cat has done!"
"It is all that
stupid Christophe’s fault. I told him to stop and lay the table. What has
become of him? Don’t you worry, madame; Father Goriot shall have it. I will
fill it up with water, and he won’t know the difference; he never notices
anything, not even what he eats."
"I wonder where
the old heathen can have gone?" said Mme. Vauquer, setting the plates
round the table.
"Who knows? He is
up to all sorts of tricks."
"I have overslept
myself," said Mme. Vauquer.
"But madame looks
as fresh as a rose, all the same."
The door bell rang at
that moment, and Vautrin came through the sitting-room, singing loudly: " ’Tis
the same old story everywhere, A roving heart and a roving glance----
"Oh! Mamma
Vauquer! good-morning!" he cried at the sight of his hostess, and he put
his arm gaily round her waist.
"There! have
done----"
" ’Impertinence!’
Say it!" he answered. "Come, say it! Now, isn’t that what you really
mean? Stop a bit, I will help you to set the table. Ah! I am a nice man, am I
not?
"For the locks of
brown and the golden hair A sighing lover . . .’
"Oh! I have just
seen something so funny----
"’ . . . . led by
chance."
"What?" asked
the widow.
"Father Goriot in
the goldsmith’s shop in the Rue Dauphine at half- past eight this morning. They
buy old spoons and forks and gold lace there, and Goriot sold a piece of silver
plate for a good round sum. It had been twisted out of shape very neatly for a
man that’s not used to the trade."
"Really? You don’t
say so?"
"Yes. One of my
friends is expatriating himself; I had been to see him off on board the Royal
Mail steamer, and was coming back here. I waited after that to see what Father
Goriot would do; it is a comical affair. He came back to this quarter of the
world, to the Rue des Gres, and went into a money-lender’s house; everybody
knows him, Gobseck, a stuck-up rascal, that would make dominoes out of his
father’s bones, a Turk, a heathen, an old Jew, a Greek; it would be a difficult
matter to rob him, for he puts all his coin into the Bank."
"Then what was
Father Goriot doing there?"
"Doing?" said
Vautrin. "Nothing; he was bent on his own undoing. He is a simpleton,
stupid enough to ruin himself by running after----"
"There he
is!" cried Sylvie.
"Christophe,"
cried Father Goriot’s voice, "come upstairs with me."
Christophe went up, and
shortly afterwards came down again.
"Where are you
going?" Mme. Vauquer asked of her servant.
"Out on an errand
for M. Goriot."
"What may that
be?" said Vautrin, pouncing on a letter in Christophe’s hand. "Mme.
la Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud," he read. "Where are you going with
it?" he added, as he gave the letter back to Christophe.
"To the Rue du
Helder. I have orders to give this into her hands myself."
"What is there
inside it?" said Vautrin, holding the letter up to the light. "A
banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A receipted
account!" he cried. "My word! ’tis a gallant old dotard. Off with
you, old chap," he said, bringing down a hand on Christophe’s head, and
spinning the man round like a thimble; "you will have a famous tip."
By this time the table
was set. Sylvie was boiling the milk, Mme. Vauquer was lighting a fire in the
stove with some assistance from Vautrin, who kept humming to himself: "The
same old story everywhere, A roving heart and a roving glance." When
everything was ready, Mme. Couture and Mlle. Taillefer came in.
"Where have you
been this morning, fair lady?" said Mme. Vauquer, turning to Mme. Couture.
"We have just been
to say our prayers at Saint-Etienne du Mont. To-day is the day when we must go
to see M. Taillefer. Poor little thing! She is trembling like a leaf,"
Mme. Couture went on, as she seated herself before the fire and held the steaming
soles of her boots to the blaze.
"Warm yourself,
Victorine," said Mme. Vauquer.
"It is quite right
and proper, mademoiselle, to pray to Heaven to soften your father’s
heart," said Vautrin, as he drew a chair nearer to the orphan girl;
"but that is not enough. What you want is a friend who will give the
monster a piece of his mind; a barbarian that has three millions (so they say),
and will not give you a dowry; and a pretty girl needs a dowry nowadays."
"Poor child!"
said Mme. Vauquer. "Never mind, my pet, your wretch of a father is going
just the way to bring trouble upon himself."
Victorine’s eyes filled
with tears at the words, and the widow checked herself at a sign from Mme.
Couture.
"If we could only
see him!" said the Commissary-General’s widow; "if I could speak to
him myself and give him his wife’s last letter! I have never dared to run the
risk of sending it by post; he knew my handwriting----"
" ’Oh woman,
persecuted and injured innocent!’ " exclaimed Vautrin, breaking in upon
her. "So that is how you are, is it? In a few days’ time I will look into
your affairs, and it will be all right, you shall see."
"Oh! sir,"
said Victorine, with a tearful but eager glance at Vautrin, who showed no sign
of being touched by it, "if you know of any way of communicating with my
father, please be sure and tell him that his affection and my mother’s honor
are more to me than all the money in the world. If you can induce him to relent
a little towards me, I will pray to God for you. You may be sure of my
gratitude----"
"The same old
story everywhere," sang Vautrin, with a satirical intonation. At this
juncture, Goriot, Mlle. Michonneau, and Poiret came downstairs together;
possibly the scent of the gravy which Sylvie was making to serve with the mutton
had announced breakfast. The seven people thus assembled bade each other
good-morning, and took their places at the table; the clock struck ten, and the
student’s footstep was heard outside.
"Ah! here you are,
M. Eugène," said Sylvie; "every one is breakfasting at home
to-day."
The student exchanged
greetings with the lodgers, and sat down beside Goriot.
"I have just met
with a queer adventure," he said, as he helped himself abundantly to the
mutton, and cut a slice of bread, which Mme. Vauquer’s eyes gauged as usual.
"An
adventure?" queried Poiret.
"Well, and what is
there to astonish you in that, old boy?" Vautrin asked of Poiret. "M.
Eugène is cut out for that kind of thing."
Mlle. Taillefer stole a
timid glance at the young student.
"Tell us about
your adventure!" demanded M. Vautrin.
"Yesterday evening
I went to a ball given by a cousin of mine, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant. She
has a magnificent house; the rooms are hung with silk--in short, it was a
splendid affair, and I was as happy as a king---"
"Fisher," put
in Vautrin, interrupting.
"What do you mean,
sir?" said Eugène sharply.
"I said ’fisher,’
because kingfishers see a good deal more fun than kings."
"Quite true; I
would much rather be the little careless bird than a king," said Poiret
the ditto-ist, "because----"
"In
fact"--the law-student cut him short--"I danced with one of the
handsomest women in the room, a charming countess, the most exquisite creature
I have ever seen. There was peach blossom in her hair, and she had the
loveliest bouquet of flowers--real flowers, that scented the air----but there!
it is no use trying to describe a woman glowing with the dance. You ought to
have seen her! Well, and this morning I met this divine countess about nine o’clock,
on foot in the Rue de Gres. Oh! how my heart beat! I began to think----"
"That she was
coming here," said Vautrin, with a keen look at the student. "I
expect that she was going to call on old Gobseck, a money- lender. If ever you
explore a Parisian woman’s heart, you will find the money-lender first, and the
lover afterwards. Your countess is called Anastasie de Restaud, and she lives
in the Rue du Helder."
The student stared hard
at Vautrin. Father Goriot raised his head at the words, and gave the two speakers
a glance so full of intelligence and uneasiness that the lodgers beheld him
with astonishment.
"Then Christophe
was too late, and she must have gone to him!" cried Goriot, with anguish
in his voice.
"It is just as I
guessed," said Vautrin, leaning over to whisper in Mme. Vauquer’s ear.
Goriot went on with his
breakfast, but seemed unconscious of what he was doing. He had never looked
more stupid nor more taken up with his own thoughts than he did at that moment.
"Who the devil
could have told you her name, M. Vautrin?" asked Eugène. "Aha! There
you are!" answered Vautrin. "Old Father Goriot knew it quite well!
and why should I not know it too?" "M. Goriot?" the student
cried. "What is it?" asked the old man. "So she was very
beautiful, was she, yesterday night?" "Who?" "Mme. de
Restaud."
"Look at the old
wretch," said Mme. Vauquer, speaking to Vautrin; "how his eyes light
up!"
"Then does he
really keep her?" said Mlle. Michonneau, in a whisper to the student.
"Oh! yes, she was
tremendously pretty," Eugène answered. Father Goriot watched him with
eager eyes. "If Mme. de Beauseant had not been there, my divine countess
would have been the queen of the ball; none of the younger men had eyes for any
one else. I was the twelfth on her list, and she danced every quadrille. The
other women were furious. She must have enjoyed herself, if ever creature did!
It is a true saying that there is no more beautiful sight than a frigate in
full sail, a galloping horse, or a woman dancing."
"So the wheel
turns," said Vautrin; "yesterday night at a duchess’ ball, this
morning in a money-lender’s office, on the lowest rung of the ladder--just like
a Parisienne! If their husbands cannot afford to pay for their frantic
extravagance, they will sell themselves. Or if they cannot do that, they will
tear out their mothers’ hearts to find something to pay for their splendor.
They will turn the world upside down. Just a Parisienne through and
through!"
Father Goriot’s face,
which had shone at the student’s words like the sun on a bright day, clouded
over all at once at this cruel speech of Vautrin’s.
"Well," said
Mme. Vauquer, "but where is your adventure? Did you speak to her? Did you
ask her if she wanted to study law?"
"She did not see
me," said Eugène. "But only think of meeting one of the prettiest
women in Paris in the Rue des Gres at nine o’clock! She could not have reached
home after the ball till two o’clock this morning. Wasn’t it queer? There is no
place like Paris for this sort of adventures."
"Pshaw! much funnier
things than that happen here!" exclaimed Vautrin.
Mlle. Taillefer had
scarcely heeded the talk, she was so absorbed by the thought of the new attempt
that she was about to make. Mme. Couture made a sign that it was time to go
upstairs and dress; the two ladies went out, and Father Goriot followed their
example.
"Well, did you
see?" said Mme. Vauquer, addressing Vautrin and the rest of the circle.
"He is ruining himself for those women, that is plain."
"Nothing will ever
make me believe that that beautiful Comtesse de Restaud is anything to Father
Goriot," cried the student.
"Well, and if you
don’t," broke in Vautrin, "we are not set on convincing you. You are
too young to know Paris thoroughly yet; later on you will find out that there
are what we call men with a passion----"
Mlle. Michonneau gave
Vautrin a quick glance at these words. They seemed to be like the sound of a
trumpet to a trooper’s horse. "Aha!" said Vautrin, stopping in his
speech to give her a searching glance, "so we have had our little
experiences, have we?"
The old maid lowered
her eyes like a nun who sees a statue.
"Well," he
went on, "when folk of that kind get a notion into their heads, they
cannot drop it. They must drink the water from some particular spring--it is
stagnant as often as not; but they will sell their wives and families, they
will sell their own souls to the devil to get it. For some this spring is play,
or the stock-exchange, or music, or a collection of pictures or insects; for
others it is some woman who can give them the dainties they like. You might
offer these last all the women on earth--they would turn up their noses; they
will have the only one who can gratify their passion. It often happens that the
woman does not care for them at all, and treats them cruelly; they buy their
morsels of satisfaction very dear; but no matter, the fools are never tired of
it; they will take their last blanket to the pawnbroker’s to give their last
five-franc piece to her. Father Goriot here is one of that sort. He is
discreet, so the Countess exploits him--just the way of the gay world. The poor
old fellow thinks of her and of nothing else. In all other respects you see he
is a stupid animal; but get him on that subject, and his eyes sparkle like
diamonds. That secret is not difficult to guess. He took some plate himself
this morning to the melting-pot, and I saw him at Daddy Gobseck’s in the Rue
des Gres. And now, mark what follows--he came back here, and gave a letter for
the Comtesse de Restaud to that noodle of a Christophe, who showed us the
address; there was a receipted bill inside it. It is clear that it was an
urgent matter if the Countess also went herself to the old money lender. Father
Goriot has financed her handsomely. There is no need to tack a tale together;
the thing is self-evident. So that shows you, sir student, that all the time
your Countess was smiling, dancing, flirting, swaying her peach-flower crowned
head, with her gown gathered into her hand, her slippers were pinching her, as
they say; she was thinking of her protested bills, or her lover’s protested
bills."
"You have made me
wild to know the truth," cried Eugène; "I will go to call on Mme. de
Restaud to-morrow."
"Yes," echoed
Poiret; "you must go and call on Mme. de Restaud."
"And perhaps you
will find Father Goriot there, who will take payment for the assistance he
politely rendered."
Eugène looked
disgusted. "Why, then, this Paris of yours is a slough."
"And an uncommonly
queer slough, too," replied Vautrin. "The mud splashes you as you
drive through it in your carriage--you are a respectable person; you go afoot
and are splashed--you are a scoundrel. You are so unlucky as to walk off with
something or other belonging to somebody else, and they exhibit you as a
curiosity in the Place du Palais-de-Justice; you steal a million, and you are
pointed out in every salon as a model of virtue. And you pay thirty millions
for the police and the courts of justice, for the maintenance of law and order!
A pretty slate of things it is!"
"What," cried
Mme. Vauquer, "has Father Goriot really melted down his silver
posset-dish?"
"There were two
turtle-doves on the lid, were there not?" asked Eugène.
"Yes, that there
were."
"Then, was he fond
of it?" said Eugène. "He cried while he was breaking up the cup and
plate. I happened to see him by accident."
"It was dear to
him as his own life," answered the widow.
"There! you see
how infatuated the old fellow is!" cried Vautrin. "The woman yonder
can coax the soul out of him"
The student went up to
his room. Vautrin went out, and a few moments later Mme. Couture and Victorine
drove away in a cab which Sylvie had called for them. Poiret gave his arm to
Mlle. Michonneau, and they went together to spend the two sunniest hours of the
day in the Jardin des Plantes.
"Well, those two
are as good as married," was the portly Sylvie’s comment. "They are
going out together to-day for the first time. They are such a couple of dry
sticks that if they happen to strike against each other they will draw sparks
like flint and steel."
"Keep clear of
Mlle. Michonneau’s shawl, then, said Mme. Vauquer, laughing; "it would
flare up like tinder."
At four o’clock that
evening, when Goriot came in, he saw, by the light of two smoky lamps, that
Victorine’s eyes were red. Mme. Vauquer was listening to the history of the
visit made that morning to M. Taillefer; it had been made in vain. Taillefer
was tired of the annual application made by his daughter and her elderly
friend; he gave them a personal interview in order to arrive at an
understanding with them.
"My dear
lady," said Mme. Couture, addressing Mme. Vauquer, "just imagine it;
he did not even ask Victorine to sit down, she was standing the whole time. He
said to me quite coolly, without putting himself in a passion, that we might
spare ourselves the trouble of going there; that the young lady (he would not
call her his daughter) was injuring her cause by importuning him (importuning!
once a year, the wretch!); that as Victorine’s mother had nothing when he
married her, Victorine ought not to expect anything from him; in fact, he said
the most cruel things, that made the poor child burst out crying. The little
thing threw herself at her father’s feet and spoke up bravely; she said that
she only persevered in her visits for her mother’s sake; that she would obey
him without a murmur, but that she begged him to read her poor dead mother’s
farewell letter. She took it up and gave it to him, saying the most beautiful
things in the world, most beautifully expressed; I do not know where she
learned them; God must have put them into her head, for the poor child was
inspired to speak so nicely that it made me cry like a fool to hear her talk. And
what do you think the monster was doing all the time? Cutting his nails! He
took the letter that poor Mme. Taillefer had soaked with tears, and flung it on
to the chimney-piece. ’That is all right,’ he said. He held out his hands to
raise his daughter, but she covered them with kisses, and he drew them away
again. Scandalous, isn’t it? And his great booby of a son came in and took no
notice of his sister."
"What inhuman
wretches they must be!" said Father Goriot.
"And then they
both went out of the room," Mme. Couture went on, without heeding the
worthy vermicelli maker’s exclamation; "father and son bowed to me, and
asked me to excuse them on account of urgent business! That is the history of
our call. Well, he has seen his daughter at any rate. How he can refuse to
acknowledge her I cannot think, for they are as alike as two peas."
The boarders dropped in
one after another, interchanging greetings and empty jokes that certain classes
of Parisians regard as humorous and witty. Dulness is their prevailing
ingredient, and the whole point consists in mispronouncing a word or a gesture.
This kind of argot is always changing. The essence of the jest consists in some
catchword suggested by a political event, an incident in the police courts, a
street song, or a bit of burlesque at some theatre, and forgotten in a month.
Anything and everything serves to keep up a game of battledore and shuttlecock
with words and ideas. The diorama, a recent invention, which carried an optical
illusion a degree further than panoramas, had given rise to a mania among art
students for ending every word with RAMA. The Maison Vauquer had caught the
infection from a young artist among the boarders.
"Well,
Monsieur-r-r Poiret," said the employe from the Museum, "how is your
health-orama?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned to Mme.
Couture and Victorine with a "Ladies, you seem melancholy."
"Is dinner
ready?" cried Horace Bianchon, a medical student, and a friend of
Rastignac’s; "my stomach is sinking usque ad talones."
"There is an
uncommon frozerama outside," said Vautrin. "Make room there, Father
Goriot! Confound it, your foot covers the whole front of the stove."
"Illustrious M.
Vautrin," put in Bianchon, "why do you say frozerama? It is
incorrect; it should be frozenrama."
"No, it shouldn’t,"
said the official from the Museum; "frozerama" is right by the same
rule that you say ’My feet are froze.’ "
"Ah! ah!"
"Here is his
Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the Law of Contraries,"
cried Bianchon, seizing Eugène by the throat, and almost throttling him.
"Hallo there!
hallo!"
Mlle. Michonneau came
noiselessly in, bowed to the rest of the party, and took her place beside the
three women without saying a word.
"That old bat
always makes me shudder," said Bianchon in a low voice, indicating Mlle.
Michonneau to Vautrin. "I have studied Gall’s system, and I am sure she
has the bump of Judas."
"Then you have
seen a case before?" said Vautrin.
"Who has
not?" answered Bianchon. "Upon my word, that ghastly old maid looks
just like one of the long worms that will gnaw a beam through, give them time
enough."
"That is the way,
young man," returned he of the forty years and the dyed whiskers:
"The rose has
lived the life of a rose-- A morning’s space."
"Aha! here is a
magnificent soupe-au-rama," cried Poiret as Christophe came in bearing the
soup with cautious heed.
"I beg your
pardon, sir," said Mme. Vauquer; "it is soupe aux choux."
All the young men
roared with laughter.
"Had you there,
Poiret!"
"Poir-r-r-rette!
she had you there!"
"Score two points
to Mamma Vauquer," said Vautrin.
"Did any of you
notice the fog this morning?" asked the official.
"It was a frantic
fog," said Bianchon, "a fog unparalleled, doleful, melancholy,
sea-green, asthmatical--a Goriot of a fog!"
"A
Goriorama," said the art student, "because you couldn’t see a thing
in it."
"Hey! Milord
Gaoriotte, they air talking about yoo-o-ou!"
Father Goriot, seated
at the lower end of the table, close to the door through which the servant
entered, raised his face; he had smelt at a scrap of bread that lay under his
table napkin, an old trick acquired in his commercial capacity, that still
showed itself at times.
"Well,"
Madame Vauquer cried in sharp tones, that rang above the rattle of spoons and
plates and the sound of other voices, "and is there anything the matter
with the bread?"
"Nothing whatever,
madame," he answered; "on the contrary, it is made of the best
quality of corn; flour from Etampes."
"How could you
tell?" asked Eugène.
"By the color, by
the flavor."
"You knew the
flavor by the smell, I suppose," said Mme. Vauquer. "You have grown
so economical, you will find out how to live on the smell of cooking at
last."
"Take out a patent
for it, then," cried the Museum official; "you would make a handsome
fortune."
"Never mind
him," said the artist; "he does that sort of thing to delude us into
thinking that he was a vermicelli maker."
"Your nose is a
corn-sampler, it appears?" inquired the official.
"Corn what?"
asked Bianchon.
"Corn-el."
"Corn-et."
"Corn-elian."
"Corn-ice."
"Corn-ucopia."
"Corn-crake."
"Corn-cockle."
"Corn-orama."
The eight responses
came like a rolling fire from every part of the room, and the laughter that
followed was the more uproarious because poor Father Goriot stared at the
others with a puzzled look, like a foreigner trying to catch the meaning of
words in a language which he does not understand.
"Corn? . . ."
he said, turning to Vautrin, his next neighbor.
"Corn on your
foot, old man!" said Vautrin, and he drove Father Goriot’s cap down over
his eyes by a blow on the crown.
The poor old man thus
suddenly attacked was for a moment too bewildered to do anything. Christophe
carried off his plate, thinking that he had finished his soup, so that when
Goriot had pushed back his cap from his eyes his spoon encountered the table.
Every one burst out laughing. "You are a disagreeable joker, sir,"
said the old man, "and if you take any further liberties with me----"
"Well, what then,
old boy?" Vautrin interrupted.
"Well, then, you
shall pay dearly for it some day----"
"Down below,
eh?" said the artist, "in the little dark corner where they put
naughty boys."
"Well,
mademoiselle," Vautrin said, turning to Victorine, "you are eating
nothing. So papa was refractory, was he?"
"A monster!"
said Mme. Couture.
"Mademoiselle
might make application for aliment pending her suit; she is not eating
anything. Eh! eh! just see how Father Goriot is staring at Mlle.
Victorine."
The old man had
forgotten his dinner, he was so absorbed in gazing at the poor girl; the sorrow
in her face was unmistakable,--the slighted love of a child whose father would
not recognize her.
"We are mistaken
about Father Goriot, my dear boy," said Eugène in a low voice. "He is
not an idiot, nor wanting in energy. Try your Gall system on him, and let me
know what you think. I saw him crush a silver dish last night as if it had been
made of wax; there seems to be something extraordinary going on in his mind
just now, to judge by his face. His life is so mysterious that it must be worth
studying. Oh! you may laugh, Bianchon; I am not joking."
"The man is a
subject, is he?" said Bianchon; "all right! I will dissect him, if he
will give me the chance."
"No; feel his
bumps."
"Hm!--his
stupidity might perhaps be contagious."
The next day Rastignac
dressed himself very elegantly, and about three o’clock in the afternoon went
to call on Mme. de Restaud. On the way thither he indulged in the wild
intoxicating dreams which fill a young head so full of delicious excitement.
Young men at his age take no account of obstacles nor of dangers; they see
success in every direction; imagination has free play, and turns their lives
into a romance; they are saddened or discouraged by the collapse of one of the
visionary schemes that have no existence save in their heated fancy. If youth
were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
Eugène took unheard-of
pains to keep himself in a spotless condition, but on his way through the
streets he began to think about Mme. de Restaud and what he should say to her.
He equipped himself with wit, rehearsed repartees in the course of an imaginary
conversation, and prepared certain neat speeches a la Talleyrand, conjuring up
a series of small events which should prepare the way for the declaration on
which he had based his future; and during these musings the law student was
bespattered with mud, and by the time he reached the Palais Royal he was
obliged to have his boots blacked and his trousers brushed.
"If I were
rich," he said, as he changed the five-franc piece he had brought with him
in case anything might happen, "I would take a cab, then I could think at
my ease."
At last he reached the
Rue du Helder, and asked for the Comtesse de Restaud. He bore the contemptuous
glances of the servants, who had seen him cross the court on foot, with the
cold fury of a man who knows that he will succeed some day. He understood the
meaning of their glances at once, for he had felt his inferiority as soon as he
entered the court, where a smart cab was waiting. All the delights of life in
Paris seemed to be implied by this visible and manifest sign of luxury and
extravagance. A fine horse, in magnificent harness, was pawing the ground, and
all at once the law student felt out of humor with himself. Every compartment
in his brain which he had thought to find so full of wit was bolted fast; he
grew positively stupid. He sent up his name to the Countess, and waited in the
ante-chamber, standing on one foot before a window that looked out upon the
court; mechanically he leaned his elbow against the sash, and stared before him.
The time seemed long; he would have left the house but for the southern
tenacity of purpose which works miracles when it is single- minded.
"Madame is in her
boudoir, and cannot see any one at present, sir," said the servant.
"She gave me no answer; but if you will go into the dining-room, there is
some one already there."
Rastignac was impressed
with a sense of the formidable power of the lackey who can accuse or condemn
his masters by a word; he coolly opened the door by which the man had just entered
the ante-chamber, meaning, no doubt, to show these insolent flunkeys that he
was familiar with the house; but he found that he had thoughtlessly
precipitated himself into a small room full of dressers, where lamps were
standing, and hot-water pipes, on which towels were being dried; a dark passage
and a back staircase lay beyond it. Stifled laughter from the ante-chamber
added to his confusion.
"This way to the
drawing-room, sir," said the servant, with the exaggerated respect which
seemed to be one more jest at his expense.
Eugène turned so
quickly that he stumbled against a bath.
By good luck, he
managed to keep his hat on his head, and saved it from immersion in the water;
but just as he turned, a door opened at the further end of the dark passage,
dimly lighted by a small lamp. Rastignac heard voices and the sound of a kiss;
one of the speakers was Mme. de Restaud, the other was Father Goriot. Eugène
followed the servant through the dining-room into the drawing-room; he went to
a window that looked out into the courtyard, and stood there for a while. He
meant to know whether this Goriot was really the Goriot that he knew. His heart
beat unwontedly fast; he remembered Vautrin’s hideous insinuations. A
well-dressed young man suddenly emerged from the room almost as Eugène entered
it, saying impatiently to the servant who stood at the door: "I am going,
Maurice. Tell Madame la Comtesse that I waited more than half an hour for
her."
Whereupon this insolent
being, who, doubtless, had a right to be insolent, sang an Italian trill, and
went towards the window where Eugène was standing, moved thereto quite as much
by a desire to see the student’s face as by a wish to look out into the
courtyard.
"But M. le Comte
had better wait a moment longer; madame is disengaged," said Maurice, as
he returned to the ante-chamber.
Just at that moment
Father Goriot appeared close to the gate; he had emerged from a door at the
foot of the back staircase. The worthy soul was preparing to open his umbrella
regardless of the fact that the great gate had opened to admit a tilbury, in
which a young man with a ribbon at his button-hole was seated. Father Goriot
had scarcely time to start back and save himself. The horse took fright at the
umbrella, swerved, and dashed forward towards the flight of steps. The young
man looked round in annoyance, saw Father Goriot, and greeted him as he went
out with constrained courtesy, such as people usually show to a money-lender so
long as they require his services, or the sort of respect they feel it
necessary to show for some one whose reputation has been blown upon, so that
they blush to acknowledge his acquaintance. Father Goriot gave him a little
friendly nod and a good- natured smile. All this happened with lightning speed.
Eugène was so deeply interested that he forgot that he was not alone till he
suddenly heard the Countess’ voice.
"Oh! Maxime, were
you going away?" she said reproachfully, with a shade of pique in her
manner. The Countess had not seen the incident nor the entrance of the tilbury.
Rastignac turned abruptly and saw her standing before him, coquettishly dressed
in a loose white cashmere gown with knots of rose-colored ribbon here and
there; her hair was carelessly coiled about her head, as is the wont of
Parisian women in the morning; there was a soft fragrance about her--doubtless
she was fresh from a bath;--her graceful form seemed more flexible, her beauty
more luxuriant. Her eyes glistened. A young man can see everything at a glance;
he feels the radiant influence of woman as a plant discerns and absorbs its
nutriment from the air; he did not need to touch her hands to feel their cool
freshness. He saw faint rose tints through the cashmere of the dressing gown;
it had fallen slightly open, giving glimpses of a bare throat, on which the
student’s eyes rested. The Countess had no need of the adventitious aid of
corsets; her girdle defined the outlines of her slender waist; her throat was a
challenge to love; her feet, thrust into slippers, were daintily small. As
Maxime took her hand and kissed it, Eugène became aware of Maxime’s existence,
and the Countess saw Eugène.
"Oh! is that you
M. de Rastignac? I am very glad to see you," she said, but there was
something in her manner that a shrewd observer would have taken as a hint to
depart.
Maxime, as the Countess
Anastasie had called the young man with the haughty insolence of bearing,
looked from Eugène to the lady, and from the lady to Eugène; it was
sufficiently evident that he wished to be rid of the latter. An exact and
faithful rendering of the glance might be given in the words: "Look here,
my dear; I hope you intend to send this little whipper-snapper about his
business."
The Countess consulted
the young man’s face with an intent submissiveness that betrays all the secrets
of a woman’s heart, and Rastignac all at once began to hate him violently. To
begin with, the sight of the fair carefully arranged curls on the other’s
comely head had convinced him that his own crop was hideous; Maxime’s boots,
moreover, were elegant and spotless, while his own, in spite of all his care,
bore some traces of his recent walk; and, finally, Maxime’s overcoat fitted the
outline of his figure gracefully, he looked like a pretty woman, while Eugène
was wearing a black coat at half-past two. The quick-witted child of the
Charente felt the disadvantage at which he was placed beside this tall, slender
dandy, with the clear gaze and the pale face, one of those men who would ruin
orphan children without scruple. Mme. de Restaud fled into the next room
without waiting for Eugène to speak; shaking out the skirts of her dressing-gown
in her flight, so that she looked like a white butterfly, and Maxime hurried
after her. Eugène, in a fury, followed Maxime and the Countess, and the three
stood once more face to face by the hearth in the large drawing-room. The law
student felt quite sure that the odious Maxime found him in the way, and even
at the risk of displeasing Mme. de Restaud, he meant to annoy the dandy. It had
struck him all at once that he had seen the young man before at Mme. de
Beauseant’s ball; he guessed the relation between Maxime and Mme. de Restaud;
and with the youthful audacity that commits prodigious blunders or achieves
signal success, he said to himself, "This is my rival; I mean to cut him
out."
Rash resolve! He did
not know that M. le Comte Maxime de Trailles would wait till he was insulted,
so as to fire first and kill his man. Eugène was a sportsman and a good shot,
but he had not yet hit the bulls’s eye twenty times out of twenty-two. The
young Count dropped into a low chair by the hearth, took up the tongs, and made
up the fire so violently and so sulkily, that Anastasie’s fair face suddenly
clouded over. She turned to Eugène, with a cool, questioning glance that asked
plainly, "Why do you not go?" a glance which well-bred people regard
as a cue to make their exit.
Eugène assumed an
amiable expression.
"Madame," he
began, "I hastened to call upon you----"
He stopped short. The
door opened, and the owner of the tilbury suddenly appeared. He had left his
hat outside, and did not greet the Countess; he looked meditatively at
Rastignac, and held out his hand to Maxime with a cordial "Good
morning," that astonished Eugène not a little. The young provincial did
not understand the amenities of a triple alliance.
"M. de
Restaud," said the Countess, introducing her husband to the law student.
Eugène bowed
profoundly.
"This
gentleman," she continued, presenting Eugène to her husband, "is M.
de Rastignac; he is related to Mme. la Vicomtesse de Beauseant through the
Marcillacs; I had the pleasure of meeting him at her last ball."
Related to Mme. la
Vicomtesse de Beauseant through the Marcillacs! These words, on which the
countess threw ever so slight an emphasis, by reason of the pride that the
mistress of a house takes in showing that she only receives people of
distinction as visitors in her house, produced a magical effect. The Count’s
stiff manner relaxed at once as he returned the student’s bow.
"Delighted to have
an opportunity of making your acquaintance," he said.
Maxime de Trailles
himself gave Eugène an uneasy glance, and suddenly dropped his insolent manner.
The mighty name had all the power of a fairy’s wand; those closed compartments
in the southern brain flew open again; Rastignac’s carefully drilled faculties
returned. It was as if a sudden light had pierced the obscurity of this upper
world of Paris, and he began to see, though everything was indistinct as yet.
Mme. Vauquer’s lodging-house and Father Goriot were very far remote from his
thoughts.
"I thought that
the Marcillacs were extinct," the Comte de Restaud said, addressing Eugène.
"Yes, they are
extinct," answered the law student. "My great-uncle, the Chevalier de
Rastignac, married the heiress of the Marcillac family. They had only one
daughter, who married the Marechal de Clarimbault, Mme. de Beauseant’s
grandfather on the mother’s side. We are the younger branch of the family, and
the younger branch is all the poorer because my great-uncle, the Vice-Admiral,
lost all that he had in the King’s service. The Government during the Revolution
refused to admit our claims when the Compagnie des Indes was liquidated."
"Was not your
great-uncle in command of the Vengeur before 1789?"
"Yes."
"Then he would be
acquainted with my grandfather, who commanded the Warwick."
Maxime looked at Mme.
de Restaud and shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, "If he is going
to discuss nautical matters with that fellow, it is all over with us."
Anastasie understood the glance that M. de Trailles gave her. With a woman’s
admirable tact, she began to smile and said:
"Come with me,
Maxime; I have something to say to you. We will leave you two gentlemen to sail
in company on board the Warwick and the Vengeur."
She rose to her feet
and signed to Maxime to follow her, mirth and mischief in her whole attitude,
and the two went in the direction of the boudoir. The morganatic couple (to use
a convenient German expression which has no exact equivalent) had reached the
door, when the Count interrupted himself in his talk with Eugène.
"Anastasie!"
he cried pettishly, "just stay a moment, dear; you know very well
that----"
"I am coming back
in a minute," she interrupted; "I have a commission for Maxime to
execute, and I want to tell him about it."
She came back almost
immediately. She had noticed the inflection in her husband’s voice, and knew
that it would not be safe to retire to the boudoir; like all women who are
compelled to study their husbands’ characters in order to have their own way,
and whose business it is to know exactly how far they can go without
endangering a good understanding, she was very careful to avoid petty
collisions in domestic life. It was Eugène who had brought about this untoward
incident; so the Countess looked at Maxime and indicated the law student with
an air of exasperation. M. de Trailles addressed the Count, the Countess, and
Eugène with the pointed remark, "You are busy, I do not want to interrupt
you; good-day," and he went.
"Just wait a
moment, Maxime!" the Count called after him.
"Come and dine
with us," said the Countess, leaving Eugène and her husband together once
more. She followed Maxime into the little drawing-room, where they sat together
sufficiently long to feel sure that Rastignac had taken his leave.
The law student heard
their laughter, and their voices, and the pauses in their talk; he grew
malicious, exerted his conversational powers for M. de Restaud, flattered him,
and drew him into discussions, to the end that he might see the Countess again and
discover the nature of her relations with Father Goriot. This Countess with a
husband and a lover, for Maxime clearly was her lover, was a mystery. What was
the secret tie that bound her to the old tradesman? This mystery he meant to
penetrate, hoping by its means to gain a sovereign ascendency over this fair
typical Parisian.
"Anastasie!"
the Count called again to his wife.
"Poor
Maxime!" she said, addressing the young man. "Come, we must resign
ourselves. This evening----"
"I hope,
Nasie," he said in her ear, "that you will give orders not to admit
that youngster, whose eyes light up like live coals when he looks at you. He
will make you a declaration, and compromise you, and then you will compel me to
kill him."
"Are you mad,
Maxime?" she said. "A young lad of a student is, on the contrary, a
capital lightning-conductor; is not that so? Of course, I mean to make Restaud
furiously jealous of him."
Maxime burst out
laughing, and went out, followed by the Countess, who stood at the window to
watch him into his carriage; he shook his whip, and made his horse prance. She
only returned when the great gate had been closed after him.
"What do you
think, dear?" cried the Count, her husband, "this gentleman’s family
estate is not far from Verteuil, on the Charente; his great-uncle and my
grandfather were acquainted."
"Delighted to find
that we have acquaintances in common," said the Countess, with a
preoccupied manner.
"More than you
think," said Eugène, in a low voice.
"What do you
mean?" she asked quickly.
"Why, only just
now," said the student, "I saw a gentleman go out at the gate, Father
Goriot, my next door neighbor in the house where I am lodging."
At the sound of this
name, and the prefix that embellished it, the Count, who was stirring the fire,
let the tongs fall as though they had burned his fingers, and rose to his feet.
"Sir," he
cried, "you might have called him ’Monsieur Goriot’!"
The Countess turned
pale at first at the sight of her husband’s vexation, then she reddened; clearly
she was embarrassed, her answer was made in a tone that she tried to make
natural, and with an air of assumed carelessness:
"You could not
know any one who is dearer to us both . . ."
She broke off, glanced
at the piano as if some fancy had crossed her mind, and asked, "Are you
fond of music, M. de Rastignac?"
"Exceedingly,"
answered Eugène, flushing, and disconcerted by a dim suspicion that he had
somehow been guilty of a clumsy piece of folly.
"Do you
sing?" she cried, going to the piano, and, sitting down before it, she
swept her fingers over the keyboard from end to end. R-r-r- rah!
"No, madame."
The Comte de Restaud
walked to and fro.
"That is a pity;
you are without one great means of success.--Ca-ro, ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non
du-bi-ta-re," sang the Countess.
Eugène had a second
time waved a magic wand when he uttered Goriot’s name, but the effect seemed to
be entirely opposite to that produced by the formula "related to Mme. de
Beauseant." His position was not unlike that of some visitor permitted as
a favor to inspect a private collection of curiosities, when by inadvertence he
comes into collision with a glass case full of sculptured figures, and three or
four heads, imperfectly secured, fall at the shock. He wished the earth would open
and swallow him. Mme. de Restaud’s expression was reserved and chilly, her eyes
had grown indifferent, and sedulously avoided meeting those of the unlucky
student of law.
"Madame," he
said, "you wish to talk with M. de Restaud; permit me to wish you
good-day----"
The Countess
interrupted him by a gesture, saying hastily, "Whenever you come to see
us, both M. de Restaud and I shall be delighted to see you."
Eugène made a profound
bow and took his leave, followed by M. de Restaud, who insisted, in spite of
his remonstrances, on accompanying him into the hall.
"Neither your
mistress nor I are at home to that gentleman when he calls," the Count
said to Maurice.
As Eugène set foot on
the steps, he saw that it was raining.
"Come," said
he to himself, "somehow I have just made a mess of it, I do not know how.
And now I am going to spoil my hat and coat into the bargain. I ought to stop
in my corner, grind away at law, and never look to be anything but a boorish
country magistrate. How can I go into society, when to manage properly you want
a lot of cabs, varnished boots, gold watch chains, and all sorts of things; you
have to wear white doeskin gloves that cost six francs in the morning, and
primrose kid gloves every evening? A fig for that old humbug of a Goriot!"
When he reached the
street door, the driver of a hackney coach, who had probably just deposited a
wedding party at their door, and asked nothing better than a chance of making a
little money for himself without his employer’s knowledge, saw that Eugène had
no umbrella, remarked his black coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, and
varnished boots, and stopped and looked at him inquiringly. Eugène, in the
blind desperation that drives a young man to plunge deeper and deeper into an
abyss, as if he might hope to find a fortunate issue in its lowest depths,
nodded in reply to the driver’s signal, and stepped into the cab; a few stray
petals of orange blossom and scraps of wire bore witness to its recent
occupation by a wedding party.
"Where am I to
drive, sir?" demanded the man, who, by this time, had taken off his white
gloves.
"Confound
it!" Eugène said to himself, "I am in for it now, and at least I will
not spend cab-hire for nothing!--Drive to the Hotel Beauseant," he said
aloud.
"Which?"
asked the man, a portentous word that reduced Eugène to confusion. This young
man of fashion, species incerta, did not know that there were two Hotels
Beauseant; he was not aware how rich he was in relations who did not care about
him.
"The Vicomte de
Beauseant, Rue----"
"De
Grenelle," interrupted the driver, with a jerk of his head. "You see,
there are the hotels of the Marquis and Comte de Beauseant in the Rue
Saint-Dominique," he added, drawing up the step.
"I know all about
that," said Eugène, severely.--"Everybody is laughing at me to-day,
it seems!" he said to himself, as he deposited his hat on the opposite
seat. "This escapade will cost me a king’s ransom, but, at any rate, I
shall call on my so-called cousin in a thoroughly aristocratic fashion. Goriot
has cost me ten francs already, the old scoundrel. My word! I will tell Mme. de
Beauseant about my adventure; perhaps it may amuse her. Doubtless she will know
the secret of the criminal relation between that handsome woman and the old rat
without a tail. It would be better to find favor in my cousin’s eyes than to
come in contact with that shameless woman, who seems to me to have very
expensive tastes. Surely the beautiful Vicomtesse’s personal interest would
turn the scale for me, when the mere mention of her name produces such an
effect. Let us look higher. If you set yourself to carry the heights of heaven,
you must face God."
The innumerable
thoughts that surged through his brain might be summed up in these phrases. He
grew calmer, and recovered something of his assurance as he watched the falling
rain. He told himself that though he was about to squander two of the precious
five-franc pieces that remained to him, the money was well laid out in
preserving his coat, boots, and hat; and his cabman’s cry of "Gate, if you
please," almost put him in spirits. A Swiss, in scarlet and gold,
appeared, the great door groaned on its hinges, and Rastignac, with sweet
satisfaction, beheld his equipage pass under the archway and stop before the
flight of steps beneath the awning. The driver, in a blue-and-red greatcoat,
dismounted and let down the step. As Eugène stepped out of the cab, he heard
smothered laughter from the peristyle. Three or four lackeys were making merry
over the festal appearance of the vehicle. In another moment the law student
was enlightened as to the cause of their hilarity; he felt the full force of
the contrast between his equipage and one of the smartest broughams in Paris; a
coachman, with powdered hair, seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of
spirited horses, who stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud’s courtyard, in
the Chaussee d’Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of
six-and-twenty; in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the luxurious equipage
of a man of rank; thirty thousand francs would not have purchased it.
"Who can be
here?" said Eugène to himself. He began to understand, though somewhat
tardily, that he must not expect to find many women in Paris who were not
already appropriated, and that the capture of one of these queens would be
likely to cost something more than bloodshed. "Confound it all! I expect
my cousin also has her Maxime."
He went up the steps,
feeling that he was a blighted being. The glass door was opened for him; the
servants were as solemn as jackasses under the curry comb. So far, Eugène had
only been in the ballroom on the ground floor of the Hotel Beauseant; the fete
had followed so closely on the invitation, that he had not had time to call on
his cousin, and had therefore never seen Mme. de Beauseant’s apartments; he was
about to behold for the first time a great lady among the wonderful and elegant
surroundings that reveal her character and reflect her daily life. He was the
more curious, because Mme. de Restaud’s drawing-room had provided him with a
standard of comparison.
At half-past four the
Vicomtesse de Beauseant was visible. Five minutes earlier she would not have
received her cousin, but Eugène knew nothing of the recognized routine of various
houses in Paris. He was conducted up the wide, white-painted, crimson-carpeted
staircase, between the gilded balusters and masses of flowering plants, to Mme.
de Beauseant’s apartments. He did not know the rumor current about Mme. de
Beauseant, one of the biographies told, with variations, in whispers, every
evening in the salons of Paris.
For three years past
her name had been spoken of in connection with that of one of the most wealthy
and distinguished Portuguese nobles, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of
those innocent liaisons which possess so much charm for the two thus attached
to each other that they find the presence of a third person intolerable. The
Vicomte de Beauseant, therefore, had himself set an example to the rest of the
world by respecting, with as good a grace as might be, this morganatic union.
Any one who came to call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of this friendship
was sure to find the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto there. As, under the circumstances,
Mme. de Beauseant could not very well shut her door against these visitors, she
gave them such a cold reception, and showed so much interest in the study of
the ceiling, that no one could fail to understand how much he bored her; and
when it became known in Paris that Mme. de Beauseant was bored by callers
between two and four o’clock, she was left in perfect solitude during that
interval. She went to the Bouffons or to the Opera with M. de Beauseant and M.
d’Ajuda-Pinto; and M. de Beauseant, like a well-bred man of the world, always
left his wife and the Portuguese as soon as he had installed them. But M. d’Ajuda-Pinto
must marry, and a Mlle. de Rochefide was the young lady. In the whole
fashionable world there was but one person who as yet knew nothing of the
arrangement, and that was Mme. de Beauseant. Some of her friends had hinted at
the possibility, and she had laughed at them, believing that envy had prompted
those ladies to try to make mischief. And now, though the bans were about to be
published, and although the handsome Portuguese had come that day to break the
news to the Vicomtesse, he had not found courage as yet to say one word about
his treachery. How was it? Nothing is doubtless more difficult than the
notification of an ultimatum of this kind. There are men who feel more at their
ease when they stand up before another man who threatens their lives with sword
or pistol than in the presence of a woman who, after two hours of lamentations
and reproaches, falls into a dead swoon and requires salts. At this moment,
therefore, M. d’Ajuda-Pinto was on thorns, and anxious to take his leave. He
told himself that in some way or other the news would reach Mme. de Beauseant;
he would write, it would be much better to do it by letter, and not to utter
the words that should stab her to the heart.
So when the servant
announced M. Eugène de Rastignac, the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto trembled with joy.
To be sure, a loving woman shows even more ingenuity in inventing doubts of her
lover than in varying the monotony of his happiness; and when she is about to
be forsaken, she instinctively interprets every gesture as rapidly as Virgil’s
courser detected the presence of his companion by snuffing the breeze. It was
impossible, therefore, that Mme. de Beauseant should not detect that
involuntary thrill of satisfaction; slight though it was, it was appalling in
its artlessness.
Eugène had yet to learn
that no one in Paris should present himself in any house without first making
himself acquainted with the whole history of its owner, and of its owner’s wife
and family, so that he may avoid making any of the terrible blunders which in
Poland draw forth the picturesque exclamation, "Harness five bullocks to
your cart!" probably because you will need them all to pull you out of the
quagmire into which a false step has plunged you. If, down to the present day,
our language has no name for these conversational disasters, it is probably
because they are believed to be impossible, the publicity given in Paris to
every scandal is so prodigious. After the awkward incident at Mme. de Restaud’s,
no one but Eugène could have reappeared in his character of bullock-driver in
Mme. de Beauseant’s drawing-room. But if Mme. de Restaud and M. de Trailles had
found him horribly in the way, M. d’Ajuda hailed his coming with relief.
"Good-bye,"
said the Portuguese, hurrying to the door, as Eugène made his entrance into a
dainty little pink-and-gray drawing-room, where luxury seemed nothing more than
good taste.
"Until this
evening," said Mme. de Beauseant, turning her head to give the Marquis a
glance. "We are going to the Bouffons, are we not?"
"I cannot
go," he said, with his fingers on the door handle.
Mme. de Beauseant rose
and beckoned to him to return. She did not pay the slightest attention to Eugène,
who stood there dazzled by the sparkling marvels around him; he began to think
that this was some story out of the Arabian Nights made real, and did not know
where to hide himself, when the woman before him seemed to be unconscious of
his existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the forefinger of her right hand, and
gracefully signed to the Marquis to seat himself beside her. The Marquis felt
the imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back towards her. Eugène
watched him, not without a feeling of envy.
"That is the owner
of the brougham!" he said to himself. "But is it necessary to have a
pair of spirited horses, servants in livery, and torrents of gold to draw a
glance from a woman here in Paris?"
The demon of luxury
gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his veins, his throat was parched with the
thirst of gold.
He had a hundred and
thirty francs every quarter. His father, mother, brothers, sisters, and aunt
did not spend two hundred francs a month among them. This swift comparison
between his present condition and the aims he had in view helped to benumb his
faculties.
"Why not?"
the Vicomtesse was saying, as she smiled at the Portuguese. "Why cannot
you come to the Italiens?"
"Affairs! I am to
dine with the English Ambassador."
"Throw him
over."
When a man once enters
on a course of deception, he is compelled to add lie to lie. M. d’Ajuda
therefore said, smiling, "Do you lay your commands on me?"
"Yes,
certainly."
"That was what I
wanted to have you say to me," he answered, dissembling his feelings in a
glance which would have reassured any other woman.
He took the Vicomtesse’s
hand, kissed it, and went.
Eugène ran his fingers
through his hair, and constrained himself to bow. He thought that now Mme. de
Beauseant would give him her attention; but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed
to a window in the gallery, and watched M. d’Ajuda step into his carriage; she
listened to the order that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it to the
coachman:
"To M. de
Rochefide’s house."
Those words, and the
way in which M. d’Ajuda flung himself back in the carriage, were like a
lightning flash and a thunderbolt for her; she walked back again with a deadly
fear gnawing at her heart. The most terrible catastrophes only happen among the
heights. The Vicomtesse went to her own room, sat down at a table, and took up
a sheet of dainty notepaper.
"When, instead of
dining with the English Ambassador," she wrote, "you go to the Rochefides,
you owe me an explanation, which I am waiting to hear."
She retraced several of
the letters, for her hand was trembling so that they were indistinct; then she
signed the note with an initial C for "Claire de Bourgogne," and rang
the bell.
"Jacques,"
she said to the servant, who appeared immediately, "take this note to M.
de Rochefide’s house at half-past seven and ask for the Marquis d’Ajuda. If M.
d’Ajuda is there, leave the note without waiting for an answer; if he is not
there, bring the note back to me."
"Madame la
Vicomtess, there is a visitor in the drawing-room."
"Ah! yes, of
course," she said, opening the door.
Eugène was beginning to
feel very uncomfortable, but at last the Vicomtesse appeared; she spoke to him,
and the tremulous tones of her voice vibrated through his heart.
"Pardon me,
monsieur," she said; "I had a letter to write. Now I am quite at
liberty."
She scarcely knew what
she was saying, for even as she spoke she thought, "Ah! he means to marry
Mlle. de Rochefide? But is he still free? This evening the marriage shall be
broken off, or else . . . But before to-morrow I shall know."
"Cousin . .
." the student replied.
"Eh?" said
the Countess, with an insolent glance that sent a cold shudder through Eugène;
he understood what that "Eh?" meant; he had learned a great deal in
three hours, and his wits were on the alert. He reddened:
"Madame," he
began; he hesitated a moment, and then went on. "Pardon me; I am in such
need of protection that the nearest scrap of relationship could do me no
harm."
Mme. de Beauseant
smiled but there was sadness in her smile; even now she felt forebodings of the
coming pain, the air she breathed was heavy with the storm that was about to
burst.
"If you knew how
my family are situated," he went on, "you would love to play the part
of a beneficent fairy godmother who graciously clears the obstacles from the
path of her protege."
"Well,
cousin," she said, laughing, "and how can I be of service to
you?"
"But do I know
even that? I am distantly related to you, and this obscure and remote
relationship is even now a perfect godsend to me. You have confused my ideas; I
cannot remember the things that I meant to say to you. I know no one else here
in Paris. . . . Ah! if I could only ask you to counsel me, ask you to look upon
me as a poor child who would fain cling to the hem of your dress, who would lay
down his life for you."
"Would you kill a
man for me?"
"Two," said
Eugène.
"You, child. Yes,
you are a child," she said, keeping back the tears that came to her eyes;
"you would love sincerely."
"Oh!" he
cried, flinging up his head.
The audacity of the
student’s answer interested the Vicomtesse in him. The southern brain was
beginning to scheme for the first time. Between Mme. de Restaud’s blue boudoir
and Mme. de Beauseant’s rose-colored drawing-room he had made a three years’
advance in a kind of law which is not a recognized study in Paris, although it
is a sort of higher jurisprudence, and, when well understood, is a highroad to
success of every kind.
"Ah! that is what
I meant to say!" said Eugène. "I met Mme. de Restaud at your ball,
and this morning I went to see her.
"You must have
been very much in the way," said Mme. de Beauseant, smiling as she spoke.
"Yes, indeed. I am
a novice, and my blunders will set every one against me, if you do not give me
your counsel. I believe that in Paris it is very difficult to meet with a
young, beautiful, and wealthy woman of fashion who would be willing to teach
me, what you women can explain so well--life. I shall find a M. de Trailles
everywhere. So I have come to you to ask you to give me a key to a puzzle, to
entreat you to tell me what sort of blunder I made this morning. I mentioned an
old man----"
"Madame la Duchess
de Langeais," Jacques cut the student short; Eugène gave expression to his
intense annoyance by a gesture.
"If you mean to
succeed," said the Vicomtesse in a low voice, "in the first place you
must not be so demonstrative."
"Ah! good morning,
dear," she continued, and rising and crossing the room, she grasped the
Duchess’ hands as affectionately as if they had been sisters; the Duchess
responded in the prettiest and most gracious way.
"Two intimate
friends!" said Rastignac to himself. "Henceforward I shall have two
protectresses; those two women are great friends, no doubt, and this newcomer
will doubtless interest herself in her friend’s cousin."
"To what happy
inspiration do I owe this piece of good fortune, dear Antoinette?" asked
Mme. de Beauseant.
"Well, I saw M. d’Ajuda-Pinto
at M. de Rochefide’s door, so I thought that if I came I should find you
alone."
Mme. de Beauseant’s
mouth did not tighten, her color did not rise, her expression did not alter, or
rather, her brow seemed to clear as the Duchess uttered those deadly words.
"If I had known
that you were engaged----" the speaker added, glancing at Eugène.
"This gentleman is
M. Eugène de Rastignac, one of my cousins," said the Vicomtesse.
"Have you any news of General de Montriveau?" she continued.
"Serizy told me yesterday that he never goes anywhere now; has he been to
see you to-day?"
It was believed that
the Duchess was desperately in love with M. de Montriveau, and that he was a
faithless lover; she felt the question in her very heart, and her face flushed
as she answered:
"He was at the
Elysee yesterday."
"In
attendance?"
"Claire,"
returned the Duchess, and hatred overflowed in the glances she threw at Mme. de
Beauseant; "of course you know that M. d’Ajuda- Pinto is going to marry
Mlle. de Rochefide; the bans will be published to-morrow."
This thrust was too
cruel; the Vicomtesse’s face grew white, but she answered, laughing, "One
of those rumors that fools amuse themselves with. What should induce M. d’Ajuda
to take one of the noblest names in Portugal to the Rochefides? The Rochefides
were only ennobled yesterday."
"But Bertha will
have two hundred thousand livres a year, they say."
"M. d’Ajuda is too
wealthy to marry for money."
"But, my dear,
Mlle. de Rochefide is a charming girl."
"Indeed?"
"And, as a matter
of fact, he is dining with them to-day; the thing is settled. It is very
surprising to me that you should know so little about it."
Mme. de Beauseant
turned to Rastignac. "What was the blunder that you made, monsieur?"
she asked. "The poor boy is only just launched into the world, Antoinette,
so that he understands nothing of all this that we are speaking of. Be merciful
to him, and let us finish our talk to- morrow. Everything will be announced
to-morrow, you know, and your kind informal communication can be accompanied by
official confirmation."
The Duchess gave Eugène
one of those insolent glances that measure a man from head to foot, and leave
him crushed and annihilated.
"Madame, I have
unwittingly plunged a dagger into Mme. de Restaud’s heart; unwittingly--therein
lies my offence," said the student of law, whose keen brain had served him
sufficiently well, for he had detected the biting epigrams that lurked beneath
this friendly talk. "You continue to receive, possibly you fear, those who
know the amount of pain that they deliberately inflict; but a clumsy blunderer
who has no idea how deeply he wounds is looked upon as a fool who does not know
how to make use of his opportunities, and every one despises him."
Mme. de Beauseant gave
the student a glance, one of those glances in which a great soul can mingle
dignity and gratitude. It was like balm to the law student, who was still
smarting under the Duchess’ insolent scrutiny; she had looked at him as an
auctioneer might look at some article to appraise its value.
"Imagine, too,
that I had just made some progress with the Comte de Restaud; for I should tell
you, madame," he went on, turning to the Duchess with a mixture of
humility and malice in his manner, "that as yet I am only a poor devil of
a student, very much alone in the world, and very poor----"
"You should not
tell us that, M. de Rastignac. We women never care about anything that no one
else will take."
"Bah!" said
Eugène. "I am only two-and-twenty, and I must make up my mind to the
drawbacks of my time of life. Besides, I am confessing my sins, and it would be
impossible to kneel in a more charming confessional; you commit your sins in
one drawing-room, and receive absolution for them in another."
The Duchess’ expression
grew colder, she did not like the flippant tone of these remarks, and showed
that she considered them to be in bad taste by turning to the Vicomtesse
with--"This gentleman has only just come----"
Mme. de Beauseant began
to laugh outright at her cousin and at the Duchess both.
"He has only just
come to Paris, dear, and is in search of some one who will give him lessons in
good taste."
"Mme. la
Duchesse," said Eugène, "is it not natural to wish to be initiated
into the mysteries which charm us?" ("Come, now," he said to
himself, "my language is superfinely elegant, I’m sure.")
"But Mme. de
Restaud is herself, I believe, M. de Trailles’ pupil," said the Duchess.
"Of that I had no
idea, madame," answered the law student, "so I rashly came between
them. In fact, I got on very well with the lady’s husband, and his wife
tolerated me for a time until I took it into my head to tell them that I knew
some one of whom I had just caught a glimpse as he went out by a back
staircase, a man who had given the Countess a kiss at the end of a
passage."
"Who was it?"
both women asked together.
"An old man who
lives at the rate of two louis a month in the Faubourg Saint-Marceau, where I,
a poor student, lodge likewise. He is a truly unfortunate creature, everybody
laughs at him--we all call him ’Father Goriot.’ "
"Why, child that
you are," cried the Vicomtesse, "Mme. de Restaud was a Mlle.
Goriot!"
"The daughter of a
vermicelli manufacturer," the Duchess added; "and when the little
creature went to Court, the daughter of a pastry-cook was presented on the same
day. Do you remember, Claire? The King began to laugh, and made some joke in
Latin about flour. People--what was it?--people----"
"Ejusdem
farinae," said Eugène.
"Yes, that was
it," said the Duchess.
"Oh! is that her
father?" the law student continued, aghast.
"Yes, certainly;
the old man had two daughters; he dotes on them, so to speak, though they will
scarcely acknowledge him."
"Didn’t the second
daughter marry a banker with a German name?" the Vicomtesse asked, turning
to Mme. de Langeais, "a Baron de Nucingen? And her name is Delphine, is it
not? Isn’t she a fair-haired woman who has a side-box at the Opera? She comes
sometimes to the Bouffons, and laughs loudly to attract attention."
The Duchess smiled and
said:
"I wonder at you,
dear. Why do you take so much interest in people of that kind? One must have
been as madly in love as Restaud was, to be infatuated with Mlle. Anastasie and
her flour sacks. Oh! he will not find her a good bargain! She is in M. de
Trailles’ hands, and he will ruin her."
"And they do not
acknowledge their father!" Eugène repeated.
"Oh! well, yes,
their father, the father, a father," replied the Vicomtesse, "a kind
father who gave them each five or six hundred thousand francs, it is said, to
secure their happiness by marrying them well; while he only kept eight or ten
thousand livres a year for himself, thinking that his daughters would always be
his daughters, thinking that in them he would live his life twice over again,
that in their houses he should find two homes, where he would be loved and
looked up to, and made much of. And in two years’ time both his sons- in-law
had turned him out of their houses as if he were one of the lowest
outcasts."
Tears came into Eugène’s
eyes. He was still under the spell of youthful beliefs, he had just left home,
pure and sacred feelings had been stirred within him, and this was his first day
on the battlefield of civilization in Paris. Genuine feeling is so infectious
that for a moment the three looked at each other in silence.
"Eh, mon
Dieu!" said Mme. de Langeais; "yes, it seems very horrible, and yet
we see such things every day. Is there not a reason for it? Tell me, dear, have
you ever really thought what a son-in-law is? A son-in-law is the man for whom
we bring up, you and I, a dear little one, bound to us very closely in
innumerable ways; for seventeen years she will be the joy of her family, its ’white
soul,’ as Lamartine says, and suddenly she will become its scourge. When he
comes and takes her from us, his love from the very beginning is like an axe
laid to the root of all the old affection in our darling’s heart, and all the
ties that bound her to her family are severed. But yesterday our little
daughter thought of no one but her mother and father, as we had no thought that
was not for her; by to-morrow she will have become a hostile stranger. The
tragedy is always going on under our eyes. On the one hand you see a father who
has sacrificed himself to his son, and his daughter-in-law shows him the last
degree of insolence. On the other hand, it is the son-in-law who turns his wife’s
mother out of the house. I sometimes hear it said that there is nothing
dramatic about society in these days; but the Drama of the Son-in-law is
appalling, to say nothing of our marriages, which have come to be very poor
farces. I can explain how it all came about in the old vermicelli maker’s case.
I think I recollect that Foriot----"
"Goriot,
madame."
"Yes, that Moriot
was once President of his Section during the Revolution. He was in the secret
of the famous scarcity of grain, and laid the foundation of his fortune in
those days by selling flour for ten times its cost. He had as much flour as he
wanted. My grandmother’s steward sold him immense quantities. No doubt Noriot
shared the plunder with the Committee of Public Salvation, as that sort of
person always did. I recollect the steward telling my grandmother that she
might live at Grandvilliers in complete security, because her corn was as good
as a certificate of civism. Well, then, this Loriot, who sold corn to those
butchers, has never had but one passion, they say--he idolizes his daughters. He
settled one of them under Restaud’s roof, and grafted the other into the
Nucingen family tree, the Baron de Nucingen being a rich banker who had turned
Royalist. You can quite understand that so long as Bonaparte was Emperor, the
two sons-in-law could manage to put up with the old Ninety-three; but after the
restoration of the Bourbons, M. de Restaud felt bored by the old man’s society,
and the banker was still more tired of it. His daughters were still fond of
him; they wanted ’to keep the goat and the cabbage,’ so they used to see Joriot
whenever there was no one there, under pretence of affection. ’Come to-day,
papa, we shall have you all to ourselves, and that will be much nicer!’ and all
that sort of thing. As for me, dear, I believe that love has second-sight: poor
Ninety-three; his heart must have bled. He saw that his daughters were ashamed
of him, that if they loved their husbands his visits must make mischief. So he
immolated himself. He made the sacrifice because he was a father; he went into
voluntary exile. His daughters were satisfied, so he thought that he had done
the best thing he could; but it was a family crime, and father and daughters
were accomplices. You see this sort of thing everywhere. What could this old
Doriot have been but a splash of mud in his daughters’ drawing-rooms? He would
only have been in the way, and bored other people, besides being bored himself.
And this that happened between father and daughters may happen to the prettiest
woman in Paris and the man she loves the best; if her love grows tiresome, he
will go; he will descend to the basest trickery to leave her. It is the same
with all love and friendship. Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its
wealth at once, you are bankrupt. We show no more mercy to the affection that
reveals its utmost extent than we do to another kind of prodigal who has not a
penny left. Their father had given them all he had. For twenty years he had
given his whole heart to them; then, one day, he gave them all his fortune too.
The lemon was squeezed; the girls left the rest in the gutter."
"The world is very
base," said the Vicomtesse, plucking at the threads of her shawl. She did
not raise her eyes as she spoke; the words that Mme. de Langeais had meant for
her in the course of her story had cut her to the quick.
"Base? Oh,
no," answered the Duchess; "the world goes its own way, that is all.
If I speak in this way, it is only to show that I am not duped by it. I think
as you do," she said, pressing the Vicomtesse’s hand. "The world is a
slough; let us try to live on the heights above it."
She rose to her feet
and kissed Mme. de Beauseant on the forehead as she said: "You look very
charming to-day, dear. I have never seen such a lovely color in your cheeks
before."
Then she went out with
a slight inclination of the head to the cousin.
"Father Goriot is
sublime!" said Eugène to himself, as he remembered how he had watched his
neighbor work the silver vessel into a shapeless mass that night.
Mme. de Beauseant did
not hear him; she was absorbed in her own thoughts. For several minutes the
silence remained unbroken till the law student became almost paralyzed with
embarrassment, and was equally afraid to go or stay or speak a word.
"The world is
basely ungrateful and ill-natured," said the Vicomtesse at last. "No
sooner does a trouble befall you than a friend is ready to bring the tidings
and to probe your heart with the point of a dagger while calling on you to
admire the handle. Epigrams and sarcasms already! Ah! I will defend myself!"
She raised her head
like the great lady that she was, and lightnings flashed from her proud eyes.
"Ah!" she
said, as she saw Eugène, "are you there?"
"Still," he
said piteously.
"Well, then, M. de
Rastignac, deal with the world as it deserves. You are determined to succeed? I
will help you. You shall sound the depths of corruption in woman; you shall
measure the extent of man’s pitiful vanity. Deeply as I am versed in such
learning, there were pages in the book of life that I had not read. Now I know
all. The more cold- blooded your calculations, the further you will go. Strike
ruthlessly; you will be feared. Men and women for you must be nothing more than
post-horses; take a fresh relay, and leave the last to drop by the roadside; in
this way you will reach the goal of your ambition. You will be nothing here,
you see, unless a woman interests herself in you; and she must be young and
wealthy, and a woman of the world. Yet, if you have a heart, lock it carefully
away like a treasure; do not let any one suspect it, or you will be lost; you
would cease to be the executioner, you would take the victim’s place. And if
ever you should love, never let your secret escape you! Trust no one until you
are very sure of the heart to which you open your heart. Learn to mistrust
every one; take every precaution for the sake of the love which does not exist
as yet. Listen, Miguel"--the name slipped from her so naturally that she
did not notice her mistake--"there is something still more appalling than
the ingratitude of daughters who have cast off their old father and wish that
he were dead, and that is a rivalry between two sisters. Restaud comes of a
good family, his wife has been received into their circle; she has been
presented at court; and her sister, her wealthy sister, Mme. Delphine de
Nucingen, the wife of a great capitalist, is consumed with envy, and ready to
die of spleen. There is gulf set between the sisters--indeed, they are sisters no
longer--the two women who refuse to acknowledge their father do not acknowledge
each other. So Mme. de Nucingen would lap up all the mud that lies between the
Rue Saint-Lazare and the Rue de Grenelle to gain admittance to my salon. She
fancied that she should gain her end through de Marsay; she has made herself de
Marsay’s slave, and she bores him. De Marsay cares very little about her. If
you will introduce her to me, you will be her darling, her Benjamin; she will
idolize you. If, after that, you can love her, do so; if not, make her useful.
I will ask her to come once or twice to one of my great crushes, but I will
never receive her here in the morning. I will bow to her when I see her, and
that will be quite sufficient. You have shut the Comtesse de Restaud’s door
against you by mentioning Father Goriot’s name. Yes, my good friend, you may
call at her house twenty times, and every time out of the twenty you will find
that she is not at home. The servants have their orders, and will not admit
you. Very well, then, now let Father Goriot gain the right of entry into her
sister’s house for you. The beautiful Mme. de Nucingen will give the signal for
a battle. As soon as she singles you out, other women will begin to lose their
heads about you, and her enemies and rivals and intimate friends will all try
to take you from her. There are women who will fall in love with a man because
another woman has chosen him; like the city madams, poor things, who copy our
millinery, and hope thereby to acquire our manners. You will have a success,
and in Paris success is everything; it is the key of power. If the women credit
you with wit and talent, the men will follow suit so long as you do not
undeceive them yourself. There will be nothing you may not aspire to; you will
go everywhere, and you will find out what the world is--an assemblage of fools
and knaves. But you must be neither the one nor the other. I am giving you my
name like Ariadne’s clue of thread to take with you into the labyrinth; make no
unworthy use of it," she said, with a queenly glance and curve of her
throat; "give it back to me unsullied. And now, go; leave me. We women
also have our battles to fight."
"And if you should
ever need some one who would gladly set a match to a train for you----"
"Well?" she
asked.
He tapped his heart,
smiled in answer to his cousin’s smile, and went.
It was five o’clock,
and Eugène was hungry; he was afraid lest he should not be in time for dinner,
a misgiving which made him feel that it was pleasant to be borne so quickly
across Paris. This sensation of physical comfort left his mind free to grapple
with the thoughts that assailed him. A mortification usually sends a young man
of his age into a furious rage; he shakes his fist at society, and vows
vengeance when his belief in himself is shaken. Just then Rastignac was
overwhelmed by the words, "You have shut the Countess’ door against
you."
"I shall
call!" he said to himself, "and if Mme. de Beauseant is right, if I
never find her at home--I . . . well, Mme. de Restaud shall meet me in every
salon in Paris. I will learn to fence and have some pistol practice, and kill
that Maxime of hers!"
"And money?"
cried an inward monitor. "How about money, where is that to come
from?" And all at once the wealth displayed in the Countess de Restaud’s
drawing-room rose before his eyes. That was the luxury which Goriot’s daughter
had loved too well, the gilding, the ostentatious splendor, the unintelligent
luxury of the parvenu, the riotous extravagance of a courtesan. Then the attractive
vision suddenly went under an eclipse as he remembered the stately grandeur of
the Hotel de Beauseant. As his fancy wandered among these lofty regions in the
great world of Paris, innumerable dark thoughts gathered in his heart; his
ideas widened, and his conscience grew more elastic. He saw the world as it is;
saw how the rich lived beyond the jurisdiction of law and public opinion, and
found in success the ultima ratio mundi.
"Vautrin is right,
success is virtue!" he said to himself.
Arrived in the Rue
Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he rushed up to his room for ten francs wherewith to
satisfy the demands of the cabman, and went in to dinner. He glanced round the
squalid room, saw the eighteen poverty-stricken creatures about to feed like
cattle in their stalls, and the sight filled him with loathing. The transition
was too sudden, and the contrast was so violent that it could not but act as a
powerful stimulant; his ambition developed and grew beyond all social bounds.
On the one hand, he beheld a vision of social life in its most charming and
refined forms, of quick-pulsed youth, of fair, impassioned faces invested with
all the charm of poetry, framed in a marvelous setting of luxury or art; and,
on the other hand, he saw a sombre picture, the miry verge beyond these faces,
in which passion was extinct and nothing was left of the drama but the cords
and pulleys and bare mechanism. Mme. de Beauseant’s counsels, the words uttered
in anger by the forsaken lady, her petulant offer, came to his mind, and poverty
was a ready expositor. Rastignac determined to open two parallel trenches so as
to insure success; he would be a learned doctor of law and a man of fashion.
Clearly he was still a child! Those two lines are asymptotes, and will never
meet.
"You are very
dull, my lord Marquis," said Vautrin, with one of the shrewd glances that
seem to read the innermost secrets of another mind.
"I am not in the
humor to stand jokes from people who call me ’my lord Marquis,’ " answered
Eugène. "A marquis here in Paris, if he is not the veriest sham, ought to
have a hundred thousand livres a year at least; and a lodger in the Maison
Vauquer is not exactly Fortune’s favorite."
Vautrin’s glance at
Rastignac was half-paternal, half-contemptuous. "Puppy!" it seemed to
say; "I should make one mouthful of him!" Then he answered:
"You are in a bad
humor; perhaps your visit to the beautiful Comtesse de Restaud was not a
success."
"She has shut her
door against me because I told her that her father dined at our table," cried
Rastignac.
Glances were exchanged
all round the room; Father Goriot looked down.
"You have sent
some snuff into my eye," he said to his neighbor, turning a little aside
to rub his hand over his face.
"Any one who
molests Father Goriot will have henceforward to reckon with me," said Eugène,
looking at the old man’s neighbor; "he is worth all the rest of us put
together.--I am not speaking of the ladies," he added, turning in the
direction of Mlle. Taillefer.
Eugène’s remarks
produced a sensation, and his tone silenced the dinner-table. Vautrin alone
spoke. "If you are going to champion Father Goriot, and set up for his
responsible editor into the bargain, you had need be a crack shot and know how
to handle the foils," he said, banteringly.
"So I
intend," said Eugène.
"Then you are
taking the field today?"
"Perhaps,"
Rastignac answered. "But I owe no account of myself to any one, especially
as I do not try to find out what other people do of a night."
Vautrin looked askance
at Rastignac.
"If you do not
mean to be deceived by the puppets, my boy, you must go behind and see the
whole show, and not peep through holes in the curtain. That is enough," he
added, seeing that Eugène was about to fly into a passion. "We can have a
little talk whenever you like."
There was a general
feeling of gloom and constraint. Father Goriot was so deeply dejected by the
student’s remark that he did not notice the change in the disposition of his
fellow-lodgers, nor know that he had met with a champion capable of putting an
end to the persecution.
"Then, M. Goriot
sitting there is the father of a countess," said Mme. Vauquer in a low
voice.
"And of a
baroness," answered Rastignac.
"That is about all
he is capable of," said Bianchon to Rastignac; "I have taken a look
at his head; there is only one bump--the bump of Paternity; he must be an
eternal father."
Eugène was too intent
on his thoughts to laugh at Bianchon’s joke. He determined to profit by Mme. de
Beauseant’s counsels, and was asking himself how he could obtain the necessary
money. He grew grave. The wide savannas of the world stretched before his eyes;
all things lay before him, nothing was his. Dinner came to an end, the others
went, and he was left in the dining-room.
"So you have seen
my daughter?" Goriot spoke tremulously, and the sound of his voice broke
in upon Eugène’s dreams. The young man took the elder’s hand, and looked at him
with something like kindness in his eyes.
"You are a good
and noble man," he said. "We will have some talk about your daughters
by and by."
He rose without waiting
for Goriot’s answer, and went to his room. There he wrote the following letter
to his mother:--
"MY DEAR
MOTHER,--Can you nourish your child from your breast again? I am in a position
to make a rapid fortune, but I want twelve hundred francs--I must have them at
all costs. Say nothing about this to my father; perhaps he might make
objections, and unless I have the money, I may be led to put an end to myself,
and so escape the clutches of despair. I will tell you everything when I see
you. I will not begin to try to describe my present situation; it would take
volumes to put the whole story clearly and fully. I have not been gambling, my
kind mother, I owe no one a penny; but if you would preserve the life that you
gave me, you must send me the sum I mention. As a matter of fact, I go to see
the Vicomtesse de Beauseant; she is using her influence for me; I am obliged to
go into society, and I have not a penny to lay out on clean gloves. I can
manage to exist on bread and water, or go without food, if need be, but I
cannot do without the tools with which they cultivate the vineyards in this
country. I must resolutely make up my mind at once to make my way, or stick in
the mire for the rest of my days. I know that all your hopes are set on me, and
I want to realize them quickly. Sell some of your old jewelry, my kind mother;
I will give you other jewels very soon. I know enough of our affairs at home to
know all that such a sacrifice means, and you must not think that I would
lightly ask you to make it; I should be a monster if I could. You must think of
my entreaty as a cry forced from me by imperative necessity. Our whole future lies
in the subsidy with which I must begin my first campaign, for life in Paris is
one continual battle. If you cannot otherwise procure the whole of the money,
and are forced to sell our aunt’s lace, tell her that I will send her some
still handsomer," and so forth.
He wrote to ask each of
his sisters for their savings--would they despoil themselves for him, and keep
the sacrifice a secret from the family? To his request he knew that they would
not fail to respond gladly, and he added to it an appeal to their delicacy by
touching the chord of honor that vibrates so loudly in young and high-strung
natures.
Yet when he had written
the letters, he could not help feeling misgivings in spite of his youthful
ambition; his heart beat fast, and he trembled. He knew the spotless nobleness
of the lives buried away in the lonely manor house; he knew what trouble and
what joy his request would cause his sisters, and how happy they would be as
they talked at the bottom of the orchard of that dear brother of theirs in
Paris. Visions rose before his eyes; a sudden strong light revealed his sisters
secretly counting over their little store, devising some girlish stratagem by
which the money could be sent to him incognito, essaying, for the first time in
their lives, a piece of deceit that reached the sublime in its unselfishness.
"A sister’s heart
is a diamond for purity, a deep sea of tenderness!" he said to himself. He
felt ashamed of those letters.
What power there must
be in the petitions put up by such hearts; how pure the fervor that bears their
souls to Heaven in prayer! What exquisite joy they would find in
self-sacrifice! What a pang for his mother’s heart if she could not send him
all that he asked for! And this noble affection, these sacrifices made at such
terrible cost, were to serve as the ladder by which he meant to climb to
Delphine de Nucingen. A few tears, like the last grains of incense flung upon
the sacred alter fire of the hearth, fell from his eyes. He walked up and down,
and despair mingled with his emotion. Father Goriot saw him through the
half-open door.
"What is the
matter, sir?" he asked from the threshold.
"Ah! my good
neighbor, I am as much a son and brother as you are a father. You do well to
fear for the Comtesse Anastasie; there is one M. Maxime de Trailles, who will
be her ruin."
Father Goriot withdrew,
stammering some words, but Eugène failed to catch their meaning.
The next morning
Rastignac went out to post his letters. Up to the last moment he wavered and
doubted, but he ended by flinging them into the box. "I shall
succeed!" he said to himself. So says the gambler; so says the great
captain; but the three words that have been the salvation of some few, have
been the ruin of many more.
A few days after this
Eugène called at Mme. de Restaud’s house; she was not at home. Three times he
tried the experiment, and three times he found her doors closed against him,
though he was careful to choose an hour when M. de Trailles was not there. The
Vicomtesse was right.
The student studied no
longer. He put in an appearance at lectures simply to answer to his name, and
after thus attesting his presence, departed forthwith. He had been through a
reasoning process familiar to most students. He had seen the advisability of
deferring his studies to the last moment before going up for his examinations;
he made up his mind to cram his second and third years’ work into the third
year, when he meant to begin to work in earnest, and to complete his studies in
law with one great effort. In the meantime he had fifteen months in which to
navigate the ocean of Paris, to spread the nets and set the lines that would
bring him a protectress and a fortune. Twice during that week he saw Mme. de
Beauseant; he did not go to her house until he had seen the Marquis d’Ajuda
drive away.
Victory for yet a few
more days was with the great lady, the most poetic figure in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain; and the marriage of the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto with Mlle. de
Rochefide was postponed. The dread of losing her happiness filled those days
with a fever of joy unknown before, but the end was only so much the nearer.
The Marquis d’Ajuda and the Rochefides agreed that this quarrel and
reconciliation was a very fortunate thing; Mme. de Beauseant (so they hoped)
would gradually become reconciled to the idea of the marriage, and in the end
would be brought to sacrifice d’Ajuda’s morning visits to the exigencies of a
man’s career, exigencies which she must have foreseen. In spite of the most
solemn promises, daily renewed, M. d’Ajuda was playing a part, and the
Vicomtesse was eager to be deceived. "Instead of taking a leap heroically
from the window, she is falling headlong down the staircase," said her
most intimate friend, the Duchesse de Langeais. Yet this after-glow of happiness
lasted long enough for the Vicomtesse to be of service to her young cousin. She
had a half- superstitious affection for him. Eugène had shown her sympathy and
devotion at a crisis when a woman sees no pity, no real comfort in any eyes;
when if a man is ready with soothing flatteries, it is because he has an
interested motive.
Rastignac made up his
mind that he must learn the whole of Goriot’s previous history; he would come
to his bearings before attempting to board the Maison de Nucingen. The results
of his inquiries may be given briefly as follows:--
In the days before the
Revolution, Jean-Joachim Goriot was simply a workman in the employ of a
vermicelli maker. He was a skilful, thrifty workman, sufficiently enterprising
to buy his master’s business when the latter fell a chance victim to the
disturbances of 1789. Goriot established himself in the Rue de la Jussienne,
close to the Corn Exchange. His plain good sense led him to accept the position
of President of the Section, so as to secure for his business the protection of
those in power at that dangerous epoch. This prudent step had led to success;
the foundations of his fortune were laid in the time of the Scarcity (real or
artificial), when the price of grain of all kinds rose enormously in Paris.
People used to fight for bread at the bakers’ doors; while other persons went
to the grocers’ shops and bought Italian paste foods without brawling over it.
It was during this year that Goriot made the money, which, at a later time, was
to give him all the advantage of the great capitalist over the small buyer; he
had, moreover, the usual luck of average ability; his mediocrity was the
salvation of him. He excited no one’s envy, it was not even suspected that he
was rich till the peril of being rich was over, and all his intelligence was
concentrated, not on political, but on commercial speculations. Goriot was an
authority second to none on all questions relating to corn, flour, and
"middlings"; and the production, storage, and quality of grain. He
could estimate the yield of the harvest, and foresee market prices; he bought
his cereals in Sicily, and imported Russian wheat. Any one who had heard him
hold forth on the regulations that control the importation and exportation of
grain, who had seen his grasp of the subject, his clear insight into the
principles involved, his appreciation of weak points in the way that the system
worked, would have thought that here was the stuff of which a minister is made.
Patient, active, and persevering, energetic and prompt in action, he surveyed
his business horizon with an eagle eye. Nothing there took him by surprise; he
foresaw all things, knew all that was happening, and kept his own counsel; he
was a diplomatist in his quick comprehension of a situation; and in the routine
of business he was as patient and plodding as a soldier on the march. But
beyond this business horizon he could not see. He used to spend his hours of
leisure on the threshold of his shop, leaning against the framework of the
door. Take him from his dark little counting-house, and he became once more the
rough, slow-witted workman, a man who cannot understand a piece of reasoning,
who is indifferent to all intellectual pleasures, and falls asleep at the play,
a Parisian Dolibom in short, against whose stupidity other minds are powerless.
Natures of this kind
are nearly all alike; in almost all of them you will find some hidden depth of
sublime affection. Two all-absorbing affections filled the vermicelli maker’s
heart to the exclusion of every other feeling; into them he seemed to put all
the forces of his nature, as he put the whole power of his brain into the corn
trade. He had regarded his wife, the only daughter of a rich farmer of La Brie,
with a devout admiration; his love for her had been boundless. Goriot had felt
the charm of a lovely and sensitive nature, which, in its delicate strength,
was the very opposite of his own. Is there any instinct more deeply implanted
in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a protection which is constantly
exerted for a fragile and defenceless creature? Join love thereto, the warmth
of gratitude that all generous souls feel for the source of their pleasures,
and you have the explanation of many strange incongruities in human nature.
After seven years of
unclouded happiness, Goriot lost his wife. It was very unfortunate for him. She
was beginning to gain an ascendency over him in other ways; possibly she might
have brought that barren soil under cultivation, she might have widened his
ideas and given other directions to his thoughts. But when she was dead, the
instinct of fatherhood developed in him till it almost became a mania. All the
affection balked by death seemed to turn to his daughters, and he found full
satisfaction for his heart in loving them. More or less brilliant proposals
were made to him from time to time; wealthy merchants or farmers with daughters
vied with each other in offering inducements to him to marry again; but he
determined to remain a widower. His father-in-law, the only man for whom he
felt a decided friendship, gave out that Goriot had made a vow to be faithful
to his wife’s memory. The frequenters of the Corn Exchange, who could not
comprehend this sublime piece of folly, joked about it among themselves, and
found a ridiculous nickname for him. One of them ventured (after a glass over a
bargain) to call him by it, and a blow from the vermicelli maker’s fist sent
him headlong into a gutter in the Rue Oblin. He could think of nothing else
when his children were concerned; his love for them made him fidgety and
anxious; and this was so well known, that one day a competitor, who wished to
get rid of him to secure the field to himself, told Goriot that Delphine had
just been knocked down by a cab. The vermicelli maker turned ghastly pale, left
the Exchange at once, and did not return for several days afterwards; he was
ill in consequence of the shock and the subsequent relief on discovering that
it was a false alarm. This time, however, the offender did not escape with a
bruised shoulder; at a critical moment in the man’s affairs, Goriot drove him
into bankruptcy, and forced him to disappear from the Corn Exchange.
As might have been
expected, the two girls were spoiled. With an income of sixty thousand francs,
Goriot scarcely spent twelve hundred on himself, and found all his happiness in
satisfying the whims of the two girls. The best masters were engaged, that
Anastasie and Delphine might be endowed with all the accomplishments which
distinguish a good education. They had a chaperon--luckily for them, she was a
woman who had good sense and good taste;--they learned to ride; they had a
carriage for their use; they lived as the mistress of a rich old lord might
live; they had only to express a wish, their father would hasten to give them
their most extravagant desires, and asked nothing of them in return but a kiss.
Goriot had raised the two girls to the level of the angels; and, quite
naturally, he himself was left beneath them. Poor man! he loved them even for
the pain that they gave him.
When the girls were old
enough to be married, they were left free to choose for themselves. Each had
half her father’s fortune as her dowry; and when the Comte de Restaud came to
woo Anastasie for her beauty, her social aspirations led her to leave her
father’s house for a more exalted sphere. Delphine wished for money; she
married Nucingen, a banker of German extraction, who became a Baron of the Holy
Roman Empire. Goriot remained a vermicelli maker as before. His daughters and
his sons-in-law began to demur; they did not like to see him still engaged in
trade, though his whole life was bound up with his business. For five years he
stood out against their entreaties, then he yielded, and consented to retire on
the amount realized by the sale of his business and the savings of the last few
years. It was this capital that Mme. Vauquer, in the early days of his
residence with her, had calculated would bring in eight or ten thousand livres
in a year. He had taken refuge in her lodging-house, driven there by despair
when he knew that his daughters were compelled by their husbands not only to
refuse to receive him as an inmate in their houses, but even to see him no more
except in private.
This was all the
information which Rastignac gained from a M. Muret who had purchased Goriot’s
business, information which confirmed the Duchesse de Langeais’ suppositions,
and herewith the preliminary explanation of this obscure but terrible Parisian
tragedy comes to an end.
Towards the end of the
first week in December Rastignac received two letters--one from his mother, and
one from his eldest sister. His heart beat fast, half with happiness, half with
fear, at the sight of the familiar handwriting. Those two little scraps of
paper contained life or death for his hopes. But while he felt a shiver of
dread as he remembered their dire poverty at home, he knew their love for him
so well that he could not help fearing that he was draining their very
life-blood. His mother’s letter ran as follows:--
"My Dear Child,--I
am sending you the money that you asked for. Make a good use of it. Even to
save your life I could not raise so large a sum a second time without your
father’s knowledge, and there would be trouble about it. We should be obliged
to mortgage the land. It is impossible to judge of the merits of schemes of
which I am ignorant; but what sort of schemes can they be, that you should fear
to tell me about them? Volumes of explanation would not have been needed; we
mothers can understand at a word, and that word would have spared me the
anguish of uncertainty. I do not know how to hide the painful impression that
your letter has made upon me, my dear son. What can you have felt when you were
moved to send this chill of dread through my heart? It must have been very painful
to you to write the letter that gave me so much pain as I read it. To what
courses are you committed? You are going to appear to be something that you are
not, and your whole life and success depends upon this? You are about to see a
society into which you cannot enter without rushing into expense that you
cannot afford, without losing precious time that is needed for your studies.
Ah! my dear Eugène, believe your mother, crooked ways cannot lead to great
ends. Patience and endurance are the two qualities most needed in your
position. I am not scolding you; I do not want any tinge of bitterness to spoil
our offering. I am only talking like a mother whose trust in you is as great as
her foresight for you. You know the steps that you must take, and I, for my
part, know the purity of heart, and how good your intentions are; so I can say
to you without a doubt, ’Go forward, beloved!’ If I tremble, it is because I am
a mother, but my prayers and blessings will be with you at every step. Be very
careful, dear boy. You must have a man’s prudence, for it lies with you to
shape the destinies of five others who are dear to you, and must look to you.
Yes, our fortunes depend upon you, and your success is ours. We all pray to God
to be with you in all that you do. Your aunt Marcillac has been most generous
beyond words in this matter; she saw at once how it was, even down to your
gloves. ’But I have a weakness for the eldest!’ she said gaily. You must love
your aunt very much, dear Eugène. I shall wait till you have succeeded before
telling you all that she has done for you, or her money would burn your
fingers. You, who are young, do not know what it is to part with something that
is a piece of your past! But what would we not sacrifice for your sakes? Your
aunt says that I am to send you a kiss on the forehead from her, and that kiss
is to bring you luck again and again, she says. She would have written you
herself, the dear kind-hearted woman, but she is troubled with the gout in her
fingers just now. Your father is very well. The vintage of 1819 has turned out
better than we expected. Good-bye, dear boy; I will say nothing about your
sisters, because Laure is writing to you, and I must let her have the pleasure
of giving you all the home news. Heaven send that you may succeed! Oh! yes,
dear Eugène, you must succeed. I have come, through you, to a knowledge of a
pain so sharp that I do not think I could endure it a second time. I have come
to know what it is to be poor, and to long for money for my children’s sake. There,
good-bye! Do not leave us for long without news of you; and here, at the last,
take a kiss from your mother."
By the time Eugène had
finished the letter he was in tears. He thought of Father Goriot crushing his
silver keepsake into a shapeless mass before he sold it to meet his daughter’s
bill of exchange.
"Your mother has
broken up her jewels for you," he said to himself; "your aunt shed
tears over those relics of hers before she sold them for your sake. What right
have you to heap execrations on Anastasie? You have followed her example; you
have selfishly sacrificed others to your own future, and she sacrifices her
father to her lover; and of you two, which is the worse?"
He was ready to
renounce his attempts; he could not bear to take that money. The fires of
remorse burned in his heart, and gave him intolerable pain, the generous secret
remorse which men seldom take into account when they sit in judgment upon their
fellow-men; but perhaps the angels in heaven, beholding it, pardon the criminal
whom our justice condemns. Rastignac opened his sister’s letter; its simplicity
and kindness revived his heart.
"Your letter came
just at the right time, dear brother. Agathe and I had thought of so many
different ways of spending our money, that we did not know what to buy with it;
and now you have come in, and, like the servant who upset all the watches that
belonged to the King of Spain, you have restored harmony; for, really and
truly, we did not know which of all the things we wanted we wanted most, and we
were always quarreling about it, never thinking, dear Eugène, of a way of
spending our money which would satisfy us completely. Agathe jumped for you.
Indeed, we have been like two mad things all day, ’to such a prodigious degree’
(as aunt would say), that mother said, with her severe expression, ’Whatever
can be the matter with you, mesdemoiselles?’ I think if we had been scolded a
little, we should have been still better pleased. A woman ought to be very glad
to suffer for one she loves! I, however, in my inmost soul, was doleful and
cross in the midst of all my joy. I shall make a bad wife, I am afraid, I am too
fond of spending. I had bought two sashes and a nice little stiletto for
piercing eyelet-holes in my stays, trifles that I really did not want, so that
I have less than that slow-coach Agathe, who is so economical, and hoards her
money like a magpie. She had two hundred francs! And I have only one hundred
and fifty! I am nicely punished; I could throw my sash down the well; it will
be painful to me to wear it now. Poor dear, I have robbed you. And Agathe was
so nice about it. She said, ’Let us send the three hundred and fifty francs in
our two names!’ But I could not help telling you everything just as it
happened.
"Do you know how
we managed to keep your commandments? We took our glittering hoard, we went out
for a walk, and when once fairly on the highway we ran all the way to Ruffec,
where we handed over the coin, without more ado, to M. Grimbert of the
Messageries Royales. We came back again like swallows on the wing. ’Don’t you
think that happiness has made us lighter?’ Agathe said. We said all sorts of
things, which I shall not tell you, Monsieur le Parisien, because they were all
about you. Oh, we love you dearly, dear brother; it was all summed up in those
few words. As for keeping the secret, little masqueraders like us are capable
of anything (according to our aunt), even of holding our tongues. Our mother
has been on a mysterious journey to Angouleme, and the aunt went with her, not
without solemn councils, from which we were shut out, and M. le Baron likewise.
They are silent as to the weighty political considerations that prompted their
mission, and conjectures are rife in the State of Rastignac. The Infantas are
embroidering a muslin robe with open-work sprigs for her Majesty the Queen; the
work progresses in the most profound secrecy. There be but two more breadths to
finish. A decree has gone forth that no wall shall be built on the side of
Verteuil, but that a hedge shall be planted instead thereof. Our subjects may
sustain some disappointment of fruit and espaliers, but strangers will enjoy a
fair prospect. Should the heir-presumptive lack pocket- handkerchiefs, be it
known unto him that the dowager Lady of Marcillac, exploring the recesses of
her drawers and boxes (known respectively as Pompeii and Herculaneum), having
brought to light a fair piece of cambric whereof she wotted not, the Princesses
Agathe and Laure place at their brother’s disposal their thread, their needles,
and hands somewhat of the reddest. The two young Princes, Don Henri and Don
Gabriel, retain their fatal habits of stuffing themselves with grape-jelly, of
teasing their sisters, of taking their pleasure by going a-bird-nesting, and of
cutting switches for themselves from the osier-beds, maugre the laws of the
realm. Moreover, they list not to learn naught, wherefore the Papal Nuncio
(called of the commonalty, M. le Cure) threateneth them with excommunication,
since that they neglect the sacred canons of grammatical construction for the
construction of other canon, deadly engines made of the stems of elder.
"Farewell, dear
brother, never did letter carry so many wishes for your success, so much love
fully satisfied. You will have a great deal to tell us when you come home! You
will tell me everything, won’t you? I am the oldest. From something the aunt
let fall, we think you must have had some success.
"Something was
said of a lady, but nothing more was said--
"Of course not, in
our family! Oh, by-the-by, Eugène, would you rather that we made that piece of
cambric into shirts for you instead of pocket-handkerchiefs? If you want some
really nice shirts at once, we ought to lose no time in beginning upon them;
and if the fashion is different now in Paris, send us one for a pattern; we
want more particularly to know about the cuffs. Good- bye! Good-bye! Take my
kiss on the left side of your forehead, on the temple that belongs to me, and
to no one else in the world. I am leaving the other side of the sheet for
Agathe, who has solemnly promised not to read a word that I have written; but,
all the same, I mean to sit by her side while she writes, so as to be quite
sure that she keeps her word.--Your loving sister,
"LAURE DE
RASTIGNAC."
"Yes!" said
Eugène to himself. "Yes! Success at all costs now! Riches could not repay
such devotion as this. I wish I could give them every sort of happiness!
Fifteen hundred and fifty francs," he went on after a pause. "Every
shot must go to the mark! Laure is right. Trust a woman! I have only calico
shirts. Where some one else’s welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as
ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in question, and full of
foresight for me,--she is like a heavenly angel forgiving the strange
incomprehensible sins of earth."
The world lay before
him. His tailor had been summoned and sounded, and had finally surrendered.
When Rastignac met M. de Trailles, he had seen at once how great a part the
tailor plays in a young man’s career; a tailor is either a deadly enemy or a
staunch friend, with an invoice for a bond of friendship; between these two
extremes there is, alack! no middle term. In this representative of his craft
Eugène discovered a man who understood that his was a sort of paternal function
for young men at their entrance into life, who regarded himself as a
stepping-stone between a young man’s present and future. And Rastignac in
gratitude made the man’s fortune by an epigram of a kind in which he excelled
at a later period of his life.
"I have twice
known a pair of trousers turned out by him make a match of twenty thousand
livres a year!"
Fifteen hundred francs,
and as many suits of clothes as he chose to order! At that moment the poor
child of the south felt no more doubts of any kind. The young man went down to
breakfast with the indefinable air which the consciousness of the possession of
money gives to youth. No sooner are the coins slipped into a student’s pocket
than his wealth, in imagination at least, is piled into a fantastic column,
which affords him a moral support. He begins to hold up his head as he walks;
he is conscious that he has a means of bringing his powers to bear on a given
point; he looks you straight in the face; his gestures are quick and decided;
only yesterday he was diffident and shy, any one might have pushed him aside;
to-morrow, he will take the wall of a prime minister. A miracle has been
wrought in him. Nothing is beyond the reach of his ambition, and his ambition
soars at random; he is light-hearted, generous, and enthusiastic; in short, the
fledgling bird has discovered that he has wings. A poor student snatches at every
chance pleasure much as a dog runs all sorts of risks to steal a bone, cracking
it and sucking the marrow as he flies from pursuit; but a young man who can
rattle a few runaway gold coins in his pocket can take his pleasure
deliberately, can taste the whole of the sweets of secure possession; he soars
far above earth; he has forgotten what the word poverty means; all Paris is
his. Those are days when the whole world shines radiant with light, when
everything glows and sparkles before the eyes of youth, days that bring joyous
energy that is never brought into harness, days of debts and of painful fears
that go hand in hand with every delight. Those who do not know the left bank of
the Seine between the Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue des Saints-Peres know nothing
of life.
"Ah! if the women
of Paris but knew," said Rastignac, as he devoured Mme. Vauquer’s stewed
pears (at five for a penny), "they would come here in search of a
lover."
Just then a porter from
the Messageries Royales appeared at the door of the room; they had previously
heard the bell ring as the wicket opened to admit him. The man asked for M. Eugène
de Rastignac, holding out two bags for him to take, and a form of receipt for
his signature. Vautrin’s keen glance cut Eugène like a lash.
"Now you will be
able to pay for those fencing lessons and go to the shooting gallery," he
said.
"Your ship has
come in," said Mme. Vauquer, eyeing the bags.
Mlle. Michonneau did
not dare to look at the money, for fear her eyes should betray her cupidity.
"You have a kind
mother," said Mme. Couture.
"You have a kind
mother, sir," echoed Poiret.
"Yes, mamma has
been drained dry," said Vautrin, "and now you can have your fling, go
into society, and fish for heiresses, and dance with countesses who have peach
blossom in their hair. But take my advice, young man, and don’t neglect your
pistol practice."
Vautrin struck an
attitude, as if he were facing an antagonist. Rastignac, meaning to give the
porter a tip, felt in his pockets and found nothing. Vautrin flung down a franc
piece on the table.
"Your credit is
good," he remarked, eyeing the student, and Rastignac was forced to thank
him, though, since the sharp encounter of wits at dinner that day, after Eugène
came in from calling on Mme. de Beauseant, he had made up his mind that Vautrin
was insufferable. For a week, in fact, they had both kept silence in each other’s
presence, and watched each other. The student tried in vain to account to
himself for this attitude.
An idea, of course,
gains in force by the energy with which it is expressed; it strikes where the
brain sends it, by a law as mathematically exact as the law that determines the
course of a shell from a mortar. The amount of impression it makes is not to be
determined so exactly. Sometimes, in an impressible nature, the idea works
havoc, but there are, no less, natures so robustly protected, that this sort of
projectile falls flat and harmless on skulls of triple brass, as cannon-shot
against solid masonry; then there are flaccid and spongy-fibred natures into
which ideas from without sink like spent bullets into the earthworks of a
redoubt. Rastignac’s head was something of the powder-magazine order; the least
shock sufficed to bring about an explosion. He was too quick, too young, not to
be readily accessible to ideas; and open to that subtle influence of thought
and feeling in others which causes so many strange phenomena that make an
impression upon us of which we are all unconscious at the time. Nothing escaped
his mental vision; he was lynx-eyed; in him the mental powers of perception,
which seem like duplicates of the senses, had the mysterious power of swift
projection that astonishes us in intellects of a high order--slingers who are
quick to detect the weak spot in any armor.
In the past month Eugène’s
good qualities and defects had rapidly developed with his character.
Intercourse with the world and the endeavor to satisfy his growing desires had
brought out his defects. But Rastignac came from the South side of the Loire,
and had the good qualities of his countrymen. He had the impetuous courage of
the South, that rushes to the attack of a difficulty, as well as the southern
impatience of delay or suspense. These traits are held to be defects in the
North; they made the fortune of Murat, but they likewise cut short his career.
The moral would appear to be that when the dash and boldness of the South side
of the Loire meets, in a southern temperament, with the guile of the North, the
character is complete, and such a man will gain (and keep) the crown of Sweden.
Rastignac, therefore,
could not stand the fire from Vautrin’s batteries for long without discovering
whether this was a friend or a foe. He felt as if this strange being was
reading his inmost soul, and dissecting his feelings, while Vautrin himself was
so close and secretive that he seemed to have something of the profound and
unmoved serenity of a sphinx, seeing and hearing all things and saying nothing.
Eugène, conscious of that money in his pocket, grew rebellious.
"Be so good as to
wait a moment," he said to Vautrin, as the latter rose, after slowly
emptying his coffee-cup, sip by sip.
"What for?"
inquired the older man, as he put on his large-brimmed hat and took up the
sword-cane that he was wont to twirl like a man who will face three or four
footpads without flinching.
"I will repay you
in a minute," returned Eugène. He unsealed one of the bags as he spoke,
counted out a hundred and forty francs, and pushed them towards Mme. Vauquer.
"Short reckonings make good friends" he added, turning to the widow;
"that clears our accounts till the end of the year. Can you give me change
for a five-franc piece?"
"Good friends make
short reckonings," echoed Poiret, with a glance at Vautrin.
"Here is your
franc," said Rastignac, holding out the coin to the sphinx in the black
wig.
"Any one might
think that you were afraid to owe me a trifle," exclaimed this latter,
with a searching glance that seemed to read the young man’s inmost thoughts;
there was a satirical and cynical smile on Vautrin’s face such as Eugène had
seen scores of times already; every time he saw it, it exasperated him almost
beyond endurance.
"Well . . . so I
am," he answered. He held both the bags in his hand, and had risen to go
up to his room.
Vautrin made as if he
were going out through the sitting-room, and the student turned to go through
the second door that opened into the square lobby at the foot of the staircase.
"Do you know,
Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignacorama, that what you were saying just now was
not exactly polite?" Vautrin remarked, as he rattled his sword-cane across
the panels of the sitting-room door, and came up to the student.
Rastignac looked coolly
at Vautrin, drew him to the foot of the staircase, and shut the dining-room
door. They were standing in the little square lobby between the kitchen and the
dining-room; the place was lighted by an iron-barred fanlight above a door that
gave access into the garden. Sylvie came out of her kitchen, and Eugène chose
that moment to say:
"Monsieur Vautrin,
I am not a marquis, and my name is not Rastignacorama."
"They will
fight," said Mlle. Michonneau, in an indifferent tone.
"Fight!"
echoed Poiret.
"Not they,"
replied Mme. Vauquer, lovingly fingering her pile of coins.
"But there they
are under the lime-trees," cried Mlle. Victorine, who had risen so that
she might see out into the garden. "Poor young man! he was in the right,
after all."
"We must go
upstairs, my pet," said Mme. Couture; "it is no business of
ours."
At the door, however,
Mme. Couture and Victorine found their progress barred by the portly form of
Sylvie the cook.
"What ever can
have happened?" she said. "M. Vautrin said to M. Eugène, ’Let us have
an explanation!’ then he took him by the arm, and there they are, out among the
artichokes."
Vautrin came in while
she was speaking. "Mamma Vauquer," he said smiling, "don’t
frighten yourself at all. I am only going to try my pistols under the
lime-trees."
"Oh!
monsieur," cried Victorine, clasping her hands as she spoke, "why do
you want to kill M. Eugène?"
Vautrin stepped back a
pace or two, and gazed at Victorine.
"Oh! this is
something fresh!" he exclaimed in a bantering tone, that brought the color
into the poor girl’s face. "That young fellow yonder is very nice, isn’t
he?" he went on. "You have given me a notion, my pretty child; I will
make you both happy."
Mme. Couture laid her
hand on the arm of her ward, and drew the girl away, as she said in her ear:
"Why, Victorine, I
cannot imagine what has come over you this morning."
"I don’t want any
shots fired in my garden," said Mme. Vauquer. "You will frighten the
neighborhood and bring the police up here all in a moment."
"Come, keep cool,
Mamma Vauquer," answered Vautrin. "There, there; it’s all right; we
will go to the shooting-gallery."
He went back to
Rastignac, laying his hand familiarly on the young man’s arm.
"When I have given
you ocular demonstration of the fact that I can put a bullet through the ace on
a card five times running at thirty-five paces," he said, "that won’t
take away your appetite, I suppose? You look to me to be inclined to be a
trifle quarrelsome this morning, and as if you would rush on your death like a
blockhead."
"Do you draw
back?" asked Eugène.
"Don’t try to
raise my temperature," answered Vautrin, "it is not cold this
morning. Let us go and sit over there," he added, pointing to the
green-painted garden seats; "no one can overhear us. I want a little talk
with you. You are not a bad sort of youngster, and I have no quarrel with you.
I like you, take Trump--(confound it!)--take Vautrin’s word for it. What makes
me like you? I will tell you by-and- by. Meantime, I can tell you that I know
you as well as if I had made you myself, as I will prove to you in a minute.
Put down your bags," he continued, pointing to the round table.
Rastignac deposited his
money on the table, and sat down. He was consumed with curiosity, which the
sudden change in the manner of the man before him had excited to the highest
pitch. Here was a strange being who, a moment ago, had talked of killing him,
and now posed as his protector.
"You would like to
know who I really am, what I was, and what I do now," Vautrin went on.
"You want to know too much, youngster. Come! come! keep cool! You will
hear more astonishing things than that. I have had my misfortunes. Just hear me
out first, and you shall have your turn afterwards. Here is my past in three
words. Who am I? Vautrin. What do I do? Just what I please. Let us change the
subject. You want to know my character. I am good-natured to those who do me a
good turn, or to those whose hearts speak to mine. These last may do anything
they like with me; they may bruise my shins, and I shall not tell them to ’mind
what they are about’; but, nom d’une pipe, the devil himself is not an uglier
customer than I can be if people annoy me, or if I don’t happen to take to
them; and you may just as well know at once that I think no more of killing a
man than of that," and he spat before him as he spoke. "Only when it
is absolutely necessary to do so, I do my best to kill him properly.
" I am what you
call an artist. I have read Benvenuto Cellini’s Memoirs, such as you see me;
and, what is more, in Italian: A fine-spirited fellow he was! From him I learned
to follow the example set us by Providence, who strikes us down at random, and
to admire the beautiful whenever and wherever it is found. And, setting other
questions aside, is it not a glorious part to play, when you pit yourself
against mankind, and the luck is on your side? I have thought a good deal about
the constitution of your present socialdisorder. A duel is downright childish,
my boy! utter nonsense and folly! When one of two living men must be got out of
the way, none but an idiot would leave chance to decide which it is to be; and
in a duel it is a toss-up--heads or tails--and there you are! Now I, for
instance, can hit the ace in the middle of a card five times running, send one
bullet after another through the same hole, and at thirty-five paces, moreover!
With that little accomplishment you might think yourself certain of killing
your man, mightn’t you. Well, I have fired, at twenty paces, and missed, and
the rogue who had never handled a pistol in his life--look here!"--(he
unbuttoned his waistcoat and exposed his chest, covered, like a bear’s back,
with a shaggy fell; the student gave a startled shudder)--"he was a raw
lad, but he made his mark on me," the extraordinary man went on, drawing
Rastignac’s fingers over a deep scar on his breast. But that happened when I
myself was a mere boy; I was one-and-twenty then (your age), and I had some
beliefs left--in a woman’s love, and in a pack of rubbish that you will be over
head and ears in directly. You and I were to have fought just now, weren’t we?
You might have killed me. Suppose that I were put under the earth, where would
you be? You would have to clear out of this, go to Switzerland, draw on papa’s
purse-- and he has none too much in it as it is. I mean to open your eyes to
your real position, that is what I am going to do: but I shall do it from the
point of view of a man who, after studying the world very closely, sees that
there are but two alternatives--stupid obedience or revolt. I obey nobody; is
that clear? Now, do you know how much you will want at the pace you are going?
A million; and promptly, too, or that little head of ours will be swaying to
and fro in the drag-nets at Saint-Cloud, while we are gone to find out whether
or no there is a Supreme Being. I will put you in the way of that
million."
He stopped for a moment
and looked at Eugène.
"Aha! you do not
look so sourly at papa Vautrin now! At the mention of the million you look like
a young girl when somebody has said, ’I will come for you this evening!’ and
she betakes herself to her toilette as a cat licks its whiskers over a saucer
of milk. All right. Come, now, let us go into the question, young man; all
between ourselves, you know. We have a papa and mamma down yonder, a
great-aunt, two sisters (aged eighteen and seventeen), two young brothers (one
fifteen, and the other ten), that is about the roll-call of the crew. The aunt
brings up the two sisters; the curé comes and teaches the boys Latin. Boiled
chestnuts are oftener on the table than white bread. Papa makes a suit of
clothes last a long while; if mamma has a different dress winter and summer, it
is about as much as she has; the sisters manage as best they can. I know all
about it; I have lived in the South.
"That is how
things are at home. They send you twelve hundred francs a year, and the whole
property only brings in three thousand francs all told. We have a cook and a
manservant; papa is a baron, and we must keep up appearances. Then we have our
ambitions; we are connected with the Beauseants, and we go afoot through the
streets; we want to be rich, and we have not a penny; we eat Mme. Vauquer’s
messes, and we like grand dinners in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; we sleep on a
truckle-bed, and dream of a mansion! I do not blame you for wanting these
things. What sort of men do the women run after? Men of ambition. Men of
ambition have stronger frames, their blood is richer in iron, their hearts are
warmer than those of ordinary men. Women feel that when their power is
greatest, they look their best, and that those are their happiest hours; they
like power in men, and prefer the strongest even if it is a power that may be
their own destruction. I am going to make an inventory of your desires in order
to put the question at issue before you. Here it is:--
"We are as hungry
as a wolf, and those newly-cut teeth of ours are sharp; what are we to do to
keep the pot boiling? In the first place, we have the Code to browse upon; it
is not amusing, and we are none the wiser for it, but that cannot be helped. So
far so good. We mean to make an advocate of ourselves with a prospect of one
day being made President of a Court of Assize, when we shall send poor devils,
our betters, to the galleys with a T.F.[travaux forcés] on their shoulders, so
that the rich may be convinced that they can sleep in peace. There is no fun in
that; and you are a long while coming to it; for, to begin with, there are two
years of nauseous drudgery in Paris, we see all the lollipops that we long for
out of our reach. It is tiresome to want things and never to have them. If you
were a pallid creature of the mollusk order, you would have nothing to fear,
but it is different when you have the hot blood of a lion and are ready to get
into a score of scrapes every day of your life. This is the ghastliest form of
torture known in this inferno of God’s making, and you will give in to it. Or
suppose that you are a good boy, drink nothing stronger than milk, and bemoan
your hard lot; you, with your generous nature, will endure hardships that would
drive a dog mad, and make a start, after long waiting, as deputy to some rascal
or other in a hole of a place where the Government will fling you a thousand
francs a year like the scraps that are thrown to the butcher’s dog. Bark at
thieves, plead the cause of the rich, send men of heart to the guillotine, that
is your work! Many thanks! If you have no influence, you may rot in your
provincial tribunal. At thirty you will be a Justice with twelve hundred francs
a year (if you have not flung off the gown for good before then). By the time
you are forty you may look to marry a miller’s daughter, an heiress with some
six thousand livres a year. Much obliged! If you have influence, you may
possibly be a Public Prosecutor by the time you are thirty; with a salary of a
thousand crowns, you could look to marry the mayor’s daughter. Some petty piece
of political trickery, such as mistaking Villele for Manuel in a bulletin (the
names rhyme, and that quiets your conscience), and you will probably be a Procureur
General by the time you are forty, with a chance of becoming a deputy. Please
to observe, my dear boy, that our conscience will have been a little damaged in
the process, and that we shall endure twenty years of drudgery and hidden
poverty, and that our sisters are wearing Dian’s livery. I have the honor to
call your attention to another fact, to wit: that there are but twenty
Procureurs Generaux at a time in all France, while there are some twenty
thousand of you young men who aspire to that elevated position; that there are
some mountebanks among you who would sell their family to screw their fortunes
a peg higher. If this sort of thing sickens you, try another course.
The Baron de Rastignac
thinks of becoming an advocate, does he? There’s a nice prospect for you! Ten
years of drudgery straight away. You are obliged to live at the rate of a
thousand francs a month; you must have a library of law books, live in
chambers, go into society, go down on your knees to ask a solicitor for briefs,
lick the dust off the floor of the Palais de Justice. If this kind of business
led to anything, I should not say no; but just give me the names of five
advocates here in Paris who by the time that they are fifty are making fifty
thousand francs a year! Bah! I would sooner turn pirate on the high seas than
have my soul shrivel up inside me like that. How will you find the capital?
There is but one way, marry a woman who has money. There is no fun in it. Have
you a mind to marry? You hang a stone around your neck; for if you marry for
money, what becomes of our exalted notions of honor and so forth? You might as
well fly in the face of social conventions at once. Is it nothing to crawl like
a serpent before your wife, to lick her mother’s feet, to descend to dirty actions
that would sicken swine--faugh!--never mind if you at least make your fortune.
But you will be as doleful as a dripstone if you marry for money. It is better
to wrestle with men than to wrangle at home with your wife. You are at the
crossway of the roads of life, my boy; choose your way.
"But you have
chosen already. You have gone to see your cousin of Beauseant, and you have had
an inkling of luxury; you have been to Mme. de Restaud’s house, and in Father
Goriot’s daughter you have seen a glimpse of the Parisienne for the first time.
That day you came back with a word written on your forehead. I knew it, I could
read it-- ’Success!’ Yes, success at any price. ’Bravo,’ said I to myself, ’here
is the sort of fellow for me.’ You wanted money. Where was it all to come from?
You have drained your sisters’ little hoard (all brothers sponge more or less
on their sisters). Those fifteen hundred francs of yours (got together, God
knows how! in a country where there are more chestnuts than five-franc pieces)
will slip away like soldiers after pillage. And, then, what will you do? Shall
you begin to work? Work, or what you understand by work at this moment, means,
for a man of Poiret’s calibre, an old age in Mamma Vauquer’s lodging- house.
There are fifty thousand young men in your position at this moment, all bent as
you are on solving one and the same problem--how to acquire a fortune rapidly.
You are but a unit in that aggregate. You can guess, therefore, what efforts
you must make, how desperate the struggle is. There are not fifty thousand good
positions for you; you must fight and devour one another like spiders in a pot.
Do you know how a man makes his way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful
corruption. You must either cut your way through these masses of men like a
cannon ball, or steal among them like a plague. Honesty is nothing to the
purpose. Men bow before the power of genius; they hate it, and try to slander
it, because genius does not divide the spoil; but if genius persists, they bow
before it. To sum it all up in a phrase, if they fail to smother genius in the
mud, they fall on their knees and worship it. Corruption is a great power in
the world, and talent is scarce. So corruption is the weapon of superfluous
mediocrity; you will be made to feel the point of it everywhere. You will see
women who spend more than ten thousand francs a year on dress, while their
husband’s salary (his whole income) is six thousand francs. You will see
officials buying estates on twelve thousand francs a year. You will see women
who sell themselves body and soul to drive in a carriage belonging to the son
of a peer of France, who has a right to drive in the middle rank at Longchamp.
You have seen that poor simpleton of a Goriot obliged to meet a bill with his
daughter’s name at the back of it, though her husband has fifty thousand francs
a year. I defy you to walk a couple of yards anywhere in Paris without
stumbling on some infernal complication. I’ll bet my head to a head of that
salad that you will stir up a hornet’s nest by taking a fancy to the first
young, rich, and pretty woman you meet. They are all dodging the law, all at
loggerheads with their husbands. If I were to begin to tell you all that vanity
or necessity (virtue is not often mixed up in it, you may be sure), all that
vanity and necessity drive them to do for lovers, finery, housekeeping, or
children, I should never come to an end. So an honest man is the common enemy.
"But do you know
what an honest man is? Here, in Paris, an honest man is the man who keeps his
own counsel, and will not divide the plunder. I am not speaking now of those
poor bond-slaves who do the work of the world without a reward for their
toil--God Almighty’s outcasts, I call them. Among them, I grant you, is virtue
in all the flower of its stupidity, but poverty is no less their portion. At
this moment, I think I see the long faces those good folk would pull if God
played a practical joke on them and stayed away at the Last Judgment.
"Well, then, if
you mean to make a fortune quickly, you must either be rich to begin with, or
make people believe that you are rich. It is no use playing here except for
high stakes; once take to low play, it is all up with you. If in the scores of
professions that are open to you, there are ten men who rise very rapidly,
people are sure to call them thieves. You can draw your own conclusions. Such
is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen; it reeks like a kitchen; and if you
mean to cook your dinner, you must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in
getting them clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch. If
I take this tone in speaking of the world to you, I have the right to do so; I
know it well. Do you think that I am blaming it? Far from it; the world has
always been as it is now. Moralists’ strictures will never change it. Mankind
are not perfect, but one age is more or less hypocritical than another, and
then simpletons say that its morality is high or low. I do not think that the
rich are any worse than the poor; man is much the same, high or low, or
wherever he is. In a million of these human cattle there may be half a score of
bold spirits who rise above the rest, above the laws; I am one of them. And
you, if you are cleverer than your fellows, make straight to your end, and hold
your head high. But you must lay your account with envy and slander and
mediocrity, and every man’s hand will be against you. Napoleon met with a
Minister of War, Aubry by name, who all but sent him to the colonies.
"Feel your pulse.
Think whether you can get up morning after morning, strengthened in yesterday’s
purpose. In that case I will make you an offer that no one would decline.
Listen attentively. You see, I have an idea of my own. My idea is to live a
patriarchal life on a vast estate, say a hundred thousand acres, somewhere in
the Southern States of America. I mean to be a planter, to have slaves, to make
a few snug millions by selling my cattle, timber, and tobacco; I want to live
an absolute monarch, and to do just as I please; to lead such a life as no one
here in these squalid dens of lath and plaster ever imagines. I am a great
poet; I do not write my poems, I feel them, and act them. At this moment I have
fifty thousand francs, which might possibly buy forty negroes. I want two
hundred thousand francs, because I want to have two hundred negroes to carry
out my notions of the patriarachal life properly. Negroes, you see, are like a
sort of family ready grown, and there are no inquisitive public prosecutors out
there to interfere with you. That investment in ebony ought to mean three or
four million francs in ten years’ time. If I am successful, no one will ask me
who I am. I shall be Mr. Four Millions, an American citizen. I shall be fifty
years old by then, and sound and hearty still; I shall enjoy life after my own
fashion. In two words, if I find you an heiress with a million, will you give
me two hundred thousand francs? Twenty per cent commission, eh? Is that too
much? Your little wife will be very much in love with you. Once married, you
will show signs of uneasiness and remorse; for a couple of weeks you will be
depressed. Then, some night after sundry grimacings, comes the confession,
between two kisses, ’Two hundred thousand francs of debts, my darling!’ This
sort of farce is played every day in Paris, and by young men of the highest
fashion. When a young wife has given her heart, she will not refuse her purse.
Perhaps you are thinking that you will lose the money for good? Not you. You
will make two hundred thousand francs again by some stroke of business. With
your capital and your brains you should be able to accumulate as large a
fortune as you could wish. Ergo, in six months you will have made your own
fortune, and our old friend Vautrin’s, and made an amiable woman very happy, to
say nothing of your people at home, who must blow on their fingers to warm
them, in the winter, for lack of firewood. You need not be surprised at my
proposal, nor at the demand I make. Forty-seven out of every sixty great
matches here in Paris are made after just such a bargain as this. The Chamber
of Notaries compels my gentleman to----"
"What must I
do?" said Rastignac, eagerly interrupting Vautrin’s speech.
"Next to
nothing," returned the other, with a slight involuntary movement, the
suppressed exultation of the angler when he feels a bite at the end of his
line. "Follow me carefully! The heart of a girl whose life is wretched and
unhappy is a sponge that will thirstily absorb love; a dry sponge that swells
at the first drop of sentiment. If you pay court to a young girl whose
existence is a compound of loneliness, despair, and poverty, and who has no
suspicion that she will come into a fortune, good Lord! it is quint and
quatorze at piquet; it is knowing the numbers of the lottery before-hand; it is
speculating in the funds when you have news from a sure source; it is building
up a marriage on an indestructible foundation. The girl may come in for
millions, and she will fling them, as if they were so many pebbles, at your
feet. ’Take it, my beloved! Take it, Alfred, Adolphe, Eugène!’ or whoever it
was that showed his sense by sacrificing himself for her. And as for
sacrificing himself, this is how I understand it. You sell a coat that is
getting shabby, so that you can take her to the Cadran bleu, treat her to
mushrooms on toast, and then go to the Ambigu-Comique in the evening; you pawn
your watch to buy her a shawl. I need not remind you of the fiddle-faddle
sentimentality that goes down so well with all women; you spill a few drops of
water on your stationery, for instance; those are the tears you shed while far
away from her. You look to me as if you were perfectly acquainted with the
argot of the heart. Paris, you see, is like a forest in the New World, where
you have to deal with a score of varieties of savages--Illinois and Hurons, who
live on the proceed of their social hunting. You are a hunter of millions; you
set your snares; you use lures and nets; there are many ways of hunting. Some
hunt heiresses, others a legacy; some fish for souls, yet others sell their
clients, bound hand and foot. Every one who comes back from the chase with his
game-bag well filled meets with a warm welcome in good society. In justice to
this hospitable part of the world, it must be said that you have to do with the
most easy and good-natured of great cities. If the proud aristocracies of the
rest of Europe refuse admittance among their ranks to a disreputable
millionaire, Paris stretches out a hand to him, goes to his banquets, eats his
dinners, and hobnobs with his infamy."
"But where is such
a girl to be found?" asked Eugène.
"Under your eyes;
she is yours already."
"Mlle.
Victorine?"
"Precisely."
"And what was that
you said?"
"She is in love
with you already, your little Baronne de Rastignac!"
"She has not a
penny," Eugène continued, much mystified.
"Ah! now we are
coming to it! Just another word or two, and it will all be clear enough. Her
father, Taillefer, is an old scoundrel; it is said that he murdered one of his
friends at the time of the Revolution. He is one of your comedians that sets up
to have opinions of his own. He is a banker--senior partner in the house of
Frederic Taillefer and Company. He has one son, and means to leave all he has
to the boy, to the prejudice of Victorine. For my part, I don’t like to see
injustice of this sort. I am like Don Quixote, I have a fancy for defending the
weak against the strong. If it should please God to take that youth away from
him, Taillefer would have only his daughter left; he would want to leave his
money to some one or other; an absurd notion, but it is only human nature, and
he is not likely to have any more children, as I know. Victorine is gentle and
amiable; she will soon twist her father round her fingers, and set his head
spinning like a German top by plying him with sentiment! She will be too much
touched by your devotion to forget you; you will marry her. I mean to play
Providence for you, and Providence is to do my will. I have a friend whom I
have attached closely to myself, a colonel in the Army of the Loire, who has
just been transferred into the garde royale. He has taken my advice and turned
ultra-royalist; he is not one of those fools who never change their opinions.
Of all pieces of advice, my cherub, I would give you this--don’t stick to your
opinions any more than to your words. If any one asks you for them, let him
have them-- at a price. A man who prides himself on going in a straight line
through life is an idiot who believes in infallibility. There are no such
things as principles; there are only events, and there are no laws but those of
expediency: a man of talent accepts events and the circumstances in which he
finds himself, and turns everything to his own ends. If laws and principles
were fixed and invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we
change our shirts. The individual is not obliged to be more particular than the
nation. A man whose services to France have been of the very slightest is a
fetich looked on with superstitious awe because he has always seen everything
in red; but he is good, at the most, to be put into the Museum of Arts and
Crafts, among the automatic machines, and labeled La Fayette; while the prince
at whom everybody flings a stone, the man who despises humanity so much that he
spits as many oaths as he is asked for in the face of humanity, saved France
from being torn in pieces at the Congress of Vienna; and they who should have
given him laurels fling mud at him. Oh! I know something of affairs, I can tell
you; I have the secrets of many men! Enough. When I find three minds in
agreement as to the application of a principle, I shall have a fixed and
immovable opinion--I shall have to wait a long while first. In the Tribunals
you will not find three judges of the same opinion on a single point of law. To
return to the man I was telling you of. He would crucify Jesus Christ again, if
I bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick a quarrel with a
scamp that will not send so much as five francs to his sister, poor girl,
and" (here Vautrin rose to his feet and stood like a fencing-master about
to lunge)--"turn him off into the dark!" he added.
"How
frightful!" said Eugène. "You do not really mean it? M. Vautrin, you
are joking!"
"There! there!
Keep cool!" said the other. "Don’t behave like a baby. But if you
find any amusement in it, be indignant, flare up! Say that I am a scoundrel, a
rascal, a rogue, a bandit; but do not call me a blackleg nor a spy! There, out
with it, fire away! I forgive you; it is quite natural at your age. I was like
that myself once. Only remember this, you will do worse things yourself some
day. You will flirt with some pretty woman and take her money. You have thought
of that, of course," said Vautrin, "for how are you to succeed unless
love is laid under contribution? There are no two ways about virtue, my dear
student; it either is, or it is not. Talk of doing penance for your sins! It is
a nice system of business, when you pay for your crime by an act of contrition!
You seduce a woman that you may set your foot on such and such a rung of the
social ladder; you sow dissension among the children of a family; you descend,
in short, to every base action that can be committed at home or abroad, to gain
your own ends for your own pleasure or your profit; and can you imagine that
these are acts of faith, hope, or charity? How is it that a dandy, who in a
night has robbed a boy of half his fortune, gets only a couple of months in
prison; while a poor devil who steals a banknote for a thousand francs, with
aggravating circumstances, is condemned to penal servitude? Those are your
laws. Not a single provision but lands you in some absurdity. That man with
yellow gloves and a golden tongue commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but
he drains his victim’s veins as surely; a desperado forces open a door with a
crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one of those
things that I suggest to you to-day, bar the bloodshed. Do you believe that
there is any absolute standard in this world? Despise mankind and find out the
meshes that you can slip through in the net of the Code. The secret of a great
success for which you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been
found out, because it was properly executed."
"Silence, sir! I
will not hear any more; you make me doubt myself. At this moment my sentiments
are all my science."
"Just as you
please, my fine fellow; I did think you were so weak- minded," said
Vautrin, "I shall say no more about it. One last word, however," and
he looked hard at the student--"you have my secret," he said.
"A young man who
refuses your offer knows that he must forget it."
"Quite right,
quite right; I am glad to hear you say so. Somebody else might not be so
scrupulous, you see. Keep in mind what I want to do for you. I will give you a
fortnight. The offer is still open."
"What a head of
iron the man has!" said Eugène to himself, as he watched Vautrin walk
unconcernedly away with his cane under his arm. "Yet Mme. de Beauseant
said as much more gracefully; he has only stated the case in cruder language.
He would tear my heart with claws of steel. What made me think of going to Mme.
de Nucingen? He guessed my motives before I knew them myself. To sum it up,
that outlaw has told me more about virtue than all I have learned from men and
books. If virtue admits of no compromises, I have certainly robbed my
sisters," he said, throwing down the bags on the table.
He sat down again and
fell, unconscious of his surroundings, into deep thought.
"To be faithful to
an ideal of virtue! A heroic martyrdom! Pshaw! every one believes in virtue,
but who is virtuous? Nations have made an idol of Liberty, but what nation on
the face of the earth is free? My youth is still like a blue and cloudless sky.
If I set myself to obtain wealth or power, does it mean that I must make up my
mind to lie, and fawn, and cringe, and swagger, and flatter, and dissemble? To
consent to be the servant of others who have likewise fawned, and lied, and
flattered? Must I cringe to them before I can hope to be their accomplice?
Well, then, I decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single heart. I will
work day and night; I will owe my fortune to nothing but my own exertions. It
may be the slowest of all roads to success, but I shall lay my head on the pillow
at night untroubled by evil thoughts. Is there a greater thing than this--to
look back over your life and know that it is stainless as a lily? I and my life
are like a young man and his betrothed. Vautrin has put before me all that
comes after ten years of marriage. The devil! my head is swimming. I do not
want to think at all; the heart is a sure guide."
Eugène was roused from
his musings by the voice of the stout Sylvie, who announced that the tailor had
come, and Eugène therefore made his appearance before the man with the two
money bags, and was not ill pleased that it should be so. When he had tried on
his dress suit, he put on his new morning costume, which completely
metamorphosed him.
"I am quite equal
to M. de Trailles," he said to himself. "In short, I look like a
gentleman."
"You asked me,
sir, if I knew the houses where Mme. de Nucingen goes," Father Goriot’s
voice spoke from the doorway of Eugène’s room."
"Yes."
"Very well then,
she is going to the Marechale Carigliano’s ball on Monday. If you can manage to
be there, I shall hear from you whether my two girls enjoyed themselves, and
how they were dressed, and all about it in fact."
"How did you find
that out, my good Goriot?" said Eugène, putting a chair by the fire for
his visitor.
"Her maid told me.
I hear all about their doings from Therese and Constance," he added
gleefully.
The old man looked like
a lover who is still young enough to be made happy by the discovery of some
little stratagem which brings him information of his lady-love without her
knowledge.
"You will see them
both!" he said, giving artless expression to a pang of jealousy.
"I do not
know," answered Eugène. "I will go to Mme. de Beauseant and ask her
for an introduction to the Marechale."
Eugène felt a thrill of
pleasure at the thought of appearing before the Vicomtesse, dressed as
henceforward he always meant to be. The "abysses of the human heart,"
in the moralists’ phrase, are only insidious thoughts, involuntary promptings
of personal interest. The instinct of enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid
changes of purpose which have furnished the text for so much rhetoric are
calculations prompted by the hope of pleasure. Rastignac beholding himself well
dressed and impeccable as to gloves and boots, forgot his virtuous resolutions.
Youth, moreover, when bent upon wrongdoing does not dare to behold himself in
the mirror of consciousness; mature age has seen itself; and therein lies the
whole difference between these two phases of life.
A friendship between
Eugène and his neighbor, Father Goriot, had been growing up for several days
past. This secret friendship and the antipathy that the student had begun to
entertain for Vautrin arose from the same psychological causes. The bold
philosopher who shall investigate the effects of mental action upon the
physical world will doubtless find more than one proof of the material nature
of our sentiments in other animals. What physiognomist is as quick to discern
character as a dog is to discover from a stranger’s face whether this is a
friend or no? Those by-words--"atoms," "affinities"--are
facts surviving in modern languages for the confusion of philosophic wiseacres
who amuse themselves by winnowing the chaff of language to find its grammatical
roots. We feel that we are loved. Our sentiments make themselves felt in
everything, even at a great distance. A letter is a living soul, and so
faithful an echo of the voice that speaks in it, that finer natures look upon a
letter as one of love’s most precious treasures. Father Goriot’s affection was
of the instinctive order, a canine affection raised to a sublime pitch; he had
scented compassion in the air, and the kindly respect and youthful sympathy in
the student’s heart. This friendship had, however, scarcely reached the stage
at which confidences are made. Though Eugène had spoken of his wish to meet
Mme. de Nucingen, it was not because he counted on the old man to introduce him
to her house, for he hoped that his own audacity might stand him in good stead.
All that Father Goriot had said as yet about his daughters had referred to the
remarks that the student had made so freely in public on that day of the two
visits.
"How could you
think that Mme. de Restaud bore you a grudge for mentioning my name?" he
had said on the day following that scene at dinner. "My daughters are very
fond of me; I am a happy father; but my sons-in-law have behaved badly to me,
and rather than make trouble between my darlings and their husbands, I choose
to see my daughters secretly. Fathers who can see their daughters at any time
have no idea of all the pleasure that all this mystery gives me; I cannot
always see mine when I wish, do you understand? So when it is fine I walk out
in the Champs-Elysees, after finding out from their waiting-maids whether my
daughters mean to go out. I wait near the entrance; my heart beats fast when
the carriages begin to come; I admire them in their dresses, and as they pass
they give me a little smile, and it seems as if everything was lighted up for
me by a ray of bright sunlight. I wait, for they always go back the same way,
and then I see them again; the fresh air has done them good and brought color
into their cheeks; all about me people say, ’What a beautiful woman that is!’
and it does my heart good to hear them.
"Are they not my
own flesh and blood? I love the very horses that draw them; I envy the little
lap-dog on their knees. Their happiness is my life. Every one loves after his
own fashion, and mine does no one any harm; why should people trouble their
heads about me? I am happy in my own way. Is there any law against going to see
my girls in the evening when they are going out to a ball? And what a
disappointment it is when I get there too late, and am told that ’Madame has
gone out!’ Once I waited till three o’clock in the morning for Nasie; I had not
seen her for two whole days. I was so pleased, that it was almost too much for
me! Please do not speak of me unless it is to say how good my daughters are to
me. They are always wanting to heap presents upon me, but I will not have it. ’Just
keep your money,’ I tell them. ’What should I do with it? I want nothing.’ And
what am I, sir, after all? An old carcase, whose soul is always where my
daughters are. When you have seen Mme. de Nucingen, tell me which you like the
most," said the old man after a moment’s pause, while Eugène put the last
touches to his toilette. The student was about to go out to walk in the Garden
of the Tuileries until the hour when he could venture to appear in Mme. de Beauseant’s
drawing-room.
That walk was a
turning-point in Eugène’s career. Several women noticed him; he looked so
handsome, so young, and so well dressed. This almost admiring attention gave a
new turn to his thoughts. He forgot his sisters and the aunt who had robbed
herself for him; he no longer remembered his own virtuous scruples. He had seen
hovering above his head the fiend so easy to mistake for an angel, the Devil
with rainbow wings, who scatters rubies, and aims his golden shafts at palace
fronts, who invests women with purple, and thrones with a glory that dazzles
the eyes of fools till they forget the simple origins of royal dominion; he had
heard the rustle of that Vanity whose tinsel seems to us to be the symbol of
power. However cynical Vautrin’s words had been, they had made an impression on
his mind, as the sordid features of the old crone who whispers, "A lover,
and gold in torrents," remain engraven on a young girl’s memory.
Eugène lounged about
the walks till it was nearly five o’clock, then he went to Mme. de Beauseant,
and received one of the terrible blows against which young hearts are
defenceless. Hitherto the Vicomtesse had received him with the kindly urbanity,
the bland grace of manner that is the result of fine breeding, but is only
complete when it comes from the heart.
Today Mme. de Beauseant
bowed constrainedly, and spoke curtly:
"M. de Rastignac,
I cannot possibly see you, at least not at this moment. I am engaged--"
An observer, and
Rastignac instantly became an observer, could read the whole history, the
character and customs of caste, in the phrase, in the tones of her voice, in
her glance and bearing. He caught a glimpse of the iron hand beneath the velvet
glove--the personality, the egoism beneath the manner, the wood beneath the
varnish. In short, he heard that unmistakable I THE KING that issues from the
plumed canopy of the throne, and finds its last echo under the crest of the
simplest gentleman.
Eugène had trusted too
implicitly to the generosity of a woman; he could not believe in her
haughtiness. Like all the unfortunate, he had subscribed, in all good faith,
the generous compact which should bind the benefactor to the recipient, and the
first article in that bond, between two large-hearted natures, is a perfect
equality. The kindness which knits two souls together is as rare, as divine,
and as little understood as the passion of love, for both love and kindness are
the lavish generosity of noble natures. Rastignac was set upon going to the
Duchesse de Carigliano’s ball, so he swallowed down this rebuff.
"Madame," he
faltered out, "I would not have come to trouble you about a trifling
matter; be so kind as to permit me to see you later, I can wait."
"Very well, come
and dine with me," she said, a little confused by the harsh way in which
she had spoken, for this lady was as genuinely kind-hearted as she was
high-born.
Eugène was touched by
this sudden relenting, but none the less he said to himself as he went away,
"Crawl in the dust, put up with every kind of treatment. What must the
rest of the world be like when one of the kindest of women forgets all her
promises of befriending me in a moment, and tosses me aside like an old shoe?
So it is every one for himself? It is true that her house is not a shop, and I
have put myself in the wrong by needing her help. You should cut your way
through the world like a cannon ball, as Vautrin said."
But the student’s
bitter thoughts were soon dissipated by the pleasure which he promised himself
in this dinner with the Vicomtesse. Fate seemed to determine that the smallest
accidents in his life should combine to urge him into a career, which the
terrible sphinx of the Maison Vauquer had described as a field of battle where
you must either slay or be slain, and cheat to avoid being cheated. You leave
your conscience and your heart at the barriers, and wear a mask on entering
into this game of grim earnest, where, as in ancient Sparta, you must snatch
your prize without being detected if you would deserve the crown.
On his return he found
the Vicomtesse gracious and kindly, as she had always been to him. They went
together to the dining-room, where the Vicomte was waiting for his wife. In the
time of the Restoration the luxury of the table was carried, as is well known,
to the highest degree, and M. de Beauseant, like many jaded men of the world,
had few pleasures left but those of good cheer; in this matter, in fact, he was
a gourmand of the schools of Louis XVIII. and of the Duc d’Escars, and luxury
was supplemented by splendor. Eugène, dining for the first time in a house
where the traditions of grandeur had descended through many generations, had
never seen any spectacle like this that now met his eyes. In the time of the
Empire, balls had always ended with a supper, because the officers who took
part in them must be fortified for immediate service, and even in Paris might
be called upon to leave the ballroom for the battlefield. This arrangement had
gone out of fashion under the Monarchy, and Eugène had so far only been asked
to dances. The self-possession which pre-eminently distinguished him in later
life already stood him in good stead, and he did not betray his amazement. Yet
as he saw for the first time the finely wrought silver plate, the completeness
of every detail, the sumptuous dinner, noiselessly served, it was difficult for
such an ardent imagination not to prefer this life of studied and refined
luxury to the hardships of the life which he had chosen only that morning.
His thoughts went back
for a moment to the lodging-house, and with a feeling of profound loathing, he
vowed to himself that at New Year he would go; prompted at least as much by a
desire to live among cleaner surroundings as by a wish to shake off Vautrin,
whose huge hand he seemed to feel on his shoulder at that moment. When you
consider the numberless forms, clamorous or mute, that corruption takes in
Paris, common-sense begins to wonder what mental aberration prompted the State
to establish great colleges and schools there, and assemble young men in the
capital; how it is that pretty women are respected, or that the gold coin
displayed in the money-changer’s wooden saucers does not take to itself wings
in the twinkling of an eye; and when you come to think further, how
comparatively few cases of crime there are, and to count up the misdemeanors
committed by youth, is there not a certain amount of respect due to these
patient Tantaluses who wrestle with themselves and nearly always come off
victorious? The struggles of the poor student in Paris, if skilfully drawn,
would furnish a most dramatic picture of modern civilization.
In vain Mme. de
Beauseant looked at Eugène as if asking him to speak; the student was
tongue-tied in the Vicomte’s presence.
"Are you going to
take me to the Italiens this evening?" the Vicomtesse asked her husband.
"You cannot doubt
that I should obey you with pleasure," he answered, and there was a
sarcastic tinge in his politeness which Eugène did not detect, "but I
ought to go to meet some one at the Varietes."
"His
mistress," said she to herself.
"Then, is not
Ajuda coming for you this evening?" inquired the Vicomte.
"No," she
answered, petulantly.
"Very well, then,
if you really must have an arm, take that of M. de Rastignac."
The Vicomtess turned to
Eugène with a smile.
"That would be a
very compromising step for you," she said.
" ’A Frenchman
loves danger, because in danger there is glory,’ to quote M. de
Chateaubriand," said Rastignac, with a bow.
A few moments later he
was sitting beside Mme. de Beauseant in a brougham, that whirled them through
the streets of Paris to a fashionable theatre. It seemed to him that some fairy
magic had suddenly transported him into a box facing the stage. All the
lorgnettes of the house were pointed at him as he entered, and at the
Vicomtesse in her charming toilette. He went from enchantment to enchantment.
"You must talk to
me, you know," said Mme. de Beauseant. "Ah! look! There is Mme. de
Nucingen in the third box from ours. Her sister and M. de Trailles are on the
other side."
The Vicomtesse glanced
as she spoke at the box where Mlle. de Rochefide should have been; M. d’Ajuda
was not there, and Mme. de Beauseant’s face lighted up in a marvelous way.
"She is
charming," said Eugène, after looking at Mme. de Nucingen.
"She has white
eyelashes."
"Yes, but she has
such a pretty slender figure!"
"Her hands are
large."
"Such beautiful
eyes!"
"Her face is
long."
"Yes, but length
gives distinction."
"It is lucky for
her that she has some distinction in her face. Just see how she fidgets with
her opera-glass! The Goriot blood shows itself in every movement," said
the Vicomtesse, much to Eugène’s astonishment.
Indeed, Mme. de
Beauseant seemed to be engaged in making a survey of the house, and to be
unconscious of Mme. Nucingen’s existence; but no movement made by the latter
was lost upon the Vicomtesse. The house was full of the loveliest women in
Paris, so that Delphine de Nucingen was not a little flattered to receive the
undivided attention of Mme. de Beauseant’s young, handsome, and well-dressed
cousin, who seemed to have no eyes for any one else.
"If you look at
her so persistently, you will make people talk, M. de Rastignac. You will never
succeed if you fling yourself at any one’s head like that."
"My dear
cousin," said Eugène, "you have protected me indeed so far, and now
if you would complete your work, I only ask of you a favor which will cost you
but little, and be of very great service to me. I have lost my heart."
"Already!"
"Yes."
"And to that
woman!"
"How could I
aspire to find any one else to listen to me?" he asked, with a keen glance
at his cousin. "Her grace the Duchesse de Carigliano is a friend of the
Duchesse de Berri," he went on, after a pause; "you are sure to see
her, will you be so kind as to present me to her, and to take me to her ball on
Monday? I shall meet Mme. de Nucingen there, and enter into my first
skirmish."
"Willingly,"
she said. "If you have a liking for her already, your affairs of the heart
are like to prosper. That is de Marsay over there in the Princesse Galathionne’s
box. Mme. de Nucingen is racked with jealousy. There is no better time for
approaching a woman, especially if she happens to be a banker’s wife. All those
ladies of the Chaussee-d’Antin love revenge."
"Then, what would
you do yourself in such a case?"
"I should suffer
in silence."
At this point the
Marquis d’Ajuda appeared in Mme. de Beauseant’s box.
"I have made a
muddle of my affairs to come to you," he said, "and I am telling you
about it, so that it may not be a sacrifice."
Eugène saw the glow of
joy on the Vicomtesse’s face, and knew that this was love, and learned the
difference between love and the affectations of Parisian coquetry. He admired
his cousin, grew mute, and yielded his place to M. d’Ajuda with a sigh.
"How noble, how
sublime a woman is when she loves like that!" he said to himself.
"And he could forsake her for a doll! Oh! how could any one forsake
her?"
There was a boy’s
passionate indignation in his heart. He could have flung himself at Mme. de
Beauseant’s feet; he longed for the power of the devil if he could snatch her
away and hide her in his heart, as an eagle snatches up some white yeanling
from the plains and bears it to its eyrie. It was humiliating to him to think
that in all this gallery of fair pictures he had not one picture of his own.
"To have a mistress and an almost royal position is a sign of power,"
he said to himself. And he looked at Mme. de Nucingen as a man measures another
who has insulted him.
The Vicomtesse turned
to him, and the expression of her eyes thanked him a thousand times for his
discretion. The first act came to an end just then.
"Do you know Mme.
de Nucingen well enough to present M. de Rastignac to her?" she asked of
the Marquis d’Ajuda.
"She will be
delighted," said the Marquis. The handsome Portuguese rose as he spoke and
took the student’s arm, and in another moment Eugène found himself in Mme. de
Nucingen’s box.
"Madame," said
the Marquis, "I have the honor of presenting to you the Chevalier Eugène
de Rastignac; he is a cousin of Mme. de Beauseant’s. You have made so deep an
impression upon him, that I thought I would fill up the measure of his
happiness by bringing him nearer to his divinity."
Words spoken half
jestingly to cover their somewhat disrespectful import; but such an
implication, if carefully disguised, never gives offence to a woman. Mme. de
Nucingen smiled, and offered Eugène the place which her husband had just left.
"I do not venture
to suggest that you should stay with me, monsieur," she said. "Those
who are so fortunate as to be in Mme. de Beauseant’s company do not desire to
leave it."
"Madame," Eugène
said, lowering his voice, "I think that to please my cousin I should
remain with you. Before my lord Marquis came we were speaking of you and of
your exceedingly distinguished appearance," he added aloud.
M. d’Ajuda turned and
left them.
"Are you really
going to stay with me, monsieur?" asked the Baroness. "Then we shall
make each other’s acquaintance. Mme. de Restaud told me about you, and has made
me anxious to meet you."
"She must be very
insincere, then, for she has shut her door on me."
"What?"
"Madame, I will
tell you honestly the reason why; but I must crave your indulgence before
confiding such a secret to you. I am your father’s neighbor; I had no idea that
Mme. de Restaud was his daughter. I was rash enough to mention his name; I
meant no harm, but I annoyed your sister and her husband very much. You cannot
think how severely the Duchesse de Langeais and my cousin blamed this apostasy
on a daughter’s part, as a piece of bad taste. I told them all about it, and
they both burst out laughing. Then Mme. de Beauseant made some comparison
between you and your sister, speaking in high terms of you, and saying how very
fond you were of my neighbor, M. Goriot. And, indeed, how could you help loving
him? He adores you so passionately that I am jealous already. We talked about
you this morning for two hours. So this evening I was quite full of all that
your father had told me, and while I was dining with my cousin I said that you
could not be as beautiful as affectionate. Mme. de Beauseant meant to gratify
such warm admiration, I think, when she brought me here, telling me, in her
gracious way, that I should see you."
"Then, even now, I
owe you a debt of gratitude, monsieur," said the banker’s wife. "We
shall be quite old friends in a little while."
"Although a
friendship with you could not be like an ordinary friendship," said
Rastignac; "I should never wish to be your friend."
Such stereotyped
phrases as these, in the mouths of beginners, possess an unfailing charm for
women, and are insipid only when read coldly; for a young man’s tone, glance and
attitude give a surpassing eloquence to the banal phrases. Mme. de Nucingen
thought that Rastignac was adorable. Then, woman-like, being at a loss how to
reply to the student’s outspoken admiration, she answered a previous remark.
"Yes, it is very
wrong of my sister to treat our poor father as she does," she said;
"he has been a Providence to us. It was not until M. de Nucingen
positively ordered me only to receive him in the mornings that I yielded the
point. But I have been unhappy about it for a long while; I have shed many
tears over it. This violence to my feelings, with my husband’s brutal
treatment, have been two causes of my unhappy married life. There is certainly
no woman in Paris whose lot seems more enviable than mine, and yet, in reality,
there is not one so much to be pitied. You will think I must be out of my
senses to talk to you like this; but you know my father, and I cannot regard
you as a stranger."
"You will find no
one," said Eugène, "who longs as eagerly as I do to be yours. What do
all women seek? Happiness." (He answered his own question in low,
vibrating tones.) "And if happiness for a woman means that she is to be
loved and adored, to have a friend to whom she can pour out her wishes, her
fancies, her sorrows and joys; to whom she can lay bare her heart and soul, and
all her fair defects and her gracious virtues, without fear of a betrayal;
believe me, the devotion and the warmth that never fails can only be found in
the heart of a young man who, at a bare sign from you, would go to his death,
who neither knows nor cares to know anything as yet of the world, because you
will be all the world to him. I myself, you see (you will laugh at my
simplicity), have just come from a remote country district; I am quite new to
this world of Paris; I have only known true and loving hearts; and I made up my
mind that here I should find no love. Then I chanced to meet my cousin, and to
see my cousin’s heart from very near; I have divined the inexhaustible
treasures of passion, and, like Cherubino, I am the lover of all women, until
the day comes when I find the woman to whom I may devote myself. As soon as I
saw you, as soon as I came into the theatre this evening, I felt myself borne
towards you as if by the current of a stream. I had so often thought of you
already, but I had never dreamed that you would be so beautiful! Mme. de
Beauseant told me that I must not look so much at you. She does not know the
charm of your red lips, your fair face, nor see how soft your eyes are-- I also
am beginning to talk nonsense; but let me talk."
Nothing pleases a woman
better than to listen to such whispered words as these; the most puritanical
among them listens even when she ought not to reply to them; and Rastignac,
having once begun, continued to pour out his story, dropping his voice, that
she might lean and listen; and Mme. de Nucingen, smiling, glanced from time to
time at de Marsay, who still sat in the Princesse Galathionne’s box.
Rastignac did not leave
Mme. de Nucingen till her husband came to take her home.
"Madame," Eugène
said, "I shall have the pleasure of calling upon you before the Duchesse
de Carigliano’s ball."
"If matame infites
you to come," said the Baron, a thickset Alsatian, with indications of a
sinister cunning in his full-moon countenance, "you are quide sure of
being well receifed."
"My affairs seem
to be in a promising way," said Eugène to himself.--" ’Can you love
me?’ I asked her, and she did not resent it. The bit is in the horse’s mouth,
and I have only to mount and ride;" and with that he went to pay his
respects to Mme. de Beauseant, who was leaving the theatre on d’Ajuda’s arm.
The student did not
know that the Baroness’ thoughts had been wandering; that she was even then
expecting a letter from de Marsay, one of those letters that bring about a
rupture that rends the soul; so, happy in his delusion, Eugène went with the
Vicomtesse to the peristyle, where people were waiting till their carriages
were announced.
"That cousin of
yours is hardly recognizable for the same man," said the Portuguese
laughingly to the Vicomtesse, when Eugène had taken leave of them. "He
will break the bank. He is as supple as an eel; he will go a long way, of that
I am sure. Who else could have picked out a woman for him, as you did, just when
she needed consolation?"
"But it is not
certain that she does not still love the faithless lover," said Mme. de
Beauseant.
The student meanwhile
walked back from the Theatre-Italien to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, making
the most delightful plans as he went. He had noticed how closely Mme. de
Restaud had scrutinized him when he sat beside Mme. de Nucingen, and inferred
that the Countess’ doors would not be closed in the future. Four important
houses were now open to him--for he meant to stand well with the Marechale; he
had four supporters in the inmost circle of society in Paris. Even now it was
clear to him that, once involved in this intricate social machinery, he must
attach himself to a spoke of the wheel that was to turn and raise his fortunes;
he would not examine himself too curiously as to the methods, but he was
certain of the end, and conscious of the power to gain and keep his hold.
"If Mme. de
Nucingen takes an interest in me, I will teach her how to manage her husband.
That husband of hers is a great speculator; he might put me in the way of
making a fortune by a single stroke."
He did not say this
bluntly in so many words; as yet, indeed, he was not sufficient of a
diplomatist to sum up a situation, to see its possibilities at a glance, and
calculate the chances in his favor. These were nothing but hazy ideas that
floated over his mental horizon; they were less cynical than Vautrin’s notions;
but if they had been tried in the crucible of conscience, no very pure result
would have issued from the test. It is by a succession of such like
transactions that men sink at last to the level of the relaxed morality of this
epoch, when there have never been so few of those who square their courses with
their theories, so few of those noble characters who do not yield to
temptation, for whom the slightest deviation from the line of rectitude is a
crime. To these magnificent types of uncompromising Right we owe two masterpieces--the
Alceste of Moliere, and, in our own day, the characters of Jeanie Deans and her
father in Sir Walter Scott’s novel. Perhaps a work which should chronicle the
opposite course, which should trace out all the devious courses through which a
man of the world, a man of ambitions, drags his conscience, just steering clear
of crime that he may gain his end and yet save appearances, such a chronicle
would be no less edifying and no less dramatic.
Rastignac went home. He
was fascinated by Mme. de Nucingen; he seemed to see her before him, slender
and graceful as a swallow. He recalled the intoxicating sweetness of her eyes,
her fair hair, the delicate silken tissue of the skin, beneath which it almost
seemed to him that he could see the blood coursing; the tones of her voice
still exerted a spell over him; he had forgotten nothing; his walk perhaps
heated his imagination by sending a glow of warmth through his veins. He
knocked unceremoniously at Goriot’s door.
"I have seen Mme.
Delphine, neighbor," said he.
"Where?"
"At the
Italiens."
"Did she enjoy
it?-- Just come inside," and the old man left his bed, unlocked the door,
and promptly returned again.
It was the first time
that Eugène had been in Father Goriot’s room, and he could not control his feeling
of amazement at the contrast between the den in which the father lived and the
costume of the daughter whom he had just beheld. The window was curtainless,
the walls were damp, in places the varnished wall-paper had come away and gave
glimpses of the grimy yellow plaster beneath. The wretched bed on which the old
man lay boasted but one thin blanket, and a wadded quilt made out of large
pieces of Mme. Vauquer’s old dresses. The floor was damp and gritty. Opposite
the window stood a chest of drawers made of rosewood, one of the old-fashioned
kind with a curving front and brass handles, shaped like rings of twisted vine
stems covered with flowers and leaves. On a venerable piece of furniture with a
wooden shelf stood a ewer and basin and shaving apparatus. A pair of shoes
stood in one corner; a night-table by the bed had neither a door nor marble
slab. There was not a trace of a fire in the empty grate; the square walnut
table with the crossbar against which Father Goriot had crushed and twisted his
posset-dish stood near the hearth. The old man’s hat was lying on a broken-down
bureau. An armchair stuffed with straw and a couple of chairs completed the
list of ramshackle furniture. From the tester of the bed, tied to the ceiling
by a piece of rag, hung a strip of some cheap material in large red and black
checks. No poor drudge in a garret could be worse lodged than Father Goriot in
Mme. Vauquer’s lodging-house. The mere sight of the room sent a chill through
you and a sense of oppression; it was like the worst cell in a prison. Luckily,
Goriot could not see the effect that his surroundings produced on Eugène as the
latter deposited his candle on the night- table. The old man turned round,
keeping the bedclothes huddled up to his chin.
"Well," he
said, "and which do you like the best, Mme. de Restaud or Mme. de
Nucingen?"
"I like Mme.
Delphine the best," said the law student, "because she loves you the
best."
At the words so
heartily spoken the old man’s hand slipped out from under the bedclothes and grasped
Eugène’s.
"Thank you, thank
you," he said, gratefully. "Then what did she say about me?"
The student repeated
the Baroness’ remarks with some embellishments of his own, the old man
listening the while as though he heard a voice from Heaven.
"Dear child!"
he said. "Yes, yes, she is very fond of me. But you must not believe all
that she tells you about Anastasie. The two sisters are jealous of each other,
you see, another proof of their affection. Mme. de Restaud is very fond of me
too. I know she is. A father sees his children as God sees all of us; he looks
into the very depths of their hearts; he knows their intentions; and both of
them are so loving. Oh! if I only had good sons-in-law, I should be too happy,
and I dare say there is no perfect happiness here below. If I might live with
them--simply hear their voices, know that they are there, see them go and come
as I used to do at home when they were still with me; why, my heart bounds at
the thought-- Were they nicely dressed?"
"Yes," said
Eugène. "But, M. Goriot, how is it that your daughters have such fine
houses, while you live in such a den as this?"
"Dear me, why
should I want anything better?" he replied, with seeming carelessness.
"I can’t quite explain to you how it is; I am not used to stringing words
together properly, but it all lies there----" he said, tapping his heart.
"My real life is in my two girls, you see; and so long as they are happy,
and smartly dressed, and have soft carpets under their feet, what does it matter
what clothes I wear or where I lie down of a night? I shall never feel cold so
long as they are warm; I shall never feel dull if they are laughing. I have no
troubles but theirs. When you, too, are a father, and you hear your children’s
little voices, you will say to yourself, ’That has all come from me.’ You will
feel that those little ones are akin to every drop in your veins, that they are
the very flower of your life (and what else are they?); you will cleave so
closely to them that you seem to feel every movement that they make. Everywhere
I hear their voices sounding in my ears. If they are sad, the look in their
eyes freezes my blood. Some day you will find out that there is far more
happiness in another’s happiness than in your own. It is something that I cannot
explain, something within that sends a glow of warmth all through you. In
short, I live my life three times over. Shall I tell you something funny? Well,
then, since I have been a father, I have come to understand God. He is
everywhere in the world, because the whole world comes from Him. And it is just
the same with my children, monsieur. Only, I love my daughters better than God
loves the world, for the world is not so beautiful as God Himself is, but my
children are more beautiful than I am. Their lives are so bound up with mine
that I felt somehow that you would see them this evening. Great Heaven! If any
man would make my little Delphine as happy as a wife is when she is loved, I
would black his boots and run on his errands. That miserable M. de Marsay is a
cur; I know all about him from her maid. A longing to wring his neck comes over
me now and then. He does not love her! does not love a pearl of a woman, with a
voice like a nightingale and shaped like a model. Where can her eyes have been
when she married that great lump of an Alsatian? They ought both of them to
have married young men, good-looking and good-tempered--but, after all, they
had their own way."
Father Goriot was
sublime. Eugène had never yet seen his face light up as it did now with the
passionate fervor of a father’s love. It is worthy of remark that strong
feeling has a very subtle and pervasive power; the roughest nature, in the
endeavor to express a deep and sincere affection, communicates to others the
influence that has put resonance into the voice, and eloquence into every
gesture, wrought a change in the very features of the speaker; for under the
inspiration of passion the stupidest human being attains to the highest
eloquence of ideas, if not of language, and seems to move in some sphere of
light. In the old man’s tones and gesture there was something just then of the
same spell that a great actor exerts over his audience. But does not the poet
in us find expression in our affections?
"Well," said
Eugène, "perhaps you will not be sorry to hear that she is pretty sure to
break with de Marsay before long. That sprig of fashion has left her for the
Princesse Galathionne. For my part, I fell in love with Mme. Delphine this
evening."
"Stuff!" said
Father Goriot.
"I did indeed, and
she did not regard me with aversion. For a whole hour we talked of love, and I
am to go to call on her on Saturday, the day after to-morrow."
"Oh! how I should
love you, if she should like you. You are kind- hearted; you would never make
her miserable. If you were to forsake her, I would cut your throat at once. A
woman does not love twice, you see! Good heavens! what nonsense I am talking,
M. Eugène! It is cold; you ought not to stay here. Mon Dieu! so you have heard
her speak? What message did she give you for me?"
"None at
all," said Eugène to himself; aloud he answered, "She told me to tell
you that your daughter sends you a good kiss."
"Good-night,
neighbor! Sleep well, and pleasant dreams to you! I have mine already made for
me by that message from her. May God grant you all your desires! You have come
in like a good angel on me to-night, and brought with you the air that my
daughter breathes."
"Poor old
fellow!" said Eugène as he lay down. "It is enough to melt a heart of
stone. His daughter no more thought of him than of the Grand Turk."
Ever after this
conference Goriot looked upon his neighbor as a friend, a confidant such as he
had never hoped to find; and there was established between the two the only
relationship that could attach this old man to another man. The passions never
miscalculate. Father Goriot felt that this friendship brought him closer to his
daughter Delphine; he thought that he should find a warmer welcome for himself
if the Baroness should care for Eugène. Moreover, he had confided one of his
troubles to the younger man. Mme. de Nucingen, for whose happiness he prayed a
thousand times daily, had never known the joys of love. Eugène was certainly
(to make use of his own expression) one of the nicest young men that he had
ever seen, and some prophetic instinct seemed to tell him that Eugène was to
give her the happiness which had not been hers. These were the beginnings of a
friendship that grew up between the old man and his neighbor; but for this
friendship the catastrophe of the drama must have remained a mystery.
The affection with
which Father Goriot regarded Eugène, by whom he seated himself at breakfast,
the change in Goriot’s face, which as a rule, looked as expressionless as a
plaster cast, and a few words that passed between the two, surprised the other
lodgers. Vautrin, who saw Eugène for the first time since their interview,
seemed as if he would fain read the student’s very soul. During the night Eugène
had had some time in which to scan the vast field which lay before him; and
now, as he remembered yesterday’s proposal, the thought of Mlle. Taillefer’s
dowry came, of course, to his mind, and he could not help thinking of Victorine
as the most exemplary youth may think of an heiress. It chanced that their eyes
met. The poor girl did not fail to see that Eugène looked very handsome in his
new clothes. So much was said in the glance, thus exchanged, that Eugène could
not doubt but that he was associated in her mind with the vague hopes that lie
dormant in a girl’s heart and gather round the first attractive newcomer.
"Eight hundred thousand francs!" a voice cried in his ears, but
suddenly he took refuge in the memories of yesterday evening, thinking that his
extemporized passion for Mme. de Nucingen was a talisman that would preserve
him from this temptation.
"They gave Rossini’s
Barber of Seville at the Italiens yesterday evening," he remarked. "I
never heard such delicious music. Good gracious! how lucky people are to have a
box at the Italiens!"
Father Goriot drank in
every word that Eugène let fall, and watched him as a dog watches his master’s
slightest movement.
"You men are like
fighting cocks," said Mme. Vauquer; "you do what you like."
"How did you get
back?" inquired Vautrin.
"I walked,"
answered Eugène.
"For my own
part," remarked the tempter, "I do not care about doing things by
halves. If I want to enjoy myself that way, I should prefer to go in my carriage,
sit in my own box, and do the thing comfortably. Everything or nothing; that is
my motto."
"And a good one,
too," commented Mme. Vauquer.
"Perhaps you will
see Mme. de Nucingen to-day," said Eugène, addressing Goriot in an
undertone. "She will welcome you with open arms, I am sure; she would want
to ask you for all sorts of little details about me. I have found out that she
will do anything in the world to be known by my cousin Mme. de Beauseant; don’t
forget to tell her that I love her too well not to think of trying to arrange
this."
Rastignac went at once
to the Ecole de Droit. He had no mind to stay a moment longer than was
necessary in that odious house. He wasted his time that day; he had fallen a
victim to that fever of the brain that accompanies the too vivid hopes of
youth. Vautrin’s arguments had set him meditating on social life, and he was
deep in these reflections when he happened on his friend Bianchon in the Jardin
du Luxembourg.
"What makes you
look so solemn?" said the medical student, putting an arm through Eugène’s
as they went towards the Palais.
"I am tormented by
temptations."
"What kind? There
is a cure for temptation."
"What?"
"Yielding to
it."
"You laugh, but
you don’t know what it is all about. Have you read Rousseau?"
"Yes."
"Do you remember
that he asks the reader somewhere what he would do if he could make a fortune
by killing an old mandarin somewhere in China by mere force of wishing it, and
without stirring from Paris?"
"Yes."
"Well, then?"
"Pshaw! I am at my
thirty-third mandarin."
"Seriously,
though. Look here, suppose you were sure that you could do it, and had only to
give a nod. Would you do it?"
"Is he well
stricken in years, this mandarin of yours? Pshaw! after all, young or old,
paralytic, or well and sound, my word for it-- Well, then. Hang it, no!"
"You are a good
fellow, Bianchon. But suppose you loved a woman well enough to lose your soul
in hell for her, and that she wanted money for dresses and a carriage, and all
her whims, in fact?"
"Why, here you are
taking away my reason, and want me to reason!"
"Well, then,
Bianchon, I am mad; bring me to my senses. I have two sisters as beautiful and
innocent as angels, and I want them to be happy. How am I to find two hundred
thousand francs apiece for them in the next five years? Now and then in life,
you see, you must play for heavy stakes, and it is no use wasting your luck on
low play."
"But you are only
stating the problem that lies before every one at the outset of his life, and you
want to cut the Gordian knot with a sword. If that is the way of it, dear boy,
you must be an Alexander, or to the hulks you go. For my own part, I am quite
contented with the little lot I mean to make for myself somewhere in the
country, when I mean to step into my father’s shoes and plod along. A man’s
affections are just as fully satisfied by the smallest circle as they can be by
a vast circumference. Napoleon himself could only dine once, and he could not
have more mistresses than a house student at the Capuchins. Happiness, old man,
depends on what lies between the sole of your foot and the crown of your head;
and whether it costs a million or a hundred louis, the actual amount of
pleasure that you receive rests entirely with you, and is just exactly the same
in any case. I am for letting that Chinaman live."
"Thank you,
Bianchon; you have done me good. We will always be friends."
"I say,"
remarked the medical student, as they came to the end of a broad walk in the
Jardin des Plantes, "I saw the Michonneau and Poiret a few minutes ago on
a bench chatting with a gentleman whom I used to see in last year’s troubles
hanging about the Chamber of Deputies; he seems to me, in fact, to be a
detective dressed up like a decent retired tradesman. Let us keep an eye on
that couple; I will tell you why some time. Good-bye; it is nearly four o’clock,
and I must be in to answer to my name."
When Eugène reached the
lodging-house, he found Father Goriot waiting for him.
"Here," cried
the old man, "here is a letter from her. Pretty handwriting, eh?"
Eugène broke the seal
and read:--
"Sir,--I have
heard from my father that you are fond of Italian music. I shall be delighted
if you will do me the pleasure of accepting a seat in my box. La Fodor and
Pellegrini will sing on Saturday, so I am sure that you will not refuse me. M.
de Nucingen and I shall be pleased if you will dine with us; we shall be quite
by ourselves. If you will come and be my escort, my husband will be glad to be
relieved from his conjugal duties. Do not answer, but simply come.--Yours
sincerely, D. DE N."
"Let me see
it," said Father Goriot, when Eugène had read the letter. "You are
going, aren’t you?" he added, when he had smelled the writing-paper.
"How nice it smells! Her fingers have touched it, that is certain."
"A woman does not
fling herself at a man’s head in this way," the student was thinking.
"She wants to use me to bring back de Marsay; nothing but pique makes a
woman do a thing like this."
"Well," said
Father Goriot, "what are you thinking about?"
Eugène did not know the
fever or vanity that possessed some women in those days; how should he imagine
that to open a door in the Faubourg Saint-Germain a banker’s wife would go to
almost any length. For the coterie of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was a charmed
circle, and the women who moved in it were at that time the queens of society;
and among the greatest of these Dames du Petit-Chateau, as they were called,
were Mme. de Beauseant and her friends the Duchesse de Langeais and the
Duchesse de Maufrigneause. Rastignac was alone in his ignorance of the frantic
efforts made by women who lived in the Chausee-d’Antin to enter this seventh
heaven and shine among the brightest constellations of their sex. But his
cautious disposition stood him in good stead, and kept his judgment cool, and
the not altogether enviable power of imposing instead of accepting conditions.
"Yes, I am
going," he replied.
So it was curiosity
that drew him to Mme. de Nucingen; while, if she had treated him disdainfully,
passion perhaps might have brought him to her feet. Still he waited almost
impatiently for to-morrow, and the hour when he could go to her. There is
almost as much charm for a young man in a first flirtation as there is in first
love. The certainty of success is a source of happiness to which men do not
confess, and all the charm of certain women lies in this. The desire of
conquest springs no less from the easiness than from the difficulty of triumph,
and every passion is excited or sustained by one or the other of these two
motives which divide the empire of love. Perhaps this division is one result of
the great question of temperaments; which, after all, dominates social life.
The melancholic temperament may stand in need of the tonic of coquetry, while
those of nervous or sanguine complexion withdraw if they meet with a too
stubborn resistance. In other words, the lymphatic temperament is essentially
despondent, and the rhapsodic is bilious.
Eugène lingered over
his toilette with an enjoyment of all its little details that is grateful to a
young man’s self-love, though he will not own to it for fear of being laughed
at. He thought, as he arranged his hair, that a pretty woman’s glances would
wander through the dark curls. He indulged in childish tricks like any young
girl dressing for a dance, and gazed complacently at his graceful figure while
he smoothed out the creases of his coat.
"There are worse
figures, that is certain," he said to himself.
Then he went
downstairs, just as the rest of the household were sitting down to dinner, and
took with good humor the boisterous applause excited by his elegant appearance.
The amazement with which any attention to dress is regarded in a lodging-house
is a very characteristic trait. No one can put on a new coat but every one else
must say his say about it.
"Clk! clk!
clk!" cried Bianchon, making the sound with his tongue against the roof of
his mouth, like a driver urging on a horse.
"He holds himself
like a duke and a peer of France," said Mme. Vauquer.
"Are you going
a-courting?" inquired Mlle. Michonneau.
"Cock-a-doodle-doo!"
cried the artist.
"My compliments to
my lady your wife," from the employe at the Museum.
"Your wife; have
you a wife?" asked Poiret.
"Yes, in
compartments, water-tight and floats, guaranteed fast color, all prices from
twenty-five to forty sous, neat check patterns in the latest fashion and best
taste, will wash, half-linen, half-cotton, half-wool; a certain cure for
toothache and other complaints under the patronage of the Royal College of
Physicians! children like it! a remedy for headache, indigestion, and all other
diseases affecting the throat, eyes, and ears!" cried Vautrin, with a
comical imitation of the volubility of a quack at a fair. "And how much
shall we say for this marvel, gentlemen? Twopence? No. Nothing of the sort. All
that is left in stock after supplying the Great Mogul. All the crowned heads of
Europe, including the Gr-r-rand Duke of Baden, have been anxious to get a sight
of it. Walk up! walk up! gentlemen! Pay at the desk as you go in! Strike up the
music there! Brooum, la, la, trinn! la, la, boum! boum! Mister Clarinette,
there you are out of tune!" he added gruffly; "I will rap your
knuckles for you!"
"Goodness! what an
amusing man!" said Mme. Vauquer to Mme. Couture; "I should never feel
dull with him in the house."
This burlesque of
Vautrin’s was the signal for an outburst of merriment, and under cover of jokes
and laughter Eugène caught a glance from Mlle. Taillefer; she had leaned over
to say a few words in Mme. Couture’s ear.
"The cab is at the
door," announced Sylvie.
"But where is he
going to dine?" asked Bianchon.
"With Madame la
Baronne de Nucingen."
"M. Goriot’s
daughter," said the law student.
At this, all eyes
turned to the old vermicelli maker; he was gazing at Eugène with something like
envy in his eyes.
Rastignac reached the
house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, one of those many-windowed houses with a
mean-looking portico and slender columns, which are considered the thing in
Paris, a typical banker’s house, decorated in the most ostentatious fashion;
the walls lined with stucco, the landings of marble mosaic. Mme. de Nucingen
was sitting in a little drawing-room; the room was painted in the Italian
fashion, and decorated like a restaurant. The Baroness seemed depressed. The
effort that she made to hide her feelings aroused Eugène’s interest; it was
plain that she was not playing a part. He had expected a little flutter of
excitement at his coming, and he found her dispirited and sad. The
disappointment piqued his vanity.
"My claim to your
confidence is very small, madame," he said, after rallying her on her
abstracted mood; "but if I am in the way, please tell me so frankly; I
count on your good faith."
"No, stay with
me," she said; "I shall be all alone if you go. Nucingen is dining in
town, and I do not want to be alone; I want to be taken out of myself."
"But what is the
matter?"
"You are the very
last person whom I should tell," she exclaimed.
"Then I am
connected in some way in this secret. I wonder what it is?"
"Perhaps. Yet,
no," she went on; "it is a domestic quarrel, which ought to be buried
in the depths of the heart.
I am very unhappy; did
I not tell you so the day before yesterday? Golden chains are the heaviest of
all fetters."
When a woman tells a
young man that she is very unhappy, and when the young man is clever, and well
dressed, and has fifteen hundred francs lying idle in his pocket, he is sure to
think as Eugène said, and he becomes a coxcomb.
"What can you have
left to wish for?" he answered. "You are young, beautiful, beloved,
and rich."
"Do not let us
talk of my affairs," she said shaking her head mournfully. "We will
dine together tete-a-tete, and afterwards we will go to hear the most exquisite
music. Am I to your taste?" she went on, rising and displaying her gown of
white cashmere, covered with Persian designs in the most superb taste.
"I wish that you
were altogether mine," said Eugène; "you are charming."
"You would have a
forlorn piece of property," she said, smiling bitterly. "There is
nothing about me that betrays my wretchedness; and yet, in spite of
appearances, I am in despair. I cannot sleep; my troubles have broken my night’s
rest; I shall grow ugly."
"Oh! that is
impossible," cried the law student; "but I am curious to know what
these troubles can be that a devoted love cannot efface."
"Ah! if I were to
tell you about them, you would shun me," she said. "Your love for me
is as yet only the conventional gallantry that men use to masquerade in; and,
if you really loved me, you would be driven to despair. I must keep silence,
you see. Let us talk of something else, for pity’s sake," she added.
"Let me show you my rooms."
"No; let us stay
here," answered Eugène; he sat down on the sofa before the fire, and
boldly took Mme. de Nucingen’s hand in his. She surrendered it to him; he even
felt the pressure of her fingers in one of the spasmodic clutches that betray
terrible agitation.
"Listen,"
said Rastignac; "if you are in trouble, you ought to tell me about it. I
want to prove to you that I love you for yourself alone. You must speak to me
frankly about your troubles, so that I can put an end to them, even if I have
to kill half-a-dozen men; or I shall go, never to return."
"Very well,"
she cried, putting her hand to her forehead in an agony of despair, "I
will put you to the proof, and this very moment. Yes," she said to
herself, "I have no other resource left."
She rang the bell.
"Are the horses
put in for the master?" she asked of the servant.
"Yes,
madame."
"I shall take his
carriage myself. He can have mine and my horses. Serve dinner at seven o’clock."
"Now, come with me,"
she said to Eugène, who thought as he sat in the banker’s carriage beside Mme.
de Nucingen that he must surely be dreaming.
"To the
Palais-Royal," she said to the coachman; "stop near the
Theatre-Francais."
She seemed to be too
troubled and excited to answer the innumerable questions that Eugène put to
her. He was at a loss what to think of her mute resistance, her obstinate
silence.
"Another moment
and she will escape me," he said to himself.
When the carriage
stopped at last, the Baroness gave the law student a glance that silenced his
wild words, for he was almost beside himself.
"Is it true that
you love me?" she asked.
"Yes," he
answered, and in his manner and tone there was no trace of the uneasiness that
he felt.
"You will not
think ill of me, will you, whatever I may ask of you?"
"No."
"Are you ready to
do my bidding?"
"Blindly."
"Have you ever
been to a gaming-house?" she asked in a tremulous voice.
"Never."
"Ah! now I can
breathe. You will have luck. Here is my purse," she said. "Take it!
there are a hundred francs in it, all that such a fortunate woman as I can call
her own. Go up into one of the gaming- houses--I do not know where they are,
but there are some near the Palais-Royal. Try your luck with the hundred francs
at a game they call roulette; lose it all or bring me back six thousand francs.
I will tell you about my troubles when you come back."
"Devil take me, I’m
sure, if I have a glimmer of a notion of what I am about, but I will obey
you," he added, with inward exultation, as he thought, "She has gone
too far to draw back--she can refuse me nothing now!"
Eugène took the dainty
little purse, inquired the way of a second-hand clothes-dealer, and hurried to
number 9, which happened to be the nearest gaming-house. He mounted the
staircase, surrendered his hat, and asked the way to the roulette-table,
whither the attendant took him, not a little to the astonishment of the regular
comers. All eyes were fixed on Eugène as he asked, without bashfulness, where
he was to deposit his stakes.
"If you put a
louis on one only of those thirty-six numbers, and it turns up, you will win
thirty-six louis," said a respectable-looking, white-haired old man in
answer to his inquiry.
Eugène staked the whole
of his money on the number 21 (his own age). There was a cry of surprise;
before he knew what he had done, he had won.
"Take your money
off, sir," said the old gentleman; "you don’t often win twice running
by that system of playing."
Eugène took the rake
that the old man handed to him, and drew in his three thousand six hundred
francs, and, still perfectly ignorant of what he was about, staked again on the
red. The bystanders watched him enviously as they saw him continue to play. The
disc turned, and again he won; the banker threw him three thousand six hundred
francs once more.
"You have seven
thousand, two hundred francs of your own," the old gentleman said in his
ear. "Take my advice and go away with your winnings; red has turned up
eight times already. If you are charitable, you will show your gratitude for
sound counsel by giving a trifle to an old prefect of Napoleon who is down on
his luck."
Rastignac’s head was
swimming; he saw ten of his louis pass into the white-haired man’s possession,
and went down-stairs with his seven thousand francs; he was still ignorant of
the game, and stupefied by his luck.
"So, that is over;
and now where will you take me?" he asked, as soon as the door was closed,
and he showed the seven thousand francs to Mme. de Nucingen.
Delphine flung her arms
about him, but there was no passion in that wild embrace.
"You have saved
me!" she cried, and tears of joy flowed fast.
"I will tell you
everything, my friend. For you will be my friend, will you not? I am rich, you
think, very rich; I have everything I want, or I seem as if I had everything.
Very well, you must know that M. de Nucingen does not allow me the control of a
single penny; he pays all the bills for the house expenses; he pays for my
carriages and opera box; he does not give me enough to pay for my dress, and he
reduces me to poverty in secret on purpose. I am too proud to beg from him. I
should be the vilest of women if I could take his money at the price at which
he offers it. Do you ask how I, with seven hundred thousand francs of my own,
could let myself be robbed? It is because I was proud, and scorned to speak. We
are so young, so artless when our married life begins! I never could bring
myself to ask my husband for money; the words would have made my lips bleed, I
did not dare to ask; I spent my savings first, and then the money that my poor
father gave me, then I ran into debt. Marriage for me is a hideous farce; I
cannot talk about it, let it suffice to say that Nucingen and I have separate
rooms, and that I would fling myself out of the window sooner than consent to
any other manner of life. I suffered agonies when I had to confess to my
girlish extravagance, my debts for jewelry and trifles (for our poor father had
never refused us anything, and spoiled us), but at last I found courage to tell
him about them. After all, I had a fortune of my own. Nucingen flew into a
rage; he said that I should be the ruin of him, and used frightful language! I
wished myself a hundred feet down in the earth. He had my dowry, so he paid my
debts, but he stipulated at the same time that my expenses in future must not
exceed a certain fixed sum, and I gave way for the sake of peace. And
then," she went on, "I wanted to gratify the self-love of some one
whom you know. He may have deceived me, but I should do him the justice to say
that there was nothing petty in his character. But, after all, he threw me over
disgracefully. If, at a woman’s utmost need, somebody heaps gold upon her, he
ought never to forsake her; that love should last for ever! But you, at
one-and-twenty, you, the soul of honor, with the unsullied conscience of youth,
will ask me how a woman can bring herself to accept money in such a way? Mon
Dieu! is it not natural to share everything with the one to whom we owe our
happiness? When all has been given, why should we pause and hesitate over a
part? Money is as nothing between us until the moment when the sentiment that
bound us together ceases to exist. Were we not bound to each other for life?
Who that believes in love foresees such an end to love? You swear to love us
eternally; how, then, can our interests be separate?
"You do not know
how I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to give me six thousand francs; he
spends as much as that every month on his mistress, an opera dancer! I thought
of killing myself. The wildest thoughts came into my head. There have been
moments in my life when I have envied my servants, and would have changed
places with my maid. It was madness to think of going to our father, Anastasie
and I have bled him dry; our poor father would have sold himself if he could
have raised six thousand francs that way. I should have driven him frantic to
no purpose. You have saved me from shame and death; I was beside myself with
anguish. Ah! monsieur, I owed you this explanation after my mad ravings. When
you left me just now, as soon as you were out of sight, I longed to escape, to
run away . . . where, I did not know. Half the women in Paris lead such lives
as mine; they live in apparent luxury, and in their souls are tormented by
anxiety. I know of poor creatures even more miserable than I; there are women
who are driven to ask their tradespeople to make out false bills, women who rob
their husbands. Some men believe that an Indian shawl worth a thousand louis
only cost five hundred francs, others that a shawl costing five hundred francs
is worth a hundred louis. There are women, too, with narrow incomes, who scrape
and save and starve their children to pay for a dress. I am innocent of these
base meannesses. But this is the last extremity of my torture. Some women will
sell themselves to their husbands, and so obtain their way, but I, at any rate,
am free. If I chose, Nucingen would cover me with gold, but I would rather weep
on the breast of a man whom I can respect. Ah! tonight, M. de Marsay will no
longer have a right to think of me as a woman whom he has paid." She tried
to conceal her tears from him, hiding her face in her hands; Eugène drew them
away and looked at her; she seemed to him sublime at that moment.
"It is hideous, is
it not," she cried, "to speak in a breath of money and affection. You
cannot love me after this," she added.
The incongruity between
the ideas of honor which make women so great, and the errors in conduct which
are forced upon them by the constitution of society, had thrown Eugène’s
thoughts into confusion; he uttered soothing and consoling words, and wondered
at the beautiful woman before him, and at the artless imprudence of her cry of
pain.
"You will not
remember this against me?" she asked; "promise me that you will
not."
"Ah! madame, I am
incapable of doing so," he said. She took his hand and held it to her
heart, a movement full of grace that expressed her deep gratitude.
"I am free and
happy once more, thanks to you," she said. "Oh! I have felt lately as
if I were in the grasp of an iron hand. But after this I mean to live simply
and to spend nothing. You will think me just as pretty, will you not, my friend?
Keep this," she went on, as she took only six of the banknotes. "In
conscience I owe you a thousand crowns, for I really ought to go halves with
you."
Eugène’s maiden
conscience resisted; but when the Baroness said, "I am bound to look on
you as an accomplice or as an enemy," he took the money.
"It shall be a
last stake in reserve," he said, "in case of misfortune."
"That was what I
was dreading to hear," she cried, turning pale. "Oh, if you would
that I should be anything to you, swear to me that you will never re-enter a
gaming-house. Great Heaven! that I should corrupt you! I should die of
sorrow!"
They had reached the
Rue Saint-Lazare by this time. The contrast between the ostentation of wealth
in the house, and the wretched condition of its mistress, dazed the student;
and Vautrin’s cynical words began to ring in his ears.
"Seat yourself
there," said the Baroness, pointing to a low chair beside the fire.
"I have a difficult letter to write," she added. "Tell me what
to say."
"Say
nothing," Eugène answered her. "Put the bills in an envelope, direct
it, and send it by your maid."
"Why, you are a
love of a man," she said. "Ah! see what it is to have been well
brought up. That is the Beauseant through and through," she went on, smiling
at him.
"She is
charming," thought Eugène, more and more in love. He looked round him at
the room; there was an ostentatious character about the luxury, a meretricious
taste in the splendor.
"Do you like
it?" she asked, as she rang for the maid.
"Therese, take
this to M. de Marsay, and give it into his hands yourself. If he is not at
home, bring the letter back to me."
Therese went, but not
before she had given Eugène a spiteful glance.
Dinner was announced.
Rastignac gave his arm to Mme. de Nucingen, she led the way into a pretty
dining-room, and again he saw the luxury of the table which he had admired in
his cousin’s house.
"Come and dine
with me on opera evenings, and we will go to the Italiens afterwards," she
said.
"I should soon grow
used to the pleasant life if it could last, but I am a poor student, and I have
my way to make."
"Oh! you will
succeed," she said laughing. "You will see. All that you wish will
come to pass. I did not expect to be so happy."
It is the wont of women
to prove the impossible by the possible, and to annihilate facts by
presentiments. When Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac took their places in her box
at the Bouffons, her face wore a look of happiness that made her so lovely that
every one indulged in those small slanders against which women are defenceless;
for the scandal that is uttered lightly is often seriously believed. Those who
know Paris, believe nothing that is said, and say nothing of what is done
there.
Eugène took the
Baroness’ hand in his, and by some light pressure of the fingers, or a closer
grasp of the hand, they found a language in which to express the sensations
which the music gave them. It was an evening of intoxicating delight for both;
and when it ended, and they went out together, Mme. de Nucingen insisted on
taking Eugène with her as far as the Pont Neuf, he disputing with her the whole
of the way for a single kiss after all those that she had showered upon him so
passionately at the Palais-Royal; Eugène reproached her with inconsistency.
"That was
gratitude," she said, "for devotion that I did not dare to hope for,
but now it would be a promise."
"And will you give
me no promise, ingrate?"
He grew vexed. Then,
with one of those impatient gestures that fill a lover with ecstasy, she gave
him her hand to kiss, and he took it with a discontented air that delighted
her.
"I shall see you
at the ball on Monday," she said.
As Eugène went home in
the moonlight, he fell to serious reflections. He was satisfied, and yet
dissatisfied. He was pleased with an adventure which would probably give him
his desire, for in the end one of the prettiest and best-dressed women in Paris
would be his; but, as a set-off, he saw his hopes of fortune brought to
nothing; and as soon as he realized this fact, the vague thoughts of yesterday
evening began to take a more decided shape in his mind. A check is sure to
reveal to us the strength of our hopes. The more Eugène learned of the
pleasures of life in Paris, the more impatient he felt of poverty and
obscurity. He crumpled the banknote in his pocket, and found any quantity of
plausible excuses for appropriating it.
He reached the Rue
Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve at last, and from the stairhead he saw a light in Goriot’s
room; the old man had lighted a candle, and set the door ajar, lest the student
should pass him by, and go to his room without "telling him all about his
daughter," to use his own expression. Eugène, accordingly, told him
everything without reserve.
"Then they think
that I am ruined!" cried Father Goriot, in an agony of jealousy and
desperation. "Why, I have still thirteen hundred livres a year! Mon Dieu!
Poor little girl! why did she not come to me? I would have sold my rentes; she
should have had some of the principal, and I would have bought a life-annuity
with the rest. My good neighbor, why did not YOU come to tell me of her
difficulty? How had you the heart to go and risk her poor little hundred francs
at play? This is heart-breaking work. You see what it is to have sons-in- law.
Oh! if I had hold of them, I would wring their necks. Mon Dieu! crying! Did you
say she was crying?"
"With her head on
my waistcoat," said Eugène.
"Oh! give it to
me," said Father Goriot. "What! my daughter’s tears have fallen
there--my darling Delphine, who never used to cry when she was a little girl!
Oh! I will buy you another; do not wear it again; let me have it. By the terms
of her marriage-contract, she ought to have the use of her property. To-morrow
morning I will go and see Derville; he is an attorney. I will demand that her
money should be invested in her own name. I know the law. I am an old wolf, I
will show my teeth."
"Here, father;
this is a banknote for a thousand francs that she wanted me to keep out of our
winnings. Keep them for her, in the pocket of the waistcoat."
Goriot looked hard at
Eugène, reached out and took the law student’s hand, and Eugène felt a tear
fall on it.
"You will
succeed," the old man said. "God is just, you see. I know an honest
man when I see him, and I can tell you, there are not many men like you. I am
to have another dear child in you, am I? There, go to sleep; you can sleep; you
are not yet a father. She was crying! and I have to be told about it!--and I
was quietly eating my dinner, like an idiot, all the time--I, who would sell
the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to save one tear to either of them."
"An honest
man!" said Eugène to himself as he lay down. "Upon my word, I think I
will be an honest man all my life; it is so pleasant to obey the voice of
conscience." Perhaps none but believers in God do good in secret; and Eugène
believed in a God.
The next day Rastignac
went at the appointed time to Mme. de Beauseant, who took him with her to the
Duchesse de Carigliano’s ball. The Marechale received Eugène most graciously.
Mme. de Nucingen was there. Delphine’s dress seemed to suggest that she wished
for the admiration of others, so that she might shine the more in Eugène’s
eyes; she was eagerly expecting a glance from him, hiding, as she thought, this
eagerness from all beholders. This moment is full of charm for one who can
guess all that passes in a woman’s mind. Who has not refrained from giving his
opinion, to prolong her suspense, concealing his pleasure from a desire to
tantalize, seeking a confession of love in her uneasiness, enjoying the fears
that he can dissipate by a smile? In the course of the evening the law student
suddenly comprehended his position; he saw that, as the cousin of Mme. de
Beauseant, he was a personage in this world. He was already credited with the
conquest of Mme. de Nucingen, and for this reason was a conspicuous figure; he
caught the envious glances of other young men, and experienced the earliest
pleasures of coxcombry. People wondered at his luck, and scraps of these
conversations came to his ears as he went from room to room; all the women
prophesied his success; and Delphine, in her dread of losing him, promised that
this evening she would not refuse the kiss that all his entreaties could
scarcely win yesterday.
Rastignac received
several invitations. His cousin presented him to other women who were present;
women who could claim to be of the highest fashion; whose houses were looked
upon as pleasant; and this was the loftiest and most fashionable society in Paris
into which he was launched. So this evening had all the charm of a brilliant
debut; it was an evening that he was to remember even in old age, as a woman
looks back upon her first ball and the memories of her girlish triumphs.
The next morning, at
breakfast, he related the story of his success for the benefit of Father Goriot
and the lodgers. Vautrin began to smile in a diabolical fashion.
"And do you
suppose," cried that cold-blooded logician, "that a young man of
fashion can live here in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the Maison
Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable boarding-house in every way, I grant you,
but an establishment that, none the less, falls short of being fashionable? The
house is comfortable, it is lordly in its abundance; it is proud to be the
temporary abode of a Rastignac; but, after all, it is in the Rue
Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be out of place here, where we only
aim at the purely patriarchalorama. If you mean to cut a figure in Paris, my
young friend," Vautrin continued, with half-paternal jocularity, "you
must have three horses, a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for
the evening; you should spend altogether about nine thousand francs on your
stables. You would show yourself unworthy of your destiny if you spent no more
than three thousand francs with your tailor, six hundred in perfumery, a
hundred crowns to your shoemaker, and a hundred more to your hatter. As for
your laundress, there goes another thousand francs; a young man of fashion must
of necessity make a great point of his linen; if your linen comes up to the
required standard, people often do not look any further. Love and the Church
demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand francs. I am saying
nothing of losses at play, bets, and presents; it is impossible to allow less
than two thousand francs for pocket money. I have led that sort of life, and I
know all about these expenses. Add the cost of necessaries next; three hundred
louis for provender, a thousand francs for a place to roost in. Well, my boy,
for all these little wants of ours we had need to have twenty-five thousand
francs every year in our purse, or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and
people laughing at us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-bye
to your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom! Is Christophe
going to carry your billets-doux for you? Do you mean to employ the stationery
you use at present? Suicidal policy! Hearken to the wisdom of your
elders!" he went on, his bass voice growing louder at each syllable.
"Either take up your quarters in a garret, live virtuously, and wed your
work, or set about the thing in a different way."
Vautrin winked and
leered in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer to enforce his remarks by a look
which recalled the late tempting proposals by which he had sought to corrupt
the student’s mind.
Several days went by,
and Rastignac lived in a whirl of gaiety. He dined almost every day with Mme.
de Nucingen, and went wherever she went, only returning to the Rue
Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve in the small hours. He rose at mid-day, and dressed to
go into the Bois with Delphine if the day was fine, squandering in this way
time that was worth far more than he knew. He turned as eagerly to learn the
lessons of luxury, and was as quick to feel its fascination, as the flowers of
the date palm to receive the fertilizing pollen. He played high, lost and won
large sums of money, and at last became accustomed to the extravagant life that
young men lead in Paris. He sent fifteen hundred francs out of his first
winnings to his mother and sisters, sending handsome presents as well as the
money. He had given out that he meant to leave the Maison Vauquer; but January
came and went, and he was still there, still unprepared to go.
One rule holds good of
most young men--whether rich or poor. They never have money for the necessaries
of life, but they have always money to spare for their caprices--an anomaly
which finds its explanation in their youth and in the almost frantic eagerness
with which youth grasps at pleasure. They are reckless with anything obtained
on credit, while everything for which they must pay in ready money is made to
last as long as possible; if they cannot have all that they want, they make up
for it, it would seem, by squandering what they have. To state the matter
simply--a student is far more careful of his hat than of his coat, because the
latter being a comparatively costly article of dress, it is in the nature of
things that a tailor should be a creditor; but it is otherwise with the hatter;
the sums of money spent with him are so modest, that he is the most independent
and unmanageable of his tribe, and it is almost impossible to bring him to
terms. The young man in the balcony of a theatre who displays a gorgeous
waistcoat for the benefit of the fair owners of opera glasses, has very
probably no socks in his wardrobe, for the hosier is another of the genus of
weevils that nibble at the purse. This was Rastignac’s condition. His purse was
always empty for Mme. Vauquer, always full at the demand of vanity; there was a
periodical ebb and flow in his fortunes, which was seldom favorable to the
payment of just debts. If he was to leave that unsavory and mean abode, where
from time to time his pretensions met with humiliation, the first step was to
pay his hostess for a month’s board and lodging, and the second to purchase
furniture worthy of the new lodgings he must take in his quality of dandy, a
course that remained impossible. Rastignac, out of his winnings at cards, would
pay his jeweler exorbitant prices for gold watches and chains, and then, to
meet the exigencies of play, would carry them to the pawnbroker, that discreet
and forbidding-looking friend of youth; but when it was a question of paying for
board or lodging, or for the necessary implements for the cultivation of his
Elysian fields, his imagination and pluck alike deserted him. There was no
inspiration to be found in vulgar necessity, in debts contracted for past
requirements. Like most of those who trust to their luck, he put off till the
last moment the payment of debts that among the bourgeoisie are regarded as
sacred engagements, acting on the plan of Mirabeau, who never settled his baker’s
bill until it underwent a formidable transformation into a bill of exchange.
It was about this time
when Rastignac was down on his luck and fell into debt, that it became clear to
the law student’s mind that he must have some more certain source of income if
he meant to live as he had been doing. But while he groaned over the thorny
problems of his precarious situation, he felt that he could not bring himself
to renounce the pleasures of this extravagant life, and decided that he must
continue it at all costs. His dreams of obtaining a fortune appeared more and
more chimerical, and the real obstacles grew more formidable. His initiation
into the secrets of the Nucingen household had revealed to him that if he were
to attempt to use this love affair as a means of mending his fortunes, he must
swallow down all sense of decency, and renounce all the generous ideas which
redeem the sins of youth. He had chosen this life of apparent splendor, but
secretly gnawed by the canker worm of remorse, a life of fleeting pleasure
dearly paid for by persistent pain; like Le Distrait of La Bruyere, he had
descended so far as to make his bed in a ditch; but (also like Le Distrait) he
himself was uncontaminated as yet by the mire that stained his garments.
"So we have killed
our mandarin, have we?" said Bianchon one day as they left the dinner
table.
"Not yet," he
answered, "but he is at his last gasp."
The medical student
took this for a joke, but it was not a jest. Eugène had dined in the house that
night for the first time for a long while, and had looked thoughtful during the
meal. He had taken his place beside Mlle. Taillefer, and stayed through the
dessert, giving his neighbor an expressive glance from time to time. A few of
the boarders discussed the walnuts at the table, and others walked about the
room, still taking part in the conversation which had begun among them. People
usually went when they chose; the amount of time that they lingered being
determined by the amount of interest that the conversation possessed for them,
or by the difficulty of the process of digestion. In winter-time the room was
seldom empty before eight o’clock, when the four women had it all to
themselves, and made up for the silence previously imposed upon them by the
preponderating masculine element. This evening Vautrin had noticed Eugène’s
abstractedness, and stayed in the room, though he had seemed to be in a hurry
to finish his dinner and go. All through the talk afterwards he had kept out of
the sight of the law student, who quite believed that Vautrin had left the
room. He now took up his position cunningly in the sitting-room instead of
going when the last boarders went. He had fathomed the young man’s thoughts,
and felt that a crisis was at hand. Rastignac was, in fact, in a dilemma, which
many another young man must have known.
Mme. de Nucingen might
love him, or might merely be playing with him, but in either case Rastignac had
been made to experience all the alternations of hope and despair of genuine
passion, and all the diplomatic arts of a Parisienne had been employed on him.
After compromising herself by continually appearing in public with Mme. de
Beauseant’s cousin she still hesitated, and would not give him the lover’s
privileges which he appeared to enjoy. For a whole month she had so wrought on
his senses, that at last she had made an impression on his heart. If in the
earliest days the student had fancied himself to be master, Mme. de Nucingen
had since become the stronger of the two, for she had skilfully roused and
played upon every instinct, good or bad, in the two or three men comprised in a
young student in Paris. This was not the result of deep design on her part, nor
was she playing a part, for women are in a manner true to themselves even
through their grossest deceit, because their actions are prompted by a natural
impulse. It may have been that Delphine, who had allowed this young man to gain
such an ascendency over her, conscious that she had been too demonstrative, was
obeying a sentiment of dignity, and either repented of her concessions, or it
pleased her to suspend them. It is so natural to a Parisienne, even when
passion has almost mastered her, to hesitate and pause before taking the
plunge; to probe the heart of him to whom she intrusts her future. And once
already Mme. de Nucingen’s hopes had been betrayed, and her loyalty to a
selfish young lover had been despised. She had good reason to be suspicious. Or
it may have been that something in Eugène’s manner (for his rapid success was
making a coxcomb of him) had warned her that the grotesque nature of their
position had lowered her somewhat in his eyes. She doubtless wished to assert
her dignity; he was young, and she would be great in his eyes; for the lover
who had forsaken her had held her so cheap that she was determined that Eugène
should not think her an easy conquest, and for this very reason--he knew that
de Marsay had been his predecessor. Finally, after the degradation of
submission to the pleasure of a heartless young rake, it was so sweet to her to
wander in the flower-strewn realms of love, that it was not wonderful that she
should wish to dwell a while on the prospect, to tremble with the vibrations of
love, to feel the freshness of the breath of its dawn. The true lover was
suffering for the sins of the false. This inconsistency is unfortunately only
to be expected so long as men do not know how many flowers are mown down in a
young woman’s soul by the first stroke of treachery.
Whatever her reasons
may have been, Delphine was playing with Rastignac, and took pleasure in
playing with him, doubtless because she felt sure of his love, and confident
that she could put an end to the torture as soon as it was her royal pleasure
to do so. Eugène’s self-love was engaged; he could not suffer his first passage
of love to end in a defeat, and persisted in his suit like a sportsman
determined to bring down at least one partridge to celebrate his first Feast of
Saint-Hubert. The pressure of anxiety, his wounded self-love, his despair, real
or feigned, drew him nearer and nearer to this woman. All Paris credited him
with this conquest, and yet he was conscious that he had made no progress since
the day when he saw Mme. de Nucingen for the first time. He did not know as yet
that a woman’s coquetry is sometimes more delightful than the pleasure of
secure possession of her love, and was possessed with helpless rage. If, at
this time, while she denied herself to love, Eugène gathered the springtide
spoils of his life, the fruit, somewhat sharp and green, and dearly bought, was
no less delicious to the taste. There were moments when he had not a sou in his
pockets, and at such times he thought in spite of his conscience of Vautrin’s
offer and the possibility of fortune by a marriage with Mlle. Taillefer.
Poverty would clamor so loudly that more than once he was on the point of
yielding to the cunning temptations of the terrible sphinx, whose glance had so
often exerted a strange spell over him.
Poiret and Mlle.
Michonneau went up to their rooms; and Rastignac, thinking that he was alone
with the women in the dining-room, sat between Mme. Vauquer and Mme. Couture,
who was nodding over the woolen cuffs that she was knitting by the stove, and
looked at Mlle. Taillefer so tenderly that she lowered her eyes.
"Can you be in
trouble, M. Eugène?" Victorine said after a pause.
"Who has not his
troubles?" answered Rastignac. "If we men were sure of being loved,
sure of a devotion which would be our reward for the sacrifices which we are
always ready to make, then perhaps we should have no troubles."
For answer Mlle. Taillefer
only gave him a glance but it was impossible to mistake its meaning.
"You, for
instance, mademoiselle; you feel sure of your heart to-day, but are you sure
that it will never change?"
A smile flitted over
the poor girl’s lips; it seemed as if a ray of light from her soul had lighted
up her face. Eugène was dismayed at the sudden explosion of feeling caused by
his words.
"Ah! but
suppose," he said, "that you should be rich and happy to- morrow,
suppose that a vast fortune dropped down from the clouds for you, would you
still love the man whom you loved in your days of poverty?"
A charming movement of
the head was her only answer.
"Even if he were
very poor?"
Again the same mute
answer.
"What nonsense are
you talking, you two?" exclaimed Mme. Vauquer.
"Never mind,"
answered Eugène; "we understand each other."
"So there is to be
an engagement of marriage between M. le Chevalier Eugène de Rastignac and Mlle.
Victorine Taillefer, is there?" The words were uttered in Vautrin’s deep
voice, and Vautrin appeared at the door as he spoke.
"Oh! how you
startled me!" Mme. Couture and Mme. Vauquer exclaimed together.
"I might make a
worse choice," said Rastignac, laughing. Vautrin’s voice had thrown him
into the most painful agitation that he had yet known.
"No bad jokes,
gentlemen!" said Mme. Couture. "My dear, let us go upstairs."
Mme. Vauquer followed
the two ladies, meaning to pass the evening in their room, an arrangement that
economized fire and candlelight. Eugène and Vautrin were left alone.
"I felt sure you
would come round to it," said the elder man with the coolness that nothing
seemed to shake. "But stay a moment! I have as much delicacy as anybody
else. Don’t make up your mind on the spur of the moment; you are a little thrown
off your balance just now. You are in debt, and I want you to come over to my
way of thinking after sober reflection, and not in a fit of passion or
desperation. Perhaps you want a thousand crowns. There, you can have them if
you like."
The tempter took out a
pocketbook, and drew thence three banknotes, which he fluttered before the
student’s eyes. Eugène was in a most painful dilemma. He had debts, debts of
honor. He owed a hundred louis to the Marquis d’Ajuda and to the Count de
Trailles; he had not the money, and for this reason had not dared to go to Mme.
de Restaud’s house, where he was expected that evening. It was one of those
informal gatherings where tea and little cakes are handed round, but where it
is possible to lose six thousand francs at whist in the course of a night.
"You must
see," said Eugène, struggling to hide a convulsive tremor, "that
after what has passed between us, I cannot possibly lay myself under any
obligation to you."
"Quite right; I
should be sorry to hear you speak otherwise," answered the tempter.
"You are a fine young fellow, honorable, brave as a lion, and as gentle as
a young girl. You would be a fine haul for the devil! I like youngsters of your
sort. Get rid of one or two more prejudices, and you will see the world as it
is. Make a little scene now and then, and act a virtuous part in it, and a man
with a head on his shoulders can do exactly as he likes amid deafening applause
from the fools in the gallery. Ah! a few days yet, and you will be with us; and
if you would only be tutored by me, I would put you in the way of achieving all
your ambitions. You should no sooner form a wish than it should be realized to
the full; you should have all your desires--honors, wealth, or women.
Civilization should flow with milk and honey for you. You should be our pet and
favorite, our Benjamin. We would all work ourselves to death for you with
pleasure; every obstacle should be removed from your path. You have a few
prejudices left; so you think that I am a scoundrel, do you? Well, M. de
Turenne, quite as honorable a man as you take yourself to be, had some little
private transactions with bandits, and did not feel that his honor was
tarnished. You would rather not lie under any obligation to me, eh? You need
not draw back on that account," Vautrin went on, and a smile stole over
his lips. "Take these bits of paper and write across this," he added,
producing a piece of stamped paper, "Accepted the sum of three thousand
five hundred francs due this day twelvemonth, and fill in the date. The rate of
interest is stiff enough to silence any scruples on your part; it gives you the
right to call me a Jew. You can call quits with me on the score of gratitude. I
am quite willing that you should despise me to-day, because I am sure that you
will have a kindlier feeling towards me later on. You will find out fathomless
depths in my nature, enormous and concentrated forces that weaklings call
vices, but you will never find me base or ungrateful. In short, I am neither a
pawn nor a bishop, but a castle, a tower of strength, my boy."
"What manner of
man are you?" cried Eugène. "Were you created to torment me?"
"Why no; I am a
good-natured fellow, who is willing to do a dirty piece of work to put you high
and dry above the mire for the rest of your days. Do you ask the reason of this
devotion? All right; I will tell you that some of these days. A word or two in
your ear will explain it. I have begun by shocking you, by showing you the way
to ring the changes, and giving you a sight of the mechanism of the social
machine; but your first fright will go off like a conscript’s terror on the
battlefield. You will grow used to regarding men as common soldiers who have
made up their minds to lose their lives for some self-constituted king. Times
have altered strangely. Once you could say to a bravo, ’Here are a hundred
crowns; go and kill Monsieur So-and-so for me,’ and you could sup quietly after
turning some one off into the dark for the least thing in the world. But
nowadays I propose to put you in the way of a handsome fortune; you have only
to nod your head, it won’t compromise you in any way, and you hesitate. ’Tis an
effeminate age."
Eugène accepted the
draft, and received the banknotes in exchange for it.
"Well, well. Come,
now, let us talk rationally," Vautrin continued. "I mean to leave
this country in a few months’ time for America, and set about planting tobacco.
I will send you the cigars of friendship. If I make money at it, I will help
you in your career. If I have no children--which will probably be the case, for
I have no anxiety to raise slips of myself here--you shall inherit my fortune.
That is what you may call standing by a man; but I myself have a liking for
you. I have a mania, too, for devoting myself to some one else. I have done it
before. You see, my boy, I live in a loftier sphere than other men do; I look
on all actions as means to an end, and the end is all that I look at. What is a
man’s life to me? Not that," he said, and he snapped his thumb-nail
against his teeth. "A man, in short, is everything to me, or just nothing
at all. Less than nothing if his name happens to be Poiret; you can crush him
like a bug, he is flat and he is offensive. But a man is a god when he is like
you; he is not a machine covered with a skin, but a theatre in which the
greatest sentiments are displayed--great thoughts and feelings--and for these,
and these only, I live. A sentiment--what is that but the whole world in a
thought? Look at Father Goriot. For him, his two girls are the whole universe;
they are the clue by which he finds his way through creation. Well, for my own
part, I have fathomed the depths of life, there is only one real
sentiment--comradeship between man and man. Pierre and Jaffier, that is my
passion. I knew Venice Preserved by heart. Have you met many men plucky enough
when a comrade says, ’Let us bury a dead body!’ to go and do it without a word
or plaguing him by taking a high moral tone? I have done it myself. I should
not talk like this to just everybody, but you are not like an ordinary man; one
can talk to you, you can understand things. You will not dabble about much
longer among the tadpoles in these swamps. Well, then, it is all settled. You
will marry. Both of us carry our point. Mine is made of iron, and will never
soften, he! he!"
Vautrin went out. He
would not wait to hear the student’s repudiation, he wished to put Eugène at
his ease. He seemed to understand the secret springs of the faint resistance
still made by the younger man; the struggles in which men seek to preserve
their self-respect by justifying their blameworthy actions to themselves.
"He may do as he
likes; I shall not marry Mlle. Taillefer, that is certain," said Eugène to
himself.
He regarded this man
with abhorrence, and yet the very cynicism of Vautrin’s ideas, and the
audacious way in which he used other men for his own ends, raised him in the
student’s eyes; but the thought of a compact threw Eugène into a fever of
apprehension, and not until he had recovered somewhat did he dress, call for a
cab, and go to Mme. de Restaud’s.
For some days the
Countess had paid more and more attention to a young man whose every step
seemed a triumphal progress in the great world; it seemed to her that he might
be a formidable power before long. He paid Messieurs de Trailles and d’Ajuda,
played at whist for part of the evening, and made good his losses. Most men who
have their way to make are more or less of fatalists, and Eugène was
superstitious; he chose to consider that his luck was heaven’s reward for his
perseverance in the right way. As soon as possible on the following morning he
asked Vautrin whether the bill he had given was still in the other’s
possession; and on receiving a reply in the affirmative, he repaid the three
thousand francs with a not unnatural relief.
"Everything is
going on well," said Vautrin.
"But I am not your
accomplice," said Eugène.
"I know, I
know," Vautrin broke in. "You are still acting like a child. You are
making mountains out of molehills at the outset."
Two days later, Poiret
and Mlle. Michonneau were sitting together on a bench in the sun. They had
chosen a little frequented alley in the Jardin des Plantes, and a gentleman was
chatting with them, the same person, as a matter of fact, about whom the
medical student had, not without good reason, his own suspicions.
"Mademoiselle,"
this M. Gondureau was saying, "I do not see any cause for your scruples.
His Excellency, Monseigneur the Minister of Police----"
"Yes, his
Excellency is taking a personal interest in the matter," said Gondureau.
Who would think it
probable that Poiret, a retired clerk, doubtless possessed of some notions of
civic virtue, though there might be nothing else in his head--who would think
it likely that such a man would continue to lend an ear to this supposed
independent gentleman of the Rue de Buffon, when the latter dropped the mask of
a decent citizen by that word "police," and gave a glimpse of the
features of a detective from the Rue de Jerusalem? And yet nothing was more natural.
Perhaps the following remarks from the hitherto unpublished records made by
certain observers will throw a light on the particular species to which Poiret
belonged in the great family of fools. There is a race of quill-drivers,
confined in the columns of the budget between the first degree of latitude (a
kind of administrative Greenland where the salaries begin at twelve hundred
francs) to the third degree, a more temperate zone, where incomes grow from
three to six thousand francs, a climate where the bonus flourishes like a
half-hardy annual in spite of some difficulties of culture. A characteristic
trait that best reveals the feeble narrow-mindedness of these inhabitants of
petty officialdom is a kind of involuntary, mechanical, and instinctive
reverence for the Grand Lama of every Ministry, known to the rank and file only
by his signature (an illegible scrawl) and by his title--"His Excellency
Monseigneur le Ministre," five words which produce as much effect as the
il Bondo Cani of the Calife de Bagdad, five words which in the eyes of this low
order of intelligence represent a sacred power from which there is no appeal.
The Minister is administratively infallible for the clerks in the employ of the
Government, as the Pope is infallible for good Catholics. Something of this
peculiar radiance invests everything he does or says, or that is said or done
in his name; the robe of office covers everything and legalizes everything done
by his orders; does not his very title--His Excellency--vouch for the purity of
his intentions and the righteousness of his will, and serve as a sort of
passport and introduction to ideas that otherwise would not be entertained for
a moment? Pronounce the words "His Excellency," and these poor folk
will forthwith proceed to do what they would not do for their own interests.
Passive obedience is as well known in a Government department as in the army
itself; and the administrative system silences consciences, annihilates the
individual, and ends (give it time enough) by fashioning a man into a vise or a
thumbscrew, and he becomes part of the machinery of Government. Wherefore, M.
Gondureau, who seemed to know something of human nature, recognized Poiret at
once as one of those dupes of officialdom, and brought out for his benefit, at
the proper moment, the deus ex machina, the magical words "His
Excellency," so as to dazzle Poiret just as he himself unmasked his
batteries, for he took Poiret and the Michonneau for the male and female of the
same species.
"If his Excellency
himself, his Excellency the Minister . . . Ah! that is quite another
thing," said Poiret.
"You seem to be
guided by this gentleman’s opinion, and you hear what he says," said the
man of independent means, addressing Mlle. Michonneau. "Very well, his
Excellency is at this moment absolutely certain that the so-called Vautrin, who
lodges at the Maison Vauquer, is a convict who escaped from penal servitude at
Toulon, where he is known by the nickname Trompe-la-Mort."
"Trompe-la-Mort?"
said Pioret. "Dear me, he is very lucky if he deserves that
nickname."
"Well, yes,"
said the detective. "They call him so because he has been so lucky as not
to lose his life in the very risky businesses that he has carried through. He
is a dangerous man, you see! He has qualities that are out of the common; the
thing he is wanted for, in fact, was a matter which gained him no end of credit
with his own set----"
"Then is he a man
of honor?" asked Poiret.
"Yes, according to
his notions. He agreed to take another man’s crime upon himself--a forgery
committed by a very handsome young fellow that he had taken a great fancy to, a
young Italian, a bit of a gambler, who has since gone into the army, where his
conduct has been unexceptionable."
"But if his
Excellency the Minister of Police is certain that M. Vautrin is this
Trompe-la-Mort, why should he want me?" asked Mlle. Michonneau.
"Oh yes,"
said Poiret, "if the Minister, as you have been so obliging as to tell us,
really knows for a certainty that----"
"Certainty is not
the word; he only suspects. You will soon understand how things are. Jacques
Collin, nicknamed Trompe-la-Mort, is in the confidence of every convict in the
three prisons; he is their man of business and their banker. He makes a very
good thing out of managing their affairs, which want a man of mark to see about
them."
"Ha! ha! do you
see the pun, mademoiselle?" asked Poiret. "This gentleman calls
himself a man of mark because he is a marked man-- branded, you know."
"This so-called
Vautrin," said the detective, "receives the money belonging to my
lords the convicts, invests it for them, and holds it at the disposal of those
who escape, or hands it over to their families if they leave a will, or to their
mistresses when they draw upon him for their benefit."
"Their mistresses!
You mean their wives," remarked Poiret.
"No, sir. A
convict’s wife is usually an illegitimate connection. We call them
concubines."
"Then they all
live in a state of concubinage?"
"Naturally."
"Why, these are
abominations that his Excellency ought not to allow. Since you have the honor
of seeing his Excellency, you, who seem to have philanthropic ideas, ought
really to enlighten him as to their immoral conduct--they are setting a
shocking example to the rest of society."
"But the
Government does not hold them up as models of all the virtues, my dear
sir----"
"Of course not,
sir; but still----"
"Just let the
gentleman say what he has to say, dearie," said Mlle. Michonneau.
"You see how it
is, mademoiselle," Gondureau continued. "The Government may have the
strongest reasons for getting this illicit hoard into its hands; it mounts up
to something considerable, by all that we can make out. Trompe-la-Mort not only
holds large sums for his friends the convicts, but he has other amounts which
are paid over to him by the Society of the Ten Thousand----"
"Ten Thousand
Thieves!" cried Pioret in alarm.
"No. The Society
of the Ten Thousand is not an association of petty offenders, but of people who
set about their work on a large scale-- they won’t touch a matter unless there
are ten thousand francs in it. It is composed of the most distinguished of the
men who are sent straight to the Assize Courts when they come up for trial.
They know the Code too well to risk their necks when they are nabbed. Collin is
their confidential agent and legal adviser. By means of the large sums of money
at his disposal he has established a sort of detective system of his own; it is
widespread and mysterious in its workings. We have had spies all about him for
a twelvemonth, and yet we could not manage to fathom his games. His capital and
his cleverness are at the service of vice and crime; this money furnishes the
necessary funds for a regular army of blackguards in his pay who wage incessant
war against society. If we can catch Trompe-la-Mort, and take possession of his
funds, we should strike at the root of this evil. So this job is a kind of
Government affair--a State secret--and likely to redound to the honor of those
who bring the thing to a successful conclusion. You, sir, for instance, might
very well be taken into a Government department again; they might make you
secretary to a Commissary of Police; you could accept that post without
prejudice to your retiring pension."
Mlle. Michonneau
interposed at this point with, "What is there to hinder Trompe-la-Mort
from making off with the money?"
"Oh!" said
the detective, "a man is told off to follow him everywhere he goes, with
orders to kill him if he were to rob the convicts. Then it is not quite as easy
to make off with a lot of money as it is to run away with a young lady of
family. Besides, Collin is not the sort of fellow to play such a trick; he
would be disgraced, according to his notions."
"You are quite
right, sir," said Poiret, "utterly disgraced he would be."
"But none of all
this explains why you do not come and take him without more ado," remarked
Mlle. Michonneau.
"Very well,
mademoiselle, I will explain--but," he added in her ear, "keep your
companion quiet, or I shall never have done. The old boy ought to pay people
handsomely for listening to him.--Trompe-la-Mort, when he came back here,"
he went on aloud "slipped into the skin of an honest man; he turned up
disguised as a decent Parisian citizen, and took up his quarters in an
unpretending lodging-house. He is cunning, that he is! You don’t catch him
napping. Then M. Vautrin is a man of consequence, who transacts a good deal of
business."
"Naturally,"
said Poiret to himself.
"And suppose that
the Minister were to make a mistake and get hold of the real Vautrin, he would
put every one’s back up among the business men in Paris, and public opinion
would be against him. M. le Prefet de Police is on slippery ground; he has
enemies. They would take advantage of any mistake. There would be a fine outcry
and fuss made by the Opposition, and he would be sent packing. We must set
about this just as we did about the Coignard affair, the sham Comte de
Sainte-Helene; if he had been the real Comte de Sainte-Helene, we should have
been in the wrong box. We want to be quite sure what we are about."
"Yes, but what you
want is a pretty woman," said Mlle. Michonneau briskly.
"Trompe-la-Mort
would not let a woman come near him," said the detective. "I will
tell you a secret--he does not like them."
"Still, I do not
see what I can do, supposing that I did agree to identify him for two thousand
francs."
"Nothing
simpler," said the stranger. "I will send you a little bottle
containing a dose that will send a rush of blood to the head; it will do him no
harm whatever, but he will fall down as if he were in a fit. The drug can be
put into wine or coffee; either will do equally well. You carry your man to bed
at once, and undress him to see that he is not dying. As soon as you are alone,
you give him a slap on the shoulder, and presto! the letters will appear."
"Why, that is just
nothing at all," said Poiret.
"Well, do you
agree?" said Gondureau, addressing the old maid.
"But, my dear sir,
suppose there are no letters at all," said Mlle. Michonneau; "am I to
have the two thousand francs all the same?"
"No."
"What will you
give me then?"
"Five hundred
francs."
"It is such a
thing to do for so little! It lies on your conscience just the same, and I must
quiet my conscience, sir."
"I assure
you," said Poiret, "that mademoiselle has a great deal of conscience,
and not only so, she is a very amiable person, and very intelligent."
"Well, now,"
Mlle. Michonneau went on, "make it three thousand francs if he is
Trompe-la-Mort, and nothing at all if he is an ordinary man."
"Done!" said
Gondureau, "but on the condition that the thing is settled
to-morrow."
"Not quite so
soon, my dear sir; I must consult my confessor first."
"You are a sly
one," said the detective as he rose to his feet. "Good- bye till
to-morrow, then. And if you should want to see me in a hurry, go to the Petite
Rue Saint-Anne at the bottom of the Cour de la Sainte-Chapelle. There is one
door under the archway. Ask there for M. Gondureau."
Bianchon, on his way
back from Cuvier’s lecture, overheard the sufficiently striking nickname of
Trompe-la-Mort, and caught the celebrated chief detective’s "Done!"
"Why didn’t you
close with him? It would be three hundred francs a year," said Poiret to
Mlle. Michonneau.
"Why didn’t
I?" she asked. "Why, it wants thinking over. Suppose that M. Vautrin
is this Trompe-la-Mort, perhaps we might do better for ourselves with him.
Still, on the other hand, if you ask him for money, it would put him on his
guard, and he is just the man to clear out without paying, and that would be an
abominable sell."
"And suppose you
did warn him," Poiret went on, "didn’t that gentleman say that he was
closely watched? You would spoil everything."
"Anyhow,"
thought Mlle. Michonneau, "I can’t abide him. He says nothing but
disagreeable things to me."
"But you can do
better than that," Poiret resumed. "As that gentleman said (and he
seemed to me to be a very good sort of man, besides being very well got up), it
is an act of obedience to the laws to rid society of a criminal, however
virtuous he may be. Once a thief, always a thief. Suppose he were to take it
into his head to murder us all? The deuce! We should be guilty of manslaughter,
and be the first to fall victims into the bargain!"
Mlle. Michonneau’s
musings did not permit her to listen very closely to the remarks that fell one
by one from Poiret’s lips like water dripping from a leaky tap. When once this
elderly babbler began to talk, he would go on like clockwork unless Mlle.
Michonneau stopped him. He started on some subject or other, and wandered on
through parenthesis after parenthesis, till he came to regions as remote as
possible from his premises without coming to any conclusions by the way.
By the time they
reached the Maison Vauquer he had tacked together a whole string of examples
and quotations more or less irrelevant to the subject in hand, which led him to
give a full account of his own deposition in the case of the Sieur Ragoulleau
versus Dame Morin, when he had been summoned as a witness for the defence.
As they entered the
dining-room, Eugène de Rastignac was talking apart with Mlle. Taillefer; the
conversation appeared to be of such thrilling interest that the pair never
noticed the two older lodgers as they passed through the room. None of this was
thrown away on Mlle. Michonneau.
"I knew how it
would end," remarked that lady, addressing Poiret. "They have been
making eyes at each other in a heartrending way for a week past."
"Yes," he
answered. "So she was found guilty."
"Who?"
"Mme. Morin."
"I am talking
about Mlle. Victorine," said Mlle, Michonneau, as she entered Poiret’s
room with an absent air, "and you answer, ’Mme. Morin.’ Who may Mme. Morin
be?"
"What can Mlle.
Victorine be guilty of?" demanded Poiret.
"Guilty of falling
in love with M. Eugène de Rastignac and going further and further without
knowing exactly where she is going, poor innocent!"
That morning Mme. de
Nucingen had driven Eugène to despair. In his own mind he had completely
surrendered himself to Vautrin, and deliberately shut his eyes to the motive
for the friendship which that extraordinary man professed for him, nor would he
look to the consequences of such an alliance. Nothing short of a miracle could
extricate him now out of the gulf into which he had walked an hour ago, when he
exchanged vows in the softest whispers with Mlle. Taillefer. To Victorine it
seemed as if she heard an angel’s voice, that heaven was opening above her; the
Maison Vauquer took strange and wonderful hues, like a stage fairy-palace. She
loved and she was loved; at any rate, she believed that she was loved; and what
woman would not likewise have believed after seeing Rastignac’s face and
listening to the tones of his voice during that hour snatched under the Argus
eyes of the Maison Vauquer? He had trampled on his conscience; he knew that he
was doing wrong, and did it deliberately; he had said to himself that a woman’s
happiness should atone for this venial sin. The energy of desperation had lent
new beauty to his face; the lurid fire that burned in his heart shone from his
eyes. Luckily for him, the miracle took place. Vautrin came in in high spirits,
and at once read the hearts of these two young creatures whom he had brought
together by the combinations of his infernal genius, but his deep voice broke
in upon their bliss.
"A charming girl
is my Fanchette In her simplicity,"
he sang mockingly.
Victorine fled. Her
heart was more full than it had ever been, but it was full of joy, and not of
sorrow. Poor child! A pressure of the hand, the light touch of Rastignac’s hair
against her cheek, a word whispered in her ear so closely that she felt the
student’s warm breath on her, the pressure of a trembling arm about her waist,
a kiss upon her throat--such had been her betrothal. The near neighborhood of
the stout Sylvie, who might invade that glorified room at any moment, only made
these first tokens of love more ardent, more eloquent, more entrancing than the
noblest deeds done for love’s sake in the most famous romances. This plain-song
of love, to use the pretty expression of our forefathers, seemed almost
criminal to the devout young girl who went to confession every fortnight. In
that one hour she had poured out more of the treasures of her soul than she
could give in later days of wealth and happiness, when her whole self followed
the gift.
"The thing is
arranged," Vautrin said to Eugène, who remained. "Our two dandies
have fallen out. Everything was done in proper form. It is a matter of opinion.
Our pigeon has insulted my hawk. They will meet to-morrow in the redoubt at
Clignancourt. By half-past eight in the morning Mlle. Taillefer, calmly dipping
her bread and butter in her coffee cup, will be sole heiress of her father’s
fortune and affections. A funny way of putting it, isn’t it? Taillefer’s
youngster is an expert swordsman, and quite cocksure about it, but he will be
bled; I have just invented a thrust for his benefit, a way of raising your
sword point and driving it at the forehead. I must show you that thrust; it is
an uncommonly handy thing to know."
Rastignac heard him in
dazed bewilderment; he could not find a word in reply. Just then Goriot came
in, and Bianchon and a few of the boarders likewise appeared.
"That is just as I
intended." Vautrin said. "You know quite well what you are about.
Good, my little eaglet! You are born to command, you are strong, you stand firm
on your feet, you are game! I respect you."
He made as though he
would take Eugène’s hand, but Rastignac hastily withdrew it, sank into a chair,
and turned ghastly pale; it seemed to him that there was a sea of blood before
his eyes.
"Oh! so we still
have a few dubious tatters of the swaddling clothes of virtue about us!"
murmured Vautrin. "But Papa Doliban has three millions; I know the amount
of his fortune. Once have her dowry in your hands, and your character will be
as white as the bride’s white dress, even in your own eyes."
Rastignac hesitated no
longer. He made up his mind that he would go that evening to warn the
Taillefers, father and son. But just as Vautrin left him, Father Goriot came up
and said in his ear, "You look melancholy, my boy; I will cheer you up.
Come with me."
The old vermicelli
dealer lighted his dip at one of the lamps as he spoke. Eugène went with him,
his curiosity had been aroused.
"Let us go up to
your room," the worthy soul remarked, when he had asked Sylvie for the law
student’s key. "This morning," he resumed, "you thought that she
did not care about you, did you not? Eh? She would have nothing to say to you,
and you went away out of humor and out of heart. Stuff and rubbish! She wanted
you to go because she was expecting me! Now do you understand? We were to
complete the arrangements for taking some chambers for you, a jewel of a place,
you are to move into it in three days’ time. Don’t split upon me. She wants it
to be a surprise; but I couldn’t bear to keep the secret from you. You will be
in the Rue d’Artois, only a step or two from the Rue Saint-Lazare, and you are
to be housed like a prince! Any one might have thought we were furnishing the
house for a bride. Oh! we have done a lot of things in the last month, and you
knew nothing about it. My attorney has appeared on the scene, and my daughter
is to have thirty-six thousand francs a year, the interest on her money, and I
shall insist on having her eight hundred thousand invested in sound securities,
landed property that won’t run away."
Eugène was dumb. He
folded his arms and paced up and down in his cheerless, untidy room. Father
Goriot waited till the student’s back was turned, and seized the opportunity to
go to the chimney-piece and set upon it a little red morocco case with
Rastignac’s arms stamped in gold on the leather.
"My dear
boy," said the kind soul, "I have been up to the eyes in this
business. You see, there was plenty of selfishness on my part; I have an
interested motive in helping you to change lodgings. You will not refuse me if
I ask you something; will you, eh?"
"What is it?"
"There is a room
on the fifth floor, up above your rooms, that is to let along with them; that
is where I am going to live, isn’t that so? I am getting old: I am too far from
my girls. I shall not be in the way, but I shall be there, that is all. You
will come and talk to me about her every evening. It will not put you about,
will it? I shall have gone to bed before you come in, but I shall hear you come
up, and I shall say to myself, ’He has just seen my little Delphine. He has
been to a dance with her, and she is happy, thanks to him.’ If I were ill, it
would do my heart good to hear you moving about below, to know when you leave
the house and when you come in. It is only a step to the Champs-Elysees, where
they go every day, so I shall be sure of seeing them, whereas now I am
sometimes too late. And then--perhaps she may come to see you! I shall hear
her, I shall see her in her soft quilted pelisse tripping about as daintily as
a kitten. In this one month she has become my little girl again, so
light-hearted and gay. Her soul is recovering, and her happiness is owing to
you! Oh! I would do impossibilities for you. Only just now she said to me, ’I
am very happy, papa!’ When they say ’father’ stiffly, it sends a chill through
me; but when they call me ’papa,’ it brings all the old memories back. I feel
most their father then; I even believe that they belong to me, and to no one
else."
The good man wiped his
eyes, he was crying.
"It is a long
while since I have heard them talk like that, a long, long time since she took
my arm as she did to-day. Yes, indeed, it must be quite ten years since I
walked side by side with one of my girls. How pleasant it was to keep step with
her, to feel the touch of her gown, the warmth of her arm! Well, I took
Delphine everywhere this morning; I went shopping with her, and I brought her
home again. Oh! you must let me live near you. You may want some one to do you
a service some of these days, and I shall be on the spot to do it. Oh! if only
that great dolt of an Alsatian would die, if his gout would have the sense to
attack his stomach, how happy my poor child would be! You would be my
son-in-law; you would be her husband in the eyes of the world. Bah! she has
known no happiness, that excuses everything. Our Father in heaven is surely on
the side of fathers on earth who love their children. How fond of you she
is!" he said, raising his head after a pause. "All the time we were
going about together she chatted away about you. ’He is so nice-looking, papa;
isn’t he? He is kind-hearted! Does he talk to you about me?’ Pshaw! she said
enough about you to fill whole volumes; between the Rue d’Artois and the
Passage des Panoramas she poured her heart out into mine. I did not feel old
once during that delightful morning; I felt as light as a feather. I told her
how you had given the banknote to me; it moved my darling to tears. But what
can this be on your chimney-piece?" said Father Goriot at last. Rastignac
had showed no sign, and he was dying of impatience.
Eugène stared at his
neighbor in dumb and dazed bewilderment. He thought of Vautrin, of that duel to
be fought to-morrow morning, and of this realization of his dearest hopes, and
the violent contrast between the two sets of ideas gave him all the sensations
of nightmare. He went to the chimney-piece, saw the little square case, opened
it, and found a watch of Breguet’s make wrapped in paper, on which these words
were written:
"I want you to think
of me every hour, because . . . "DELPHINE."
That last word
doubtless contained an allusion to some scene that had taken place between
them. Eugène felt touched. Inside the gold watch- case his arms had been
wrought in enamel. The chain, the key, the workmanship and design of the
trinket were all such as he had imagined, for he had long coveted such a
possession. Father Goriot was radiant. Of course he had promised to tell his
daughter every little detail of the scene and of the effect produced upon Eugène
by her present; he shared in the pleasure and excitement of the young people,
and seemed to be not the least happy of the three. He loved Rastignac already
for his own as well as for his daughter’s sake.
"You must go and
see her; she is expecting you this evening. That great lout of an Alsatian is
going to have supper with his opera- dancer. Aha! he looked very foolish when
my attorney let him know where he was. He says he idolizes my daughter, does
he? He had better let her alone, or I will kill him. To think that my Delphine
is his"-- he heaved a sigh--"it is enough to make me murder him, but
it would not be manslaughter to kill that animal; he is a pig with a calf’s
brains.--You will take me with you, will you not?"
"Yes, dear Father
Goriot; you know very well how fond I am of you----"
"Yes, I do know
very well. You are not ashamed of me, are you? Not you! Let me embrace
you," and he flung his arms around the student’s neck.
"You will make her
very happy; promise me that you will! You will go to her this evening, will you
not?"
"Oh! yes. I must
go out; I have some urgent business on hand."
"Can I be of any
use?"
"My word, yes!
Will you go to old Taillefer’s while I go to Mme. de Nucingen? Ask him to make
an appointment with me some time this evening; it is a matter of life and
death."
"Really, young
man!" cried Father Goriot, with a change of countenance; "are you
really paying court to his daughter, as those simpletons were saying down
below? . . . Tonnerre de dieu! you have no notion what a tap a la Goriot is
like, and if you are playing a double game, I shall put a stop to it by one
blow of the fist. . . Oh! the thing is impossible!"
"I swear to you
that I love but one woman in the world," said the student. "I only
knew it a moment ago."
"Oh! what
happiness!" cried Goriot.
"But young
Taillefer has been called out; the duel comes off to- morrow morning, and I
have heard it said that he may lose his life in it."
"But what business
is it of yours?" said Goriot.
"Why, I ought to
tell him so, that he may prevent his son from putting in an
appearance----"
Just at that moment
Vautrin’s voice broke in upon them; he was standing at the threshold of his
door and singing: "Oh! Richard, oh my king! All the world abandons thee!
Broum! broum! broum! broum! broum! The same old story everywhere, A roving
heart and a . . . tra la la."
"Gentlemen!"
shouted Christophe, "the soup is ready, and every one is waiting for
you."
"Here,"
Vautrin called down to him, "come and take a bottle of my Bordeaux."
"Do you think your
watch is pretty?" asked Goriot. "She has good taste, hasn’t she?
Eh?"
Vautrin, Father Goriot,
and Rastignac came downstairs in company, and, all three of them being late,
were obliged to sit together.
Eugène was as distant
as possible in his manner to Vautrin during dinner; but the other, so charming
in Mme. Vauquer’s opinion, had never been so witty. His lively sallies and
sparkling talk put the whole table in good humor. His assurance and coolness
filled Eugène with consternation.
"Why, what has
come to you to-day?" inquired Mme. Vauquer. "You are as merry as a
skylark."
"I am always in
spirits after I have made a good bargain."
"Bargain?"
said Eugène.
"Well, yes,
bargain. I have just delivered a lot of goods, and I shall be paid a handsome
commission on them--Mlle. Michonneau," he went on, seeing that the elderly
spinster was scrutinizing him intently, "have you any objection to some
feature in my face, that you are making those lynx eyes at me? Just let me
know, and I will have it changed to oblige you . . . We shall not fall out
about it, Poiret, I dare say?" he added, winking at the superannuated
clerk.
"Bless my soul,
you ought to stand as model for a burlesque Hercules," said the young
painter.
"I will, upon my
word! if Mlle. Michonneau will consent to sit as the Venus of
Pere-Lachaise," replied Vautrin.
"There’s
Poiret," suggested Bianchon.
"Oh! Poiret shall
pose as Poiret. He can be a garden god!" cried Vautrin; "his name
means a pear----"
"A sleepy
pear!" Bianchon put in. "You will come in between the pear and the
cheese."
"What stuff are
you all talking!" said Mme. Vauquer; "you would do better to treat us
to your Bordeaux; I see a glimpse of a bottle there. It would keep us all in a
good humor, and it is good for the stomach besides."
"Gentlemen,"
said Vautrin, "the Lady President calls us to order. Mme. Couture and
Mlle. Victorine will take your jokes in good part, but respect the innocence of
the aged Goriot. I propose a glass or two of Bordeauxrama, rendered twice
illustrious by the name of Laffite, no political allusions intended.--Come, you
Turk!" he added, looking at Christophe, who did not offer to stir.
"Christophe! Here! What, you don’t answer to your own name? Bring us some
liquor, Turk!"
"Here it is,
sir," said Christophe, holding out the bottle.
Vautrin filled Eugène’s
glass and Goriot’s likewise, then he deliberately poured out a few drops into
his own glass, and sipped it while his two neighbors drank their wine. All at
once he made a grimace.
"Corked!" he
cried. "The devil! You can drink the rest of this, Christophe, and go and
find another bottle; take from the right-hand side, you know. There are sixteen
of us; take down eight bottles."
"If you are going
to stand treat," said the painter, "I will pay for a hundred
chestnuts."
"Oh! oh!"
"Booououh!"
"Prrr!"
These exclamations came
from all parts of the table like squibs from a set firework.
"Come, now, Mama
Vauquer, a couple of bottles of champagne," called Vautrin.
"Quien! just like
you! Why not ask for the whole house at once. A couple of bottles of champagne;
that means twelve francs! I shall never see the money back again, I know! But
if M. Eugène has a mind to pay for it, I have some currant cordial."
"That currant
cordial of hers is as bad as a black draught," muttered the medical
student.
"Shut up,
Bianchon," exclaimed Rastignac; "the very mention of black draught
makes me feel----. Yes, champagne, by all means; I will pay for it," he
added.
"Sylvie,"
called Mme. Vauquer, "bring in some biscuits, and the little cakes."
"Those little cakes
are mouldy graybeards," said Vautrin. "But trot out the
biscuits."
The Bordeaux wine
circulated; the dinner table became a livelier scene than ever, and the fun
grew fast and furious. Imitations of the cries of various animals mingled with
the loud laughter; the Museum official having taken it into his head to mimic a
cat-call rather like the caterwauling of the animal in question, eight voices
simultaneously struck up with the following variations:
"Scissors to
grind!"
"Chick-weeds for
singing bir-ds!"
"Brandy-snaps,
ladies!"
"China to
mend!"
"Boat ahoy!"
"Sticks to beat
your wives or your clothes!"
"Old clo’!"
"Cherries all
ripe!"
But the palm was
awarded to Bianchon for the nasal accent with which he rendered the cry of
"Umbrellas to me-end!"
A few seconds later,
and there was a head-splitting racket in the room, a storm of tomfoolery, a
sort of cats’ concert, with Vautrin as conductor of the orchestra, the latter
keeping an eye the while on Eugène and Father Goriot. The wine seemed to have
gone to their heads already. They leaned back in their chairs, looking at the
general confusion with an air of gravity, and drank but little; both of them
were absorbed in the thought of what lay before them to do that evening, and
yet neither of them felt able to rise and go. Vautrin gave a side glance at
them from time to time, and watched the change that came over their faces,
choosing the moment when their eyes drooped and seemed about to close, to bend
over Rastignac and to say in his ear:--
"My little lad,
you are not quite shrewd enough to outwit Papa Vautrin yet, and he is too fond
of you to let you make a mess of your affairs. When I have made up my mind to
do a thing, no one short of Providence can put me off. Aha! we were for going
round to warn old Taillefer, telling tales out of school! The oven is hot, the
dough is kneaded, the bread is ready for the oven; to-morrow we will eat it up
and whisk away the crumbs; and we are not going to spoil the baking? . . . No,
no, it is all as good as done! We may suffer from a few conscientious scruples,
but they will be digested along with the bread. While we are having our forty
winks, Colonel Count Franchessini will clear the way to Michel Taillefer’s
inheritance with the point of his sword. Victorine will come in for her brother’s
money, a snug fifteen thousand francs a year. I have made inquiries already,
and I know that her late mother’s property amounts to more than three hundred
thousand----"
Eugène heard all this,
and could not answer a word; his tongue seemed to be glued to the roof of his
mouth, an irresistible drowsiness was creeping over him. He still saw the table
and the faces round it, but it was through a bright mist. Soon the noise began
to subside, one by one the boarders went. At last, when their numbers had so
dwindled that the party consisted of Mme. Vauquer, Mme. Couture, Mlle.
Victorine, Vautrin, and Father Goriot, Rastignac watched as though in a dream
how Mme. Vauquer busied herself by collecting the bottles, and drained the
remainder of the wine out of each to fill others.
"Oh! how
uproarious they are! what a thing it is to be young!" said the widow.
These were the last
words that Eugène heard and understood.
"There is no one
like M. Vautrin for a bit of fun like this," said Sylvie. "There,
just hark at Christophe, he is snoring like a top."
"Good-bye,
mamma," said Vautrin; "I am going to a theatre on the boulevard to
see M. Marty in Le Mont Sauvage, a fine play taken from Le Solitaire-- If you
like, I will take you and these two ladies----"
"Thank you; I must
decline," said Mme. Couture.
"What! my good
lady!" cried Mme. Vauquer, "decline to see a play founded on the Le
Solitaire, a work by Atala de Chateaubriand? We were so fond of that book that
we cried over it like Magdalens under the line-trees last summer, and then it
is an improving work that might edify your young lady."
"We are forbidden
to go to the play," answered Victorine.
"Just look, those
two yonder have dropped off where they sit," said Vautrin, shaking the
heads of the two sleepers in a comical way.
He altered the sleeping
student’s position, settled his head more comfortably on the back of his chair,
kissed him warmly on the forehead, and began to sing:
"Sleep, little
darlings; I watch while you slumber."
"I am afraid he
may be ill," said Victorine.
"Then stop and
take care of him," returned Vautrin. " ’Tis your duty as a meek and
obedient wife," he whispered in her ear. "the young fellow worships
you, and you will be his little wife--there’s your fortune for you. In
short," he added aloud, "they lived happily ever afterwards, were
much looked up to in all the countryside, and had a numerous family. That is
how all the romances end.--Now, mamma," he went on, as he turned to Madame
Vauquer and put his arm round her waist, "put on your bonnet, your best
flowered silk, and the countess’ scarf, while I go out and call a cab--all my
own self."
And he started out,
singing as he went:
"Oh! sun! divine
sun! Ripening the pumpkins every one."
"My goodness!
Well, I’m sure! Mme. Couture, I could live happily in a garret with a man like
that.--There, now!" she added, looking round for the old vermicelli maker,
"there is that Father Goriot half seas over. He never thought of taking me
anywhere, the old skinflint. But he will measure his length somewhere. My word!
it is disgraceful to lose his senses like that, at his age! You will be telling
me that he couldn’t lose what he hadn’t got--Sylvie, just take him up to his
room!"
Sylvie took him by the arm,
supported him upstairs, and flung him just as he was, like a package, across
the bed.
"Poor young
fellow!" said Mme. Couture, putting back Eugène’s hair that had fallen
over his eyes; "he is like a young girl, he does not know what dissipation
is."
"Well, I can tell
you this, I know," said Mme. Vauquer, "I have taken lodgers these
thirty years, and a good many have passed through my hands, as the saying is,
but I have never seen a nicer nor a more aristocratic looking young man than M.
Eugène. How handsome he looks sleeping! Just let his head rest on your
shoulder, Mme. Couture. Pshaw! he falls over towards Mlle. Victorine. There’s a
special providence for young things. A little more, and he would have broken
his head against the knob of the chair. They’d make a pretty pair those two
would!"
"Hush, my good
neighbor," cried Mme. Couture, "you are saying such things----"
"Pooh!" put
in Mme. Vauquer, "he does not hear.--Here, Sylvie! come and help me to
dress. I shall put on my best stays."
"What! your best
stays just after dinner, madame?" said Sylvie. "No, you can get some
one else to lace you. I am not going to be your murderer. It’s a rash thing to
do, and might cost you your life."
"I don’t care, I
must do honor to M. Vautrin."
"Are you so fond
of your heirs as all that?"
"Come, Sylvie, don’t
argue," said the widow, as she left the room.
"At her age,
too!" said the cook to Victorine, pointing to her mistress as she spoke.
Mme. Couture and her
ward were left in the dining-room, and Eugène slept on Victorine’s shoulder.
The sound of Christophe’s snoring echoed through the silent house; Eugène’s
quiet breathing seemed all the quieter by force of contrast, he was sleeping as
peacefully as a child. Victorine was very happy; she was free to perform one of
those acts of charity which form an innocent outlet for all the overflowing
sentiments of a woman’s nature; he was so close to her that she could feel the
throbbing of his heart; there was a look of almost maternal protection and
conscious pride in Victorine’s face. Among the countless thoughts that crowded
up in her young innocent heart, there was a wild flutter of joy at this close
contact.
"Poor, dear
child!" said Mme. Couture, squeezing her hand.
The old lady looked at
the girl. Victorine’s innocent, pathetic face, so radiant with the new
happiness that had befallen her, called to mind some naive work of mediaeval
art, when the painter neglected the accessories, reserving all the magic of his
brush for the quiet, austere outlines and ivory tints of the face, which seems
to have caught something of the golden glory of heaven.
"After all, he
only took two glasses, mamma," said Victorine, passing her fingers through
Eugène’s hair.
"Indeed, if he had
been a dissipated young man, child, he would have carried his wine like the
rest of them. His drowsiness does him credit."
There was a sound of
wheels outside in the street.
"There is M.
Vautrin, mamma," said the girl. "Just take M. Eugène. I would rather
not have that man see me like this; there are some ways of looking at you that
seem to sully your soul and make you feel as though you had nothing on."
"Oh, no, you are
wrong!" said Mme. Couture. "M. Vautrin is a worthy man; he reminds me
a little of my late husband, poor dear M. Couture, rough but kind-hearted; his
bark is worse than his bite."
Vautrin came in while
she was speaking; he did not make a sound, but looked for a while at the
picture of the two young faces--the lamplight falling full upon them seemed to
caress them.
"Well," he
remarked, folding his arms, "here is a picture! It would have suggested
some pleasing pages to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (good soul), who wrote Paul et
Virginie. Youth is very charming, Mme. Couture!--Sleep on, poor boy," he
added, looking at Eugène, "luck sometimes comes while you are
sleeping.--There is something touching and attractive to me about this young
man, madame," he continued; "I know that his nature is in harmony
with his face. Just look, the head of a cherub on an angel’s shoulder! He deserves
to be loved. If I were a woman, I would die (no--not such a fool), I would live
for him." He bent lower and spoke in the widow’s ear. "When I see
those two together, madame, I cannot help thinking that Providence meant them
for each other; He works by secret ways, and tries the reins and the
heart," he said in a loud voice. "And when I see you, my children,
thus united by a like purity and by all human affections, I say to myself that
it is quite impossible that the future should separate you. God is
just."--He turned to Victorine. "It seems to me," he said,
"that I have seen the line of success in your hand. Let me look at it,
Mlle. Victorine; I am well up in palmistry, and I have told fortunes many a
time. Come, now, don’t be frightened. Ah! what do I see? Upon my word, you will
be one of the richest heiresses in Paris before very long. You will heap riches
on the man who loves you. Your father will want you to go and live with him.
You will marry a young and handsome man with a title, and he will idolize
you."
The heavy footsteps of
the coquettish widow, who was coming down the stairs, interrupted Vautrin’s
fortune-telling. "Here is Mamma Vauquerre, fair as a starr-r-r, dressed
within an inch of her life.-- Aren’t we a trifle pinched for room?" he
inquired, with his arm round the lady; "we are screwed up very tightly
about the bust, mamma! If we are much agitated, there may be an explosion; but
I will pick up the fragments with all the care of an antiquary."
"There is a man
who can talk the language of French gallantry!" said the widow, bending to
speak in Mme. Couture’s ear.
"Good-bye, little
ones!" said Vautrin, turning to Eugène and Victorine. "Bless you
both!" and he laid a hand on either head. "Take my word for it, young
lady, an honest man’s prayers are worth something; they should bring you
happiness, for God hears them."
"Good-bye,
dear," said Mme. Vauquer to her lodger. "Do you think that M. Vautrin
means to run away with me?" she added, lowering her voice.
"Lack-a-day!"
said the widow.
"Oh! mamma dear,
suppose it should really happen as that kind M. Vautrin said!" said
Victorine with a sigh as she looked at her hands. The two women were alone
together.
"Why, it wouldn’t
take much to bring it to pass," said the elderly lady; "just a fall
from his horse, and your monster of a brother----"
"Oh! mamma."
"Good Lord! Well,
perhaps it is a sin to wish bad luck to an enemy," the widow remarked.
"I will do penance for it. Still, I would strew flowers on his grave with
the greatest pleasure, and that is the truth. Black-hearted, that he is! The
coward couldn’t speak up for his own mother, and cheats you out of your share
by deceit and trickery. My cousin had a pretty fortune of her own, but
unluckily for you, nothing was said in the marriage-contract about anything
that she might come in for."
"It would be very
hard if my fortune is to cost some one else his life," said Victorine.
"If I cannot be happy unless my brother is to be taken out of the world, I
would rather stay here all my life."
"Mon Dieu! it is
just as that good M. Vautrin says, and he is full of piety, you see," Mme.
Couture remarked. "I am very glad to find that he is not an unbeliever
like the rest of them that talk of the Almighty with less respect than they do
of the Devil. Well, as he was saying, who can know the ways by which it may
please Providence to lead us?"
With Sylvie’s help the
two women at last succeeded in getting Eugène up to his room; they laid him on
the bed, and the cook unfastened his clothes to make him more comfortable.
Before they left the room, Victorine snatched an opportunity when her guardian’s
back was turned, and pressed a kiss on Eugène’s forehead, feeling all the joy
that this stolen pleasure could give her. Then she looked round the room, and
gathering up, as it were, into one single thought all the untold bliss of that
day, she made a picture of her memories, and dwelt upon it until she slept, the
happiest creature in Paris.
That evening’s
merry-making, in the course of which Vautrin had given the drugged wine to Eugène
and Father Goriot, was his own ruin. Bianchon, flustered with wine, forgot to
open the subject of Trompe- la-Mort with Mlle. Michonneau. The mere mention of
the name would have set Vautrin on his guard; for Vautrin, or, to give him his
real name, Jacques Collin, was in fact the notorious escaped convict.
But it was the joke
about the Venus of Pere-Lachaise that finally decided his fate. Mlle.
Michonneau had very nearly made up her mind to warn the convict and to throw
herself on his generosity, with the idea of making a better bargain for herself
by helping him to escape that night; but as it was, she went out escorted by
Poiret in search of the famous chief of detectives in the Petite Rue
Saint-Anne, still thinking that it was the district superintendent--one
Gondureau--with whom she had to do. The head of the department received his
visitors courteously. There was a little talk, and the details were definitely
arranged. Mlle. Michonneau asked for the draught that she was to administer in
order to set about her investigation. But the great man’s evident satisfaction
set Mlle. Michonneau thinking; and she began to see that this business involved
something more than the mere capture of a runaway convict. She racked her
brains while he looked in a drawer in his desk for the little phial, and it
dawned upon her that in consequence of treacherous revelations made by the
prisoners the police were hoping to lay their hands on a considerable sum of
money. But on hinting her suspicions to the old fox of the Petite Rue Saint-
Anne, that officer began to smile, and tried to put her off the scent.
"A delusion,"
he said. "Collin’s sorbonne is the most dangerous that has yet been found
among the dangerous classes. That is all, and the rascals are quite aware of
it. They rally round him; he is the backbone of the federation, its Bonaparte,
in short; he is very popular with them all. The rogue will never leave his
chump in the Place de Greve."
As Mlle. Michonneau
seemed mystified, Gondureau explained the two slang words for her benefit.
Sorbonne and chump are two forcible expressions borrowed from thieves’ Latin,
thieves, of all people, being compelled to consider the human head in its two
aspects. A sorbonne is the head of a living man, his faculty of thinking--his
council; a chump is a contemptuous epithet that implies how little a human head
is worth after the axe has done its work.
"Collin is playing
us off," he continued. "When we come across a man like a bar of steel
tempered in the English fashion, there is always one resource left--we can kill
him if he takes it into his head to make the least resistance. We are reckoning
on several methods of killing Collin to-morrow morning. It saves a trial, and
society is rid of him without all the expense of guarding and feeding him. What
with getting up the case, summoning witnesses, paying their expenses, and
carrying out the sentence, it costs a lot to go through all the proper
formalities before you can get quit of one of these good-for-nothings, over and
above the three thousand francs that you are going to have. There is a saving
in time as well. One good thrust of the bayonet into Trompe-la-Mort’s paunch
will prevent scores of crimes, and save fifty scoundrels from following his
example; they will be very careful to keep themselves out of the police courts.
That is doing the work of the police thoroughly, and true philanthropists will
tell you that it is better to prevent crime than to punish it."
"And you do a
service to our country," said Poiret.
"Really, you are
talking in a very sensible manner tonight, that you are," said the head of
the department. "Yes, of course, we are serving our country, and we are
very hardly used too. We do society very great services that are not
recognized. In fact, a superior man must rise above vulgar prejudices, and a
Christian must resign himself to the mishaps that doing right entails, when
right is done in an out-of-the- way style. Paris is Paris, you see! That is the
explanation of my life.--I have the honor to wish you a good-evening,
mademoiselle. I shall bring my men to the Jardin du Roi in the morning. Send
Christophe to the Rue du Buffon, tell him to ask for M. Gondureau in the house
where you saw me before.--Your servant, sir. If you should ever have anything
stolen from you, come to me, and I will do my best to get it back for
you."
"Well, now,"
Poiret remarked to Mlle. Michonneau, "there are idiots who are scared out
of their wits by the word police. That was a very pleasant-spoken gentleman,
and what he wants you to do is as easy as saying ’Good-day.’"
The next day was
destined to be one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the Maison
Vauquer. Hitherto the most startling occurrence in its tranquil existence had
been the portentous, meteor-like apparition of the sham Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil.
But the catastrophes of this great day were to cast all previous events into
the shade, and supply an inexhaustible topic of conversation for Mme. Vauquer
and her boarders so long as she lived.
In the first place,
Goriot and Eugène de Rastignac both slept till close upon eleven o’clock. Mme.
Vauquer, who came home about midnight from the Gaite, lay a-bed till half-past
ten. Christophe, after a prolonged slumber (he had finished Vautrin’s first
bottle of wine), was behindhand with his work, but Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau
uttered no complaint, though breakfast was delayed. As for Victorine and Mme.
Couture, they also lay late. Vautrin went out before eight o’clock, and only
came back just as breakfast was ready. Nobody protested, therefore, when Sylvie
and Christophe went up at a quarter past eleven, knocked at all the doors, and
announced that breakfast was waiting. While Sylvie and the man were upstairs,
Mlle. Michonneau, who came down first, poured the contents of the phial into
the silver cup belonging to Vautrin--it was standing with the others in the
bain- marie that kept the cream hot for the morning coffee. The spinster had
reckoned on this custom of the house to do her stroke of business. The seven
lodgers were at last collected together, not without some difficulty. Just as
Eugène came downstairs, stretching himself and yawning, a commissionaire handed
him a letter from Mme. de Nucingen. It ran thus:--
"I feel neither
false vanity nor anger where you are concerned, my friend. Till two o’clock
this morning I waited for you. Oh, that waiting for one whom you love! No one
that had passed through that torture could inflict it on another. I know now
that you have never loved before. What can have happened? Anxiety has taken
hold of me. I would have come myself to find out what had happened, if I had
not feared to betray the secrets of my heart. How can I walk out or drive out
at this time of day? Would it not be ruin? I have felt to the full how wretched
it is to be a woman. Send a word to reassure me, and explain how it is that you
have not come after what my father told you. I shall be angry, but I will
forgive you. One word, for pity’s sake. You will come to me soon, will you not?
If you are busy, a line will be enough. Say, ’I will hasten to you,’ or else, ’I
am ill.’ But if you were ill my father would have come to tell me so. What can
have happened? . . ."
"Yes, indeed, what
has happened?" exclaimed Eugène, and, hurrying down to the dining-room, he
crumpled up the letter without reading any more. "What time is it?"
"Half-past
eleven," said Vautrin, dropping a lump of sugar into his coffee.
The escaped convict
cast a glance at Eugène, a cold and fascinating glance; men gifted with this
magnetic power can quell furious lunatics in a madhouse by such a glance, it is
said. Eugène shook in every limb. There was the sound of wheels in the street,
and in another moment a man with a scared face rushed into the room. It was one
of M. Taillefer’s servants; Mme. Couture recognized the livery at once.
"Mademoiselle,"
he cried, "your father is asking for you--something terrible has happened!
M. Frederic has had a sword thrust in the forehead in a duel, and the doctors
have given him up. You will scarcely be in time to say good-bye to him! he is
unconscious."
"Poor young fellow!"
exclaimed Vautrin. "How can people brawl when they have a certain income
of thirty thousand livres? Young people have bad manners, and that is a
fact."
"Sir!" cried
Eugène.
"Well, what then,
you big baby!" said Vautrin, swallowing down his coffee imperturbably, an
operation which Mlle. Michonneau watched with such close attention that she had
no emotion to spare for the amazing news that had struck the others dumb with
amazement. "Are there not duels every morning in Paris?" added Vautrin.
"I will go with
you, Victorine," said Mme. Couture, and the two women hurried away at once
without either hats or shawls. But before she went, Victorine, with her eyes
full of tears, gave Eugène a glance that said--"How little I thought that
our happiness should cost me tears!"
"Dear me, you are
a prophet, M. Vautrin," said Mme. Vauquer.
"I am all sorts of
things," said Vautrin.
"Queer, isn’t
it?" said Mme. Vauquer, stringing together a succession of commonplaces
suited to the occasion. "Death takes us off without asking us about it.
The young often go before the old. It is a lucky thing for us women that we are
not liable to fight duels, but we have other complaints that men don’t suffer
from. We bear children, and it takes a long time to get over it. What a
windfall for Victorine! Her father will have to acknowledge her now!"
"There!" said
Vautrin, looking at Eugène, "yesterday she had not a penny; this morning
she has several millions to her fortune."
"I say, M. Eugène!"
cried Mme. Vauquer, "you have landed on your feet!"
At this exclamation,
Father Goriot looked at the student, and saw the crumpled letter still in his
hand.
"You have not read
it through! What does this mean? Are you going to be like the rest of
them?" he asked.
"Madame, I shall
never marry Mlle. Victorine," said Eugène, turning to Mme. Vauquer with an
expression of terror and loathing that surprised the onlookers at this scene.
Father Goriot caught
the student’s hand and grasped it warmly. He could have kissed it.
"Oh, ho!"
said Vautrin, "the Italians have a good proverb--Col tempo."
"Is there any
answer?" said Mme. de Nucingen’s messenger, addressing Eugène.
"Say that I will
come directly."
The man went. Eugène
was in a state of such violent excitement that he could not be prudent.
"What is to be
done?" he exclaimed aloud. "There are no proofs!"
Vautrin began to smile.
Though the drug he had taken was doing its work, the convict was so vigorous
that he rose to his feet, gave Rastignac a look, and said in hollow tones,
"Luck comes to us while we sleep, young man," and fell stiff and
stark, as if he were struck dead.
"So there is a
Divine Justice!" said Eugène.
"Well, if ever!
What has come to that poor dear M. Vautrin?"
"A stroke!"
cried Mlle. Michonneau.
"Here, Sylvie!
girl, run for the doctor," called the widow. "Oh, M. Rastignac, just
go for M. Bianchon, and be as quick as you can; Sylvie might not be in time to
catch our doctor, M. Grimprel."
Rastignac was glad of
an excuse to leave that den of horrors, his hurry for the doctor was nothing
but a flight.
"Here, Christophe,
go round to the chemist’s and ask for something that’s good for the apoplexy."
Christophe likewise
went.
"Father Goriot,
just help us to get him upstairs."
Vautrin was taken up
among them, carried carefully up the narrow staircase, and laid upon his bed.
"I can do no good
here, so I shall go to see my daughter," said M. Goriot.
"Selfish old
thing!" cried Mme. Vauquer. "Yes, go; I wish you may die like a
dog."
"Just go and see
if you can find some ether," said Mlle. Michonneau to Mme. Vauquer; the
former, with some help from Poiret, had unfastened the sick man’s clothes.
Mme. Vauquer went down
to her room, and left Mlle. Michonneau mistress of the situation.
"Now! just pull
down his shirt and turn him over, quick! You might be of some use in sparing my
modesty," she said to Poiret, "instead of standing there like a
stock."
Vautrin was turned
over; Mlle. Michonneau gave his shoulder a sharp slap, and the two portentous
letters appeared, white against the red.
"There, you have
earned your three thousand francs very easily," exclaimed Poiret,
supporting Vautrin while Mlle. Michonneau slipped on the shirt
again.--"Ouf! How heavy he is," he added, as he laid the convict
down.
"Hush! Suppose
there is a strong-box here!" said the old maid briskly; her glances seemed
to pierce the walls, she scrutinized every article of the furniture with greedy
eyes. "Could we find some excuse for opening that desk?"
"It mightn’t be
quite right," responded Poiret to this.
"Where is the
harm? It is money stolen from all sorts of people, so it doesn’t belong to any
one now. But we haven’t time, there is the Vauquer."
"Here is the
ether," said that lady. "I must say that this is an eventful day.
Lord! that man can’t have had a stroke; he is as white as curds."
"White as
curds?" echoed Poiret.
"And his pulse is
steady," said the widow, laying her hand on his breast.
"Steady?"
said the astonished Poiret.
"He is all
right."
"Do you think so?"
asked Poiret.
"Lord! Yes, he
looks as if he were sleeping. Sylvie has gone for a doctor. I say, Mlle.
Michonneau, he is sniffing the ether. Pooh! it is only a spasm. His pulse is
good. He is as strong as a Turk. Just look, mademoiselle, what a fur tippet he
has on his chest; that is the sort of man to live till he is a hundred. His wig
holds on tightly, however. Dear me! it is glued on, and his own hair is red;
that is why he wears a wig. They say that red-haired people are either the
worst or the best. Is he one of the good ones, I wonder?"
"Good to
hang," said Poiret.
"Round a pretty
woman’s neck, you mean," said Mlle Michonneau, hastily. "Just go
away, M. Poiret. It is a woman’s duty to nurse you men when you are ill.
Besides, for all the good you are doing, you may as well take yourself
off," she added. "Mme. Vauquer and I will take great care of dear M.
Vautrin.
Poiret went out on
tiptoe without a murmur, like a dog kicked out of the room by his master.
Rastignac had gone out
for the sake of physical exertion; he wanted to breathe the air, he felt
stifled. Yesterday evening he had meant to prevent the murder arranged for
half-past eight that morning. What had happened? What ought he to do now? He
trembled to think that he himself might be implicated. Vautrin’s coolness still
further dismayed him.
"Yet, how if
Vautrin should die without saying a word?" Rastignac asked himself.
He hurried along the
alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens as if the hounds of justice were after him,
and he already heard the baying of the pack.
"Well?"
shouted Bianchon, "you have seen the Pilote?"
The Pilote was a
Radical sheet, edited by M. Tissot. It came out several hours later than the
morning papers, and was meant for the benefit of country subscribers; for it
brought the morning news into provincial districts twenty-four hours sooner
than the ordinary local journals.
"There is a
wonderful history in it," said the house student of the Hopital Cochin.
"Young Taillefer called out Count Franchessini, of the Old Guard, and the
Count put a couple of inches of steel into his forehead. And here is little
Victorine one of the richest heiresses in Paris! If we had known that, eh? What
a game of chance death is! They say Victorine was sweet on you; was there any
truth in it?"
"Shut up,
Bianchon; I shall never marry her. I am in love with a charming woman, and she
is in love with me, so----"
"You said that as
if you were screwing yourself up to be faithful to her. I should like to see
the woman worth the sacrifice of Master Taillefer’s money!"
"Are all the
devils of hell at my heels?" cried Rastignac.
"What is the
matter with you? Are you mad? Give us your hand," said Bianchon, "and
let me feel your pulse. You are feverish."
"Just go to Mother
Vauquer’s," said Rastignac; "that scoundrel Vautrin has dropped down
like one dead."
"Aha!" said
Bianchon, leaving Rastignac to his reflections, "you confirm my
suspicions, and now I mean to make sure for myself."
The law student’s long
walk was a memorable one for him. He made in some sort a survey of his
conscience. After a close scrutiny, after hesitation and self-examination, his
honor at any rate came out scatheless from this sharp and terrible ordeal, like
a bar of iron tested in the English fashion. He remembered Father Goriot’s
confidences of the evening before; he recollected the rooms taken for him in
the Rue d’Artois, so that he might be near Delphine; and then he thought of his
letter, and read it again and kissed it.
"Such a love is my
anchor of safety," he said to himself. "How the old man’s heart must
have been wrung! He says nothing about all that he has been through; but who
could not guess? Well, then, I will be like a son to him; his life shall be
made happy. If she cares for me, she will often come to spend the day with him.
That grand Comtesse de Restaud is a heartless thing; she would make her father
into her hall porter. Dear Delphine! she is kinder to the old man; she is
worthy to be loved. Ah! this evening I shall be very happy!"
He took out his watch
and admired it.
"I have had
nothing but success! If two people mean to love each other for ever, they may
help each other, and I can take this. Besides, I shall succeed, and I will pay
her a hundredfold. There is nothing criminal in this liaison; nothing that
could cause the most austere moralist to frown. How many respectable people
contract similar unions! We deceive nobody; it is deception that makes a
position humiliating. If you lie, you lower yourself at once. She and her
husband have lived apart for a long while. Besides, how if I called upon that
Alsatian to resign a wife whom he cannot make happy?"
Rastignac’s battle with
himself went on for a long while; and though the scruples of youth inevitably gained
the day, an irresistible curiosity led him, about half-past four, to return to
the Maison Vauquer through the gathering dusk.
Bianchon had given
Vautrin an emetic, reserving the contents of the stomach for chemical analysis
at the hospital. Mlle. Michonneau’s officious alacrity had still further
strengthened his suspicions of her. Vautrin, moreover, had recovered so quickly
that it was impossible not to suspect some plot against the leader of all
frolics at the lodging-house. Vautrin was standing in front of the stove in the
dining-room when Rastignac came in. All the lodgers were assembled sooner than
usual by the news of young Taillefer’s duel. They were anxious to hear any
detail about the affair, and to talk over the probable change in Victorine’s
prospects. Father Goriot alone was absent, but the rest were chatting. No
sooner did Eugène come into the room, than his eyes met the inscrutable gaze of
Vautrin. It was the same look that had read his thoughts before--the look that
had such power to waken evil thoughts in his heart. He shuddered.
"Well, dear
boy," said the escaped convict, "I am likely to cheat death for a
good while yet. According to these ladies, I have had a stroke that would have
felled an ox, and come off with flying colors."
"A bull you might
say," cried the widow.
"You really might
be sorry to see me still alive," said Vautrin in Rastignac’s ear, thinking
that he guessed the student’s thoughts. "You must be mighty sure of
yourself."
"Mlle. Michonneau
was talking the day before yesterday about a gentleman named
Trompe-la-Mort," said Bianchon; "and, upon my word, that name would
do very well for you."
Vautrin seemed
thunderstruck. He turned pale, and staggered back. He turned his magnetic
glance, like a ray of vivid light, on Mlle. Michonneau; the old maid shrank and
trembled under the influence of that strong will, and collapsed into a chair.
The mask of good-nature had dropped from the convict’s face; from the
unmistakable ferocity of that sinister look, Poiret felt that the old maid was
in danger, and hastily stepped between them. None of the lodgers understood
this scene in the least, they looked on in mute amazement. There was a pause.
Just then there was a sound of tramping feet outside; there were soldiers
there, it seemed, for there was a ring of several rifles on the pavement of the
street. Collin was mechanically looking round the walls for a way of escape,
when four men entered by way of the sitting-room.
"In the name of
the King and the Law!" said an officer, but the words were almost lost in
a murmur of astonishment.
Silence fell on the
room. The lodgers made way for three of the men, who had each a hand on a
cocked pistol in a side pocket. Two policemen, who followed the detectives,
kept the entrance to the sitting-room, and two more men appeared in the doorway
that gave access to the staircase. A sound of footsteps came from the garden,
and again the rifles of several soldiers rang on the cobblestones under the
window. All chance of salvation by flight was cut off for Trompe-la-Mort, to
whom all eyes instinctively turned. The chief walked straight up to him, and
commenced operations by giving him a sharp blow on the head, so that the wig
fell off, and Collin’s face was revealed in all its ugliness. There was a terrible
suggestion of strength mingled with cunning in the short, brick-red crop of
hair, the whole head was in harmony with his powerful frame, and at that moment
the fires of hell seemed to gleam from his eyes. In that flash the real Vautrin
shone forth, revealed at once before them all; they understood his past, his
present, and future, his pitiless doctrines, his actions, the religion of his
own good pleasure, the majesty with which his cynicism and contempt for mankind
invested him, the physical strength of an organization proof against all
trials. The blood flew to his face, and his eyes glared like the eyes of a wild
cat. He started back with savage energy and a fierce growl that drew
exclamations of alarm from the lodgers. At that leonine start the police caught
at their pistols under cover of the general clamor. Collin saw the gleaming
muzzles of the weapons, saw his danger, and instantly gave proof of a power of
the highest order. There was something horrible and majestic in the spectacle
of the sudden transformation in his face; he could only be compared to a
cauldron full of the steam that can send mountains flying, a terrific force
dispelled in a moment by a drop of cold water. The drop of water that cooled
his wrathful fury was a reflection that flashed across his brain like
lightning. He began to smile, and looked down at his wig.
"You are not in
the politest of humors to-day," he remarked to the chief, and he held out
his hands to the policemen with a jerk of his head.
"Gentlemen,"
he said, "put on the bracelets or the handcuffs. I call on those present
to witness that I make no resistance."
A murmur of admiration
ran through the room at the sudden outpouring like fire and lava flood from
this human volcano, and its equally sudden cessation.
"There’s a sell
for you, master crusher," the convict added, looking at the famous
director of police.
"Come,
strip!" said he of the Petite Rue Saint-Anne, contemptuously.
"Why?" asked
Collin. "There are ladies present; I deny nothing, and surrender."
He paused, and looked
round the room like an orator who is about to overwhelm his audience.
"Take this down,
Daddy Lachapelle," he went on, addressing a little, white-haired old man
who had seated himself at the end of the table; and after drawing a printed
form from the portfolio, was proceeding to draw up a document. "I
acknowledge myself to be Jacques Collin, otherwise known as Trompe-la-Mort,
condemned to twenty years’ penal servitude, and I have just proved that I have
come fairly by my nickname.--If I had as much as raised my hand," he went
on, addressing the other lodgers, "those three sneaking wretches yonder
would have drawn claret on Mamma Vauquer’s domestic hearth. The rogues have
laid their heads together to set a trap for me."
Mme. Vauquer felt sick
and faint at these words.
"Good Lord!"
she cried, "this does give one a turn; and me at the Gaite with him only
last night!" she said to Sylvie.
"Summon your
philosophy, mamma," Collin resumed. "Is it a misfortune to have sat
in my box at the Gaite yesterday evening? After all, are you better than we
are? The brand upon our shoulders is less shameful than the brand set on your
hearts, you flabby members of a society rotten to the core. Not the best man
among you could stand up to me." His eyes rested upon Rastignac, to whom
he spoke with a pleasant smile that seemed strangely at variance with the
savage expression in his eyes.--"Our little bargain still holds good, dear
boy; you can accept any time you like! Do you understand?" And he sang:
"A charming girl
is my Fanchette In her simplicity."
"Don’t you trouble
yourself," he went on; "I can get in my money. They are too much
afraid of me to swindle me."
The convicts’ prison,
its language and customs, its sudden sharp transitions from the humorous to the
horrible, its appalling grandeur, its triviality and its dark depths, were all
revealed in turn by the speaker’s discourse; he seemed to be no longer a man,
but the type and mouthpiece of a degenerate race, a brutal, supple, clear-headed
race of savages. In one moment Collin became the poet of an inferno, wherein
all thoughts and passions that move human nature (save repentance) find a
place. He looked about him like a fallen archangel who is for war to the end.
Rastignac lowered his eyes, and acknowledged this kinship claimed by crime as
an expiation of his own evil thoughts.
"Who betrayed
me?" said Collin, and his terrible eyes traveled round the room. Suddenly
they rested on Mlle. Michonneau.
"It was you, old
cat!" he said. "That sham stroke of apoplexy was your doing, lynx
eyes! . . . Two words from me, and your throat would be cut in less than a
week, but I forgive you, I am a Christian. You did not sell me either. But who
did?----Aha! you may rummage upstairs," he shouted, hearing the police
officers opening his cupboards and taking possession of his effects. "The
nest is empty, the birds flew away yesterday, and you will be none the wiser.
My ledgers are here," he said tapping his forehead. "Now I know who
sold me! It could only be that blackguard Fil-de-Soie. That is who it was, old
catchpoll, eh?" he said, turning to the chief. "It was timed so
neatly to get the banknotes up above there. There is nothing left for
you--spies! As for Fil-de-Soie, he will be under the daisies in less than a
fortnight, even if you were to tell off the whole force to protect him. How
much did you give the Michonnette?" he asked of the police officers.
"A thousand crowns? Oh you Ninon in decay, Pompadour in tatters, Venus of
the graveyard, I was worth more than that! If you had given me warning, you
should have had six thousand francs. Ah! you had no suspicion of that, old
trafficker in flesh and blood, or I should have had the preference. Yes, I
would have given six thousand francs to save myself an inconvenient journey and
some loss of money," he said, as they fastened the handcuffs on his
wrists. "These folks will amuse themselves by dragging out this business
till the end of time to keep me idle. If they were to send me straight to jail,
I should soon be back at my old tricks in spite of the duffers at the Quai des
Orfevres. Down yonder they will all turn themselves inside out to help their
general--their good Trompe-la-Mort--to get clear away. Is there a single one
among you that can say, as I can, that he has ten thousand brothers ready to do
anything for him?" he asked proudly. "There is some good there,"
he said tapping his heart; "I have never betrayed any one!--Look you here,
you slut," he said to the old maid, "they are all afraid of me, do
you see? but the sight of you turns them sick. Rake in your gains."
He was silent for a
moment, and looked round at the lodgers’ faces.
"What dolts you
are, all of you! Have you never seen a convict before? A convict of Collin’s
stamp, whom you see before you, is a man less weak-kneed than others; he lifts
up his voice against the colossal fraud of the social contract, as Jean Jacques
did, whose pupil he is proud to declare himself. In short, I stand here
single-handed against a Government and a whole subsidized machinery of
tribunals and police, and I am a match for them all."
"Ye gods!"
cried the painter, "what a magnificent sketch one might make of him!"
"Look here, you
gentlemen-in-waiting to his highness the gibbet, master of ceremonies to the
widow" (a nickname full of sombre poetry, given by prisoners to the
guillotine), "be a good fellow, and tell me if it really was Fil-de-Soie
who sold me. I don’t want him to suffer for some one else, that would not be
fair."
But before the chief
had time to answer, the rest of the party returned from making their
investigations upstairs. Everything had been opened and inventoried. A few
words passed between them and the chief, and the official preliminaries were
complete.
"Gentlemen,"
said Collin, addressing the lodgers, "they will take me away directly. You
have all made my stay among you very agreeable, and I shall look back upon it
with gratitude. Receive my adieux, and permit me to send you figs from
Provence."
He advanced a step or
two, and then turned to look once more at Rastignac.
"Good-bye, Eugène,"
he said, in a sad and gentle tone, a strange transition from his previous rough
and stern manner. "If you should be hard up, I have left you a devoted
friend," and, in spite of his shackles, he managed to assume a posture of
defence, called, "One, two!" like a fencing-master, and lunged.
"If anything goes wrong, apply in that quarter. Man and money, all at your
service."
The strange speaker’s
manner was sufficiently burlesque, so that no one but Rastignac knew that there
was a serious meaning underlying the pantomime.
As soon as the police,
soldiers, and detectives had left the house, Sylvie, who was rubbing her
mistress’ temples with vinegar, looked round at the bewildered lodgers.
"Well," said
she, "he was a man, he was, for all that."
Her words broke the
spell. Every one had been too much excited, too much moved by very various
feelings to speak. But now the lodgers began to look at each other, and then
all eyes were turned at once on Mlle. Michonneau, a thin, shriveled,
dead-alive, mummy-like figure, crouching by the stove; her eyes were downcast,
as if she feared that the green eye-shade could not shut out the expression of
those faces from her. This figure and the feeling of repulsion she had so long
excited were explained all at once. A smothered murmur filled the room; it was
so unanimous, that it seemed as if the same feeling of loathing had pitched all
the voices in one key. Mlle. Michonneau heard it, and did not stir. It was
Bianchon who was the first to move; he bent over his neighbor, and said in a
low voice, "If that creature is going to stop here, and have dinner with
us, I shall clear out."
In the twinkling of an
eye it was clear that every one in the room, save Poiret, was of the medical
student’s opinion, so that the latter, strong in the support of the majority,
went up to that elderly person.
"You are more
intimate with Mlle. Michonneau than the rest of us," he said; "speak
to her, make her understand that she must go, and go at once."
"At once!"
echoed Poiret in amazement.
Then he went across to
the crouching figure, and spoke a few words in her ear.
"I have paid
beforehand for the quarter; I have as much right to be here as any one
else," she said, with a viperous look at the boarders.
"Never mind that!
we will club together and pay you the money back," said Rastignac.
"Monsieur is
taking Collin’s part" she said, with a questioning, malignant glance at
the law student; "it is not difficult to guess why."
Eugène started forward
at the words, as if he meant to spring upon her and wring her neck. That
glance, and the depths of treachery that it revealed, had been a hideous
enlightenment.
"Let her
alone!" cried the boarders.
Rastignac folded his
arms and was silent.
"Let us have no
more of Mlle. Judas," said the painter, turning to Mme. Vauquer. "If
you don’t show the Michonneau the door, madame, we shall all leave your shop,
and wherever we go we shall say that there are only convicts and spies left
there. If you do the other thing, we will hold our tongues about the business;
for when all is said and done, it might happen in the best society until they
brand them on the forehead, when they send them to the hulks. They ought not to
let convicts go about Paris disguised like decent citizens, so as to carry on
their antics like a set of rascally humbugs, which they are."
At this Mme. Vauquer
recovered miraculously. She sat up and folded her arms; her eyes were wide open
now, and there was no sign of tears in them.
"Why, do you
really mean to be the ruin of my establishment, my dear sir? There is M.
Vautrin----Goodness," she cried, interrupting herself, "I can’t help
calling him by the name he passed himself off by for an honest man! There is
one room to let already, and you want me to turn out two more lodgers in the
middle of the season, when no one is moving----"
"Gentlemen, let us
take our hats and go and dine at Flicoteaux’s in the Place Sorbonne,"
cried Bianchon.
Mme. Vauquer glanced
round, and saw in a moment on which side her interest lay. She waddled across
to Mlle. Michonneau.
"Come, now,"
she said; "you would not be the ruin of my establishment, would you, eh?
There’s a dear, kind soul. You see what a pass these gentlemen have brought me
to; just go up to your room for this evening."
"Never a bit of
it!" cried the boarders. "She must go, and go this minute!"
"But the poor lady
has had no dinner," said Poiret, with piteous entreaty.
"She can go and
dine where she likes," shouted several voices.
"Turn her out, the
spy!"
"Turn them both
out! Spies!"
"Gentlemen,"
cried Poiret, his heart swelling with the courage that love gives to the ovine
male, "respect the weaker sex."
"Spies are of no
sex!" said the painter.
"A precious
sexorama!"
"Turn her into the
streetorama!"
"Gentlemen, this
is not manners! If you turn people out of the house, it ought not to be done so
unceremoniously and with no notice at all. We have paid our money, and we are
not going," said Poiret, putting on his cap, and taking a chair beside
Mlle. Michonneau, with whom Mme. Vauquer was remonstrating.
"Naughty
boy!" said the painter, with a comical look; "run away, naughty
little boy!"
"Look here,"
said Bianchon; "if you do not go, all the rest of us will," and the
boarders, to a man, made for the sitting-room-door.
"Oh! mademoiselle,
what is to be done?" cried Mme. Vauquer. "I am a ruined woman. You
can’t stay here; they will go further, do something violent."
Mlle. Michonneau rose
to her feet.
"She is
going!--She is not going!--She is going!--No, she isn’t."
These alternate
exclamations, and a suggestion of hostile intentions, borne out by the behavior
of the insurgents, compelled Mlle. Michonneau to take her departure. She made
some stipulations, speaking in a low voice in her hostess’ ear, and
then--"I shall go to Mme. Buneaud’s," she said, with a threatening
look.
"Go where you
please, mademoiselle," said Mme. Vauquer, who regarded this choice of an
opposition establishment as an atrocious insult. "Go and lodge with the
Buneaud; the wine would give a cat the colic, and the food is cheap and
nasty."
The boarders stood
aside in two rows to let her pass; not a word was spoken. Poiret looked so wistfully
after Mlle. Michonneau, and so artlessly revealed that he was in two minds
whether to go or stay, that the boarders, in their joy at being quit of Mlle.
Michonneau, burst out laughing at the sight of him.
"Hist!--st!--st!
Poiret," shouted the painter. "Hallo! I say, Poiret, hallo!" The
employe from the Museum began to sing:
"Partant pour la
Syrie, Le jeune et beau Dunois--"
"Get along with
you; you must be dying to go, trahit sua quemque voluptas!" said Bianchon.
"Every one to his
taste--free rendering from Virgil," said the tutor.
Mlle. Michonneau made a
movement as if to take Poiret’s arm, with an appealing glance that he could not
resist. The two went out together, the old maid leaning upon him, and there was
a burst of applause, followed by peals of laughter.
"Bravo,
Poiret!"
"Who would have
thought it of old Poiret!"
"Apollo
Poiret!"
"Mars
Poiret!"
"Intrepid
Poiret!"
A messenger came in at
that moment with a letter for Mme. Vauquer, who read it through, and collapsed
in her chair.
"The house might
as well be burned down at once," cried she, "if there are to be any
more of these thunderbolts! Young Taillefer died at three o’clock this
afternoon. It serves me right for wishing well to those ladies at that poor man’s
expense. Mme. Couture and Victorine want me to send their things, because they
are going to live with her father. M. Taillefer allows his daughter to keep old
Mme. Couture as her lady companion. Four rooms to let! and five lodgers gone! .
. ."
She sat up, and seemed
about to burst into tears.
"Bad luck has come
to lodge here, I think," she cried.
Once more there came a
sound of wheels from the street outside.
"What! another
windfall for somebody!" was Sylvie’s comment.
But it was Goriot who
came in, looking so radiant, so flushed with happiness, that he seemed to have
grown young again.
"Goriot in a
cab!" cried the boarders; "the world is coming to an end."
The good soul made
straight for Eugène, who was standing wrapped in thought in a corner, and laid
a hand on the young man’s arm.
"Come," he
said, with gladness in his eyes.
"Then you haven’t
heard the news?" said Eugène. "Vautrin was an escaped convict; they
have just arrested him; and young Taillefer is dead."
"Very well, but
what business is it of ours?" replied Father Goriot. "I am going to
dine with my daughter in your house, do you understand? She is expecting you.
Come!"
He carried off
Rastignac with him by main force, and they departed in as great a hurry as a
pair of eloping lovers.
"Now, let us have
dinner," cried the painter, and every one drew his chair to the table.
"Well, I
never," said the portly Sylvie. "Nothing goes right to-day! The
haricot mutton has caught! Bah! you will have to eat it, burned as it is, more’s
the pity!"
Mme. Vauquer was so
dispirited that she could not say a word as she looked round the table and saw
only ten people where eighteen should be; but every one tried to comfort and
cheer her. At first the dinner contingent, as was natural, talked about Vautrin
and the day’s events; but the conversation wound round to such topics of
interest as duels, jails, justice, prison life, and alterations that ought to
be made in the laws. They soon wandered miles away from Jacques Collin and
Victorine and her brother. There might be only ten of them, but they made noise
enough for twenty; indeed, there seemed to be more of them than usual; that was
the only difference between yesterday and to-day. Indifference to the fate of
others is a matter of course in this selfish world, which, on the morrow of
tragedy, seeks among the events of Paris for a fresh sensation for its daily
renewed appetite, and this indifference soon gained the upper hand. Mme.
Vauquer herself grew calmer under the soothing influence of hope, and the
mouthpiece of hope was the portly Sylvie.
That day had gone by
like a dream for Eugène, and the sense of unreality lasted into the evening; so
that, in spite of his energetic character and clear-headedness, his ideas were
a chaos as he sat beside Goriot in the cab. The old man’s voice was full of
unwonted happiness, but Eugène had been shaken by so many emotions that the
words sounded in his ears like words spoken in a dream.
"It was finished
this morning! All three of us are going to dine there together, together! Do
you understand? I have not dined with my Delphine, my little Delphine, these
four years, and I shall have her for a whole evening! We have been at your
lodging the whole time since morning. I have been working like a porter in my
shirt sleeves, helping to carry in the furniture. Aha! you don’t know what
pretty ways she has; at table she will look after me, ’Here, papa, just try
this, it is nice.’ And I shall not be able to eat. Oh, it is a long while since
I have been with her in quiet every-day life as we shall have her."
"It really seems
as if the world has been turned upside down."
"Upside
down?" repeated Father Goriot. "Why, the world has never been so
right-side up. I see none but smiling faces in the streets, people who shake
hands cordially and embrace each other, people who all look as happy as if they
were going to dine with their daughter, and gobble down a nice little dinner
that she went with me to order of the chef at the Cafe des Anglais. But, pshaw!
with her beside you gall and wormwood would be as sweet as honey."
"I feel as if I
were coming back to life again," said Eugène.
"Why, hurry up
there!" cried Father Goriot, letting down the window in front. "Get
on faster; I will give you five francs if you get to the place I told you of in
ten minutes time."
With this prospect
before him the cabman crossed Paris with miraculous celerity.
"How that fellow
crawls!" said Father Goriot.
"But where are you
taking me?" Eugène asked him.
"To your own
house," said Goriot.
The cab stopped in the
Rue d’Artois. Father Goriot stepped out first and flung ten francs to the man
with the recklessness of a widower returning to bachelor ways.
"Come along
upstairs," he said to Rastignac. They crossed a courtyard, and climbed up
to the third floor of a new and handsome house. There they stopped before a
door; but before Goriot could ring, it was opened by Therese, Mme. de Nucingen’s
maid. Eugène found himself in a charming set of chambers; an ante-room, a
little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a study, looking out upon a garden. The
furniture and the decorations of the little drawing-room were of the most
daintily charming description, the room was full of soft light, and Delphine
rose up from a low chair by the fire and stood before him. She set her
fire-screen down on the chimney-piece, and spoke with tenderness in every tone
of her voice.
"So we had to go
in search of you, sir, you who are so slow to understand!"
Therese left the room.
The student took Delphine in his arms and held her in a tight clasp, his eyes
filled with tears of joy. This last contrast between his present surroundings
and the scenes he had just witnessed was too much for Rastignac’s over-wrought
nerves, after the day’s strain and excitement that had wearied heart and brain;
he was almost overcome by it.
"I felt sure
myself that he loved you," murmured Father Goriot, while Eugène lay back
bewildered on the sofa, utterly unable to speak a word or to reason out how and
why the magic wand had been waved to bring about this final transformation
scene.
"But you must see
your rooms," said Mme. de Nucingen. She took his hand and led him into a
room carpeted and furnished like her own; indeed, down to the smallest details,
it was a reproduction in miniature of Delphine’s apartment.
"There is no
bed," said Rastignac.
"No,
monsieur," she answered, reddening, and pressing his hand. Eugène, looking
at her, understood, young though he yet was, how deeply modesty is implanted in
the heart of a woman who loves.
"You are one of
those beings whom we cannot choose but to adore for ever," he said in her
ear. "Yes, the deeper and truer love is, the more mysterious and closely
veiled it should be; I can dare to say so, since we understand each other so
well. No one shall learn our secret."
"Oh! so I am
nobody, I suppose," growled the father.
"You know quite
well that ’we’ means you."
"Ah! that is what
I wanted. You will not mind me, will you? I shall go and come like a good fairy
who makes himself felt everywhere without being seen, shall I not? Eh,
Delphinette, Ninette, Dedel--was it not a good idea of mine to say to you, ’There
are some nice rooms to let in the Rue d’Artois; let us furnish them for him?’
And she would not hear of it! Ah! your happiness has been all my doing. I am
the author of your happiness and of your existence. Fathers must always be
giving if they would be happy themselves; always giving--they would not be
fathers else."
"Was that how it
happened?" asked Eugène.
"Yes. She would
not listen to me. She was afraid that people would talk, as if the rubbish that
they say about you were to be compared with happiness! Why, all women dream of
doing what she has done----"
Father Goriot found
himself without an audience, for Mme. de Nucingen had led Rastignac into the
study; he heard a kiss given and taken, low though the sound was.
The study was furnished
as elegantly as the other rooms, and nothing was wanting there.
"Have we guessed your
wishes rightly?" she asked, as they returned to the drawing-room for
dinner.
"Yes," he
said, "only too well, alas! For all this luxury so well carried out, this
realization of pleasant dreams, the elegance that satisfies all the romantic
fancies of youth, appeals to me so strongly that I cannot but feel that it is
my rightful possession, but I cannot accept it from you, and I am too poor as
yet to----"
"Ah! ah! you say
me nay already," she said with arch imperiousness, and a charming little
pout of the lips, a woman’s way of laughing away scruples.
But Eugène had
submitted so lately to that solemn self-questioning, and Vautrin’s arrest had
so plainly shown him the depths of the pit that lay ready to his feet, that the
instincts of generosity and honor had been strengthened in him, and he could
not allow himself to be coaxed into abandoning his high-minded determinations.
Profound melancholy filled his mind.
"Do you really
mean to refuse?" said Mme. de Nucingen. "And do you know what such a
refusal means? That you are not sure of yourself, that you do not dare to bind
yourself to me. Are you really afraid of betraying my affection? If you love
me, if I--love you, why should you shrink back from such a slight obligation?
If you but knew what a pleasure it has been to see after all the arrangements
of this bachelor establishment, you would not hesitate any longer, you would
ask me to forgive you for your hesitation. I had some money that belonged to
you, and I have made good use of it, that is all. You mean this for
magnanimity, but it is very little of you. You are asking me for far more than
this-- Ah!" she cried, as Eugène’s passionate glance was turned on her,
"and you are making difficulties about the merest trifles. Of, if you feel
no love whatever for me, refuse, by all means. My fate hangs on a word from
you. Speak!--Father," she said after a pause, "make him listen to
reason. Can he imagine that I am less nice than he is on the point of
honor?"
Father Goriot was
looking on and listening to this pretty quarrel with a placid smile, as if he
had found some balm for all the sorrows of life.
"Child that you
are!" she cried again, catching Eugène’s hand. "You are just
beginning life; you find barriers at the outset that many a man finds
insurmountable; a woman’s hand opens the way and you shrink back! Why, you are
sure to succeed! You will have a brilliant future. Success is written on that
broad forehead of yours, and will you not be able to repay me my loan of today?
Did not a lady in olden times arm her knight with sword and helmet and coat of
mail, and find him a charger, so that he might fight for her in the tournament?
Well, then, Eugène, these things that I offer you are the weapons of this age;
every one who means to be something must have such tools as these. A pretty
place your garret must be if it is like papa’s room! See, dinner is waiting all
this time. Do you want to make me unhappy?--Why don’t you answer?" she
said, shaking his hand. "Mon Dieu! papa, make up his mind for him, or I
will go away and never see him any more."
"I will make up
your mind," said Goriot, coming down from the clouds. "Now, my dear
M. Eugène, the next thing is to borrow money of the Jews, isn’t it?"
"There is
positively no help for it," said Eugène.
"All right, I will
give you credit," said the other, drawing out a cheap leather pocket-book,
much the worse for wear. "I have turned Jew myself; I paid for everything;
here are the invoices. You do not owe a penny for anything here. It did not
come to very much--five thousand francs at most, and I am going to lend you the
money myself. I am not a woman--you can refuse me. You shall give me a receipt
on a scrap of paper, and you can return it some time or other."
Delphine and Eugène
looked at each other in amazement, tears sprang to their eyes. Rastignac held
out his hand and grasped Goriot’s warmly.
"Well, what is all
this about? Are you not my children?"
"Oh! my poor
father," said Mme. de Nucingen, "how did you do it?"
"Ah! now you ask
me. When I made up my mind to move him nearer to you, and saw you buying things
as if they were wedding presents, I said to myself, ’She will never be able to
pay for them.’ The attorney says that those law proceedings will last quite six
months before your husband can be made to disgorge your fortune. Well and good.
I sold out my property in the funds that brought in thirteen hundred and fifty
livres a year, and bought a safe annuity of twelve hundred francs a year for
fifteen thousand francs. Then I paid your tradesmen out of the rest of the
capital. As for me, children, I have a room upstairs for which I pay fifty
crowns a year; I can live like a prince on two francs a day, and still have
something left over. I shall not have to spend anything much on clothes, for I
never wear anything out. This fortnight past I have been laughing in my sleeve,
thinking to myself, ’How happy they are going to be!’ and--well, now, are you
not happy?"
"Oh papa!
papa!" cried Mme. de Nucingen, springing to her father, who took her on
his knee. She covered him with kisses, her fair hair brushed his cheek, her
tears fell on the withered face that had grown so bright and radiant.
"Dear father, what
a father you are! No, there is not another father like you under the sun. If
Eugène loved you before, what must he feel for you now?"
"Why, children,
why Delphinette!" cried Goriot, who had not felt his daughter’s heart beat
against his breast for ten years, "do you want me to die of joy? My poor
heart will break! Come, Monsieur Eugène, we are quits already." And the
old man strained her to his breast with such fierce and passionate force that
she cried out.
"Oh! you are
hurting me!" she said.
"I am hurting
you!" He grew pale at the words. The pain expressed in his face seemed greater
than it is given to humanity to know. The agony of this Christ of paternity can
only be compared with the masterpieces of those princes of the palette who have
left for us the record of their visions of an agony suffered for a whole world
by the Saviour of men. Father Goriot pressed his lips very gently against the
waist than his fingers had grasped too roughly.
"Oh! no, no,"
he cried. "I have not hurt you, have I?" and his smile seemed to
repeat the question. "You have hurt me with that cry just now.--The things
cost rather more than that," he said in her ear, with another gentle kiss,
"but I had to deceive him about it, or he would have been angry."
Eugène sat dumb with
amazement in the presence of this inexhaustible love; he gazed at Goriot, and his
face betrayed the artless admiration which shapes the beliefs of youth.
"I will be worthy
of all this," he cried.
"Oh! my Eugène,
that is nobly said," and Mme. de Nucingen kissed the law student on the
forehead.
"He gave up Mlle.
Taillefer and her millions for you," said Father Goriot. "Yes, the
little thing was in love with you, and now that her brother is dead she is as
rich as Croesus."
"Oh! why did you
tell her?" cried Rastignac.
"Eugène,"
Delphine said in his ear, "I have one regret now this evening. Ah! how I
will love you! and for ever!"
"This is the
happiest day I have had since you two were married!" cried Goriot.
"God may send me any suffering, so long as I do not suffer through you,
and I can still say, ’In this short month of February I had more happiness than
other men have in their whole lives.’--Look at me, Fifine!" he said to his
daughter. "She is very beautiful, is she not? Tell me, now, have you seen
many women with that pretty soft color--that little dimple of hers? No, I thought
not. Ah, well, and but for me this lovely woman would never have been. And very
soon happiness will make her a thousand times lovelier, happiness through you.
I could give up my place in heaven to you, neighbor, if needs be, and go down
to hell instead. Come, let us have dinner," he added, scarcely knowing
what he said, "everything is ours."
"Poor dear
father!"
He rose and went over
to her, and took her face in his hands, and set a kiss on the plaits of hair.
"If you only knew, little one, how happy you can make me--how little it
takes to make me happy! Will you come and see me sometimes? I shall be just
above, so it is only a step. Promise me, say that you will!"
"Yes, dear
father."
"Say it
again."
"Yes, I will, my
kind father."
"Hush! hush! I
should make you say it a hundred times over if I followed my own wishes. Let us
have dinner."
The three behaved like
children that evening, and Father Goriot’s spirits were certainly not the least
wild. He lay at his daughter’s feet, kissed them, gazed into her eyes, rubbed
his head against her dress; in short, no young lover could have been more
extravagant or more tender.
"You see!"
Delphine said with a look at Eugène, "so long as my father is with us, he
monopolizes me. He will be rather in the way sometimes."
Eugène had himself
already felt certain twinges of jealousy, and could not blame this speech that
contained the germ of all ingratitude.
"And when will the
rooms be ready?" asked Eugène, looking round. "We must all leave them
this evening, I suppose."
"Yes, but
to-morrow you must come and dine with me," she answered, with an eloquent
glance. "It is our night at the Italiens."
"I shall go to the
pit," said her father.
It was midnight. Mme.
de Nucingen’s carriage was waiting for her, and Father Goriot and the student
walked back to the Maison Vauquer, talking of Delphine, and warming over their
talk till there grew up a curious rivalry between the two violent passions. Eugène
could not help seeing that the father’s self-less love was deeper and more
steadfast than his own. For this worshiper Delphine was always pure and fair,
and her father’s adoration drew its fervor from a whole past as well as a
future of love.
They found Mme. Vauquer
by the stove, with Sylvie and Christophe to keep her company; the old landlady,
sitting like Marius among the ruins of Carthage, was waiting for the two
lodgers that yet remained to her, and bemoaning her lot with the sympathetic
Sylvie. Tasso’s lamentations as recorded in Byron’s poem are undoubtedly
eloquent, but for sheer force of truth they fall far short of the widow’s cry
from the depths.
"Only three cups
of coffee in the morning, Sylvie! Oh dear! to have your house emptied in this
way is enough to break your heart. What is life, now my lodgers are gone?
Nothing at all. Just think of it! It is just as if all the furniture had been
taken out of the house, and your furniture is your life. How have I offended
heaven to draw down all this trouble upon me? And haricot beans and potatoes
laid in for twenty people! The police in my house too! We shall have to live on
potatoes now, and Christophe will have to go!"
The Savoyard, who was
fast asleep, suddenly woke up at this, and said, "Madame,"
questioningly.
"Poor
fellow!" said Sylvie, "he is like a dog."
"In the dead
season, too! Nobody is moving now. I would like to know where the lodgers are
to drop down from. It drives me distracted. And that old witch of a Michonneau
goes and takes Poiret with her! What can she have done to make him so fond of her?
He runs about after her like a little dog."
"Lord!" said
Sylvie, flinging up her head, "those old maids are up to all sorts of
tricks."
"There’s that poor
M. Vautrin that they made out to be a convict," the widow went on.
"Well, you know that is too much for me, Sylvie; I can’t bring myself to
believe it. Such a lively man as he was, and paid fifteen francs a month for
his coffee of an evening, paid you very penny on the nail too."
"And open-handed
he was!" said Christophe.
"There is some
mistake," said Sylvie.
"Why, no there isn’t!
he said so himself!" said Mme. Vauquer. "And to think that all these
things have happened in my house, and in a quarter where you never see a cat go
by. On my word as an honest woman, it’s like a dream. For, look here, we saw
Louis XVI. meet with his mishap; we saw the fall of the Emperor; and we saw him
come back and fall again; there was nothing out of the way in all that, but
lodging-houses are not liable to revolutions. You can do without a king, but
you must eat all the same; and so long as a decent woman, a de Conflans born
and bred, will give you all sorts of good things for dinner, nothing short of
the end of the world ought to--but there, it is the end of the world, that is
just what it is!"
"And to think that
Mlle. Michonneau who made all this mischief is to have a thousand crowns a year
for it, so I hear," cried Sylvie.
"Don’t speak of
her, she is a wicked woman!" said Mme. Vauquer. "She is going to the
Buneaud, who charges less than cost. But the Buneaud is capable of anything;
she must have done frightful things, robbed and murdered people in her time.
SHE ought to be put in jail for life instead of that poor dear----"
Eugène and Goriot rang
the door-bell at that moment.
"Ah! here are my
two faithful lodgers," said the widow, sighing.
But the two faithful
lodgers, who retained but shadowy recollections of the misfortunes of their
lodging-house, announced to their hostess without more ado that they were about
to remove to the Chaussee d’Antin.
"Sylvie!"
cried the widow, "this is the last straw.--Gentlemen, this will be the
death of me! It has quite upset me! There’s a weight on my chest! I am ten
years older for this day! Upon my word, I shall go out of my senses! And what
is to be done with the haricots!--Oh, well, if I am to be left here all by
myself, you shall go to-morrow, Christophe.--Good-night, gentlemen," and
she went.
"What is the matter
now?" Eugène inquired of Sylvie.
"Lord! everybody
is going about his business, and that has addled her wits. There! she is crying
upstairs. It will do her good to snivel a bit. It’s the first time she has
cried since I’ve been with her."
By the morning, Mme.
Vauquer, to use her own expression, had "made up her mind to it."
True, she still wore a doleful countenance, as might be expected of a woman who
had lost all her lodgers, and whose manner of life had been suddenly
revolutionized, but she had all her wits about her. Her grief was genuine and
profound; it was real pain of mind, for her purse had suffered, the routine of
her existence had been broken. A lover’s farewell glance at his lady-love’s
window is not more mournful than Mme. Vauquer’s survey of the empty places
round her table. Eugène administered comfort, telling the widow that Bianchon,
whose term of residence at the hospital was about to expire, would doubtless
take his (Rastignac’s) place; that the official from the Museum had often expressed
a desire to have Mme. Couture’s rooms; and that in a very few days her
household would be on the old footing.
"God send it may,
my dear sir! but bad luck has come to lodge here. There’ll be a death in the
house before ten days are out, you’ll see," and she gave a lugubrious look
round the dining-room. "Whose turn will it be, I wonder?"
"It is just as
well that we are moving out," said Eugène to Father Goriot in a low voice.
"Madame,"
said Sylvie, running in with a scared face, "I have not seen Mistigris
these three days."
"Ah! well, if my
cat is dead, if HE has gone and left us, I----"
The poor woman could
not finish her sentence; she clasped her hands and hid her face on the back of
her armchair, quite overcome by this dreadful portent.
By twelve o’clock, when
the postman reaches that quarter, Eugène received a letter. The dainty envelope
bore the Beauseant arms on the seal, and contained an invitation to the
Vicomtesse’s great ball, which had been talked of in Paris for a month. A
little note for Eugène was slipped in with the card.
"I think,
monsieur, that you will undertake with pleasure to interpret my sentiments to
Mme. de Nucingen, so I am sending the card for which you asked me to you. I
shall be delighted to make the acquaintance of Mme. de Restaud’s sister. Pray
introduce that charming lady to me, and do not let her monopolize all your
affection, for you owe me not a little in return for mine. "VICOMTESSE DE
BEAUSEANT."
"Well," said
Eugène to himself, as he read the note a second time, "Mme. de Beauseant
says pretty plainly that she does not want the Baron de Nucingen."
He went to Delphine at
once in his joy. He had procured this pleasure for her, and doubtless he would
receive the price of it. Mme. de Nucingen was dressing. Rastignac waited in her
boudoir, enduring as best he might the natural impatience of an eager
temperament for the reward desired and withheld for a year. Such sensations are
only known once in a life. The first woman to whom a man is drawn, if she is
really a woman--that is to say, if she appears to him amid the splendid
accessories that form a necessary background to life in the world of
Paris--will never have a rival.
Love in Paris is a
thing distinct and apart; for in Paris neither men nor women are the dupes of
the commonplaces by which people seek to throw a veil over their motives, or to
parade a fine affectation of disinterestedness in their sentiments. In this
country within a country, it is not merely required of a woman that she should
satisfy the senses and the soul; she knows perfectly well that she has still
greater obligations to discharge, that she must fulfil the countless demands of
a vanity that enters into every fibre of that living organism called society.
Love, for her, is above all things, and by its very nature, a vainglorious,
brazen-fronted, ostentatious, thriftless charlatan. If at the Court of Louis
XIV. there was not a woman but envied Mlle. de la Valliere the reckless
devotion of passion that led the grand monarch to tear the priceless ruffles at
his wrists in order to assist the entry of a Duc de Vermandois into the world--
what can you expect of the rest of society? You must have youth and wealth and
rank; nay, you must, if possible, have more than these, for the more incense you
bring with you to burn at the shrine of the god, the more favorably will he
regard the worshiper. Love is a religion, and his cult must in the nature of
things be more costly than those of all other deities; Love the Spoiler stays
for a moment, and then passes on; like the urchin of the streets, his course
may be traced by the ravages that he has made. The wealth of feeling and
imagination is the poetry of the garret; how should love exist there without
that wealth?
If there are exceptions
who do not subscribe to these Draconian laws of the Parisian code, they are
solitary examples. Such souls live so far out of the main current that they are
not borne away by the doctrines of society; they dwell beside some clear spring
of everflowing water, without seeking to leave the green shade; happy to listen
to the echoes of the infinite in everything around them and in their own souls,
waiting in patience to take their flight for heaven, while they look with pity
upon those of earth.
Rastignac, like most
young men who have been early impressed by the circumstances of power and
grandeur, meant to enter the lists fully armed; the burning ambition of
conquest possessed him already; perhaps he was conscious of his powers, but as
yet he knew neither the end to which his ambition was to be directed, nor the
means of attaining it. In default of the pure and sacred love that fills a
life, ambition may become something very noble, subduing to itself every
thought of personal interest, and setting as the end--the greatness, not of one
man, but of a whole nation.
But the student had not
yet reached the time of life when a man surveys the whole course of existence
and judges it soberly. Hitherto he had scarcely so much as shaken off the spell
of the fresh and gracious influences that envelop a childhood in the country,
like green leaves and grass. He had hesitated on the brink of the Parisian
Rubicon, and in spite of the prickings of ambition, he still clung to a
lingering tradition of an old ideal--the peaceful life of the noble in his
chateau. But yesterday evening, at the sight of his rooms, those scruples had
vanished. He had learned what it was to enjoy the material advantages of
fortune, as he had already enjoyed the social advantages of birth; he ceased to
be a provincial from that moment, and slipped naturally and easily into a
position which opened up a prospect of a brilliant future.
So, as he waited for
Delphine, in the pretty boudoir, where he felt that he had a certain right to
be, he felt himself so far away from the Rastignac who came back to Paris a
year ago, that, turning some power of inner vision upon this latter, he asked
himself whether that past self bore any resemblance to the Rastignac of that
moment.
"Madame is in her
room," Therese came to tell him. The woman’s voice made him start.
He found Delphine lying
back in her low chair by the fireside, looking fresh and bright. The sight of
her among the flowing draperies of muslin suggested some beautiful tropical
flower, where the fruit is set amid the blossom.
"Well," she
said, with a tremor in her voice, "here you are."
"Guess what I
bring for you," said Eugène, sitting down beside her. He took possession
of her arm to kiss her hand
Mme. de Nucingen gave a
joyful start as she saw the card. She turned to Eugène; there were tears in her
eyes as she flung her arms about his neck, and drew him towards her in a frenzy
of gratified vanity.
"And I owe this
happiness to you--to thee" (she whispered the more intimate word in his
ear); "but Therese is in my dressing-room, let us be prudent.--This
happiness--yes, for I may call it so, when it comes to me through you--is
surely more than a triumph for self-love? No one has been willing to introduce
me into that set. Perhaps just now I may seem to you to be frivolous, petty,
shallow, like a Parisienne, but remember, my friend, that I am ready to give up
all for you; and that if I long more than ever for an entrance into the
Faubourg Saint- Germain, it is because I shall meet you there."
"Mme. de Beauseant’s
note seems to say very plainly that she does not expect to see the Baron de
Nucingen at her ball; don’t you think so?" said Eugène.
"Why, yes,"
said the Baroness as she returned the letter. "Those women have a talent
for insolence. But it is of no consequence, I shall go. My sister is sure to be
there, and sure to be very beautifully dressed.--Eugène," she went on,
lowering her voice, "she will go to dispel ugly suspicions. You do not
know the things that people are saying about her. Only this morning Nucingen
came to tell me that they had been discussing her at the club. Great heavens!
on what does a woman’s character and the honor of a whole family depend! I feel
that I am nearly touched and wounded in my poor sister. According to some
people, M. de Trailles must have put his name to bills for a hundred thousand
francs, nearly all of them are overdue, and proceedings are threatened. In this
predicament, it seems that my sister sold her diamonds to a Jew--the beautiful
diamonds that belonged to her husband’s mother, Mme. de Restaud the elder,--you
have seen her wearing them. In fact, nothing else has been talked about for the
last two days. So I can see that Anastasie is sure to come to Mme. de Beauseant’s
ball in tissue of gold, and ablaze with diamonds, to draw all eyes upon her;
and I will not be outshone. She has tried to eclipse me all her life, she has
never been kind to me, and I have helped her so often, and always had money for
her when she had none.-- But never mind other people now, to-day I mean to be
perfectly happy."
At one o’clock that
morning Eugène was still with Mme. de Nucingen. In the midst of their lovers’
farewell, a farewell full of hope of bliss to come, she said in a troubled
voice, "I am very fearful, superstitious. Give what name you like to my
presentiments, but I am afraid that my happiness will be paid for by some
horrible catastrophe."
"Child!" said
Eugène.
"Ah! have we
changed places, and am I the child to-night?" she asked, laughingly.
Eugène went back to the
Maison Vauquer, never doubting but that he should leave it for good on the
morrow; and on the way he fell to dreaming the bright dreams of youth, when the
cup of happiness has left its sweetness on the lips.
"Well?" cried
Goriot, as Rastignac passed by his door.
"Yes," said
Eugène; "I will tell you everything to-morrow."
"Everything, will
you not?" cried the old man. "Go to bed. To-morrow our happy life
will begin."
Next day, Goriot and
Rastignac were ready to leave the lodging-house, and only awaited the good
pleasure of a porter to move out of it; but towards noon there was a sound of
wheels in the Rue Neuve-Sainte- Genevieve, and a carriage stopped before the
door of the Maison Vauquer. Mme. de Nucingen alighted, and asked if her father
was still in the house, and, receiving an affirmative reply from Sylvie, ran
lightly upstairs.
It so happened that Eugène
was at home all unknown to his neighbor. At breakfast time he had asked Goriot
to superintend the removal of his goods, saying that he would meet him in the
Rue d’Artois at four o’clock; but Rastignac’s name had been called early on the
list at the Ecole de Droit, and he had gone back at once to the Rue
Nueve-Sainte- Genevieve. No one had seen him come in, for Goriot had gone to
find a porter, and the mistress of the house was likewise out. Eugène had
thought to pay her himself, for it struck him that if he left this, Goriot in
his zeal would probably pay for him. As it was, Eugène went up to his room to
see that nothing had been forgotten, and blessed his foresight when he saw the
blank bill bearing Vautrin’s signature lying in the drawer where he had
carelessly thrown it on the day when he had repaid the amount. There was no
fire in the grate, so he was about to tear it into little pieces, when he heard
a voice speaking in Goriot’s room, and the speaker was Delphine! He made no
more noise, and stood still to listen, thinking that she should have no secrets
from him; but after the first few words, the conversation between the father
and daughter was so strange and interesting that it absorbed all his attention.
"Ah! thank heaven
that you thought of asking him to give an account of the money settled on me
before I was utterly ruined, father. Is it safe to talk?" she added.
"Yes, there is no
one in the house," said her father faintly.
"What is the
matter with you?" asked Mme. de Nucingen.
"God forgive you!
you have just dealt me a staggering blow, child!" said the old man.
"You cannot know how much I love you, or you would not have burst in upon
me like this, with such news, especially if all is not lost. Has something so
important happened that you must come here about it? In a few minutes we should
have been in the Rue d’Artois."
"Eh! does one
think what one is doing after a catastrophe? It has turned my head. Your
attorney has found out the state of things now, but it was bound to come out
sooner or later. We shall want your long business experience; and I come to you
like a drowning man who catches at a branch. When M. Derville found that
Nucingen was throwing all sorts of difficulties in his way, he threatened him
with proceedings, and told him plainly that he would soon obtain an order from
the President of the Tribunal. So Nucingen came to my room this morning, and
asked if I meant to ruin us both. I told him that I knew nothing whatever about
it, that I had a fortune, and ought to be put into possession of my fortune,
and that my attorney was acting for me in the matter; I said again that I knew
absolutely nothing about it, and could not possibly go into the subject with
him. Wasn’t that what you told me to tell him?"
"Yes, quite
right," answered Goriot.
"Well, then,"
Delphine continued, "he told me all about his affairs. He had just
invested all his capital and mine in business speculations; they have only just
been started, and very large sums of money are locked up. If I were to compel
him to refund my dowry now, he would be forced to file his petition; but if I
will wait a year, he undertakes, on his honor, to double or treble my fortune,
by investing it in building land, and I shall be mistress at last of the whole
of my property. He was speaking the truth, father dear; he frightened me! He
asked my pardon for his conduct; he has given me my liberty; I am free to act
as I please on condition that I leave him to carry on my business in my name.
To prove his sincerity, he promised that M. Derville might inspect the accounts
as often as I pleased, so that I might be assured that everything was being
conducted properly. In short, he put himself in my power, bound hand and foot.
He wishes the present arrangements as to the expenses of housekeeping to
continue for two more years, and entreated me not to exceed my allowance. He
showed me plainly that it was all that he could do to keep up appearances; he
has broken with his opera dancer; he will be compelled to practise the most
strict economy (in secret) if he is to bide his time with unshaken credit. I
scolded, I did all I could to drive him to desperation, so as to find out more.
He showed me his ledgers--he broke down and cried at last. I never saw a man in
such a state. He lost his head completely, talked of killing himself, and raved
till I felt quite sorry for him."
"Do you really
believe that silly rubbish?" . . . cried her father. "It was all got
up for your benefit! I have had to do with Germans in the way of business,
honest and straightforward they are pretty sure to be, but when with their
simplicity and frankness they are sharpers and humbugs as well, they are the
worst rogues of all. Your husband is taking advantage of you. As soon as
pressure is brought to bear on him he shams dead; he means to be more the
master under your name than in his own. He will take advantage of the position
to secure himself against the risks of business. He is as sharp as he is
treacherous; he is a bad lot! No, no; I am not going to leave my girls behind
me without a penny when I go to Pere-Lachaise. I know something about business
still. He has sunk his money in speculation, he says; very well then, there is
something to show for it--bills, receipts, papers of some sort. Let him produce
them, and come to an arrangement with you. We will choose the most promising of
his speculations, take them over at our own risk, and have the securities
transferred into your name; they shall represent the separate estate of
Delphine Goriot, wife of the Baron de Nucingen. Does that fellow really take us
for idiots? Does he imagine that I could stand the idea of your being without
fortune, without bread, for forty-eight hours? I would not stand it a day--no,
not a night, not a couple of hours! If there had been any foundation for the
idea, I should never get over it. What! I have worked hard for forty years,
carried sacks on my back, and sweated and pinched and saved all my life for
you, my darlings, for you who made the toil and every burden borne for you seem
light; and now, my fortune, my whole life, is to vanish in smoke! I should die
raving mad if I believed a word of it. By all that’s holiest in heaven and
earth, we will have this cleared up at once; go through the books, have the
whole business looked thoroughly into! I will not sleep, nor rest, nor eat
until I have satisfied myself that all your fortune is in existence. Your money
is settled upon you, God be thanked! and, luckily, your attorney, Maitre
Derville, is an honest man. Good Lord! you shall have your snug little million,
your fifty thousand francs a year, as long as you live, or I will raise a
racket in Paris, I will so! If the Tribunals put upon us, I will appeal to the
Chambers. If I knew that you were well and comfortably off as far as money is
concerned, that thought would keep me easy in spite of bad health and troubles.
Money? why, it is life! Money does everything. That great dolt of an Alsatian
shall sing to another tune! Look here, Delphine, don’t give way, don’t make a
concession of half a quarter of a farthing to that fathead, who has ground you
down and made you miserable. If he can’t do without you, we will give him a
good cudgeling, and keep him in order. Great heavens! my brain is on fire; it
is as if there were something redhot inside my head. My Delphine lying on
straw! You! my Fifine! Good gracious! Where are my gloves? Come, let us go at
once; I mean to see everything with my own eyes-- books, cash, and
correspondence, the whole business. I shall have no peace until I know for
certain that your fortune is secure."
"Oh! father dear,
be careful how you set about it! If there is the least hint of vengeance in the
business, if you show yourself openly hostile, it will be all over with me. He
knows whom he has to deal with; he thinks it quite natural that if you put the
idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that
he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it. He is just the
man to abscond with all the money and leave us in the lurch, the scoundrel! He
knows quite well that I will not dishonor the name I bear by bringing him into
a court of law. His position is strong and weak at the same time. If we drive
him to despair, I am lost."
"Why, then, the
man is a rogue?"
"Well, yes,
father," she said, flinging herself into a chair, "I wanted to keep
it from you to spare your feelings," and she burst into tears; "I did
not want you to know that you had married me to such a man as he is. He is just
the same in private life--body and soul and conscience--the same through and
through--hideous! I hate him; I despise him! Yes, after all that that
despicable Nucingen has told me, I cannot respect him any longer. A man capable
of mixing himself up in such affairs, and of talking about them to me as he
did, without the slightest scruple,--it is because I have read him through and
through that I am afraid of him. He, my husband, frankly proposed to give me my
liberty, and do you know what that means? It means that if things turn out
badly for him, I am to play into his hands, and be his stalking-horse."
"But there is law
to be had! There is a Place de Greve for sons-in-law of that sort," cried
her father; "why, I would guillotine him myself if there was no headsman
to do it."
"No, father, the
law cannot touch him. Listen, this is what he says, stripped of all his
circumlocutions--’Take your choice, you and no one else can be my accomplice;
either everything is lost, you are ruined and have not a farthing, or you will
let me carry this business through myself.’ Is that plain speaking? He must
have my assistance. He is assured that his wife will deal fairly by him; he
knows that I shall leave his money to him and be content with my own. It is an
unholy and dishonest compact, and he holds out threats of ruin to compel me to
consent to it. He is buying my conscience, and the price is liberty to be Eugène’s
wife in all but name. ’I connive at your errors, and you allow me to commit
crimes and ruin poor families!’ Is that sufficiently explicit? Do you know what
he means by speculations? He buys up land in his own name, then he finds men of
straw to run up houses upon it. These men make a bargain with a contractor to
build the houses, paying them by bills at long dates; then in consideration of
a small sum they leave my husband in possession of the houses, and finally slip
through the fingers of the deluded contractors by going into bankruptcy. The
name of the firm of Nucingen has been used to dazzle the poor contractors. I
saw that. I noticed, too, that Nucingen had sent bills for large amounts to
Amsterdam, London, Naples, and Vienna, in order to prove if necessary that
large sums had been paid away by the firm. How could we get possession of those
bills?"
Eugène heard a dull
thud on the floor; Father Goriot must have fallen on his knees.
"Great heavens!
what have I done to you? Bound my daughter to this scoundrel who does as he
likes with her!--Oh! my child, my child! forgive me!" cried the old man.
"Yes, if I am in
the depths of despair, perhaps you are to blame," said Delphine. "We
have so little sense when we marry! What do we know of the world, of business,
or men, or life? Our fathers should think for us! Father dear, I am not blaming
you in the least, forgive me for what I said. This is all my own fault. Nay, do
not cry, papa," she said, kissing him.
"Do not cry
either, my little Delphine. Look up and let me kiss away the tears. There! I
shall find my wits and unravel this skein of your husband’s winding."
"No, let me do
that; I shall be able to manage him. He is fond of me, well and good; I shall
use my influence to make him invest my money as soon as possible in landed
property in my own name. Very likely I could get him to buy back Nucingen in
Alsace in my name; that has always been a pet idea of his. Still, come
to-morrow and go through the books, and look into the business. M. Derville
knows little of mercantile matters. No, not to-morrow though. I do not want to
be upset. Mme. de Beauseant’s ball will be the day after to-morrow, and I must
keep quiet, so as to look my best and freshest, and do honor to my dear Eugène!
. . . Come, let us see his room."
But as she spoke a
carriage stopped in the Rue Nueve-Sainte- Genevieve, and the sound of Mme. de
Restaud’s voice came from the staircase. "Is my father in?" she asked
of Sylvie.
This accident was
luckily timed for Eugène, whose one idea had been to throw himself down on the
bed and pretend to be asleep.
"Oh, father, have
you heard about Anastasie?" said Delphine, when she heard her sister
speak. "It looks as though some strange things had happened in that
family."
"What sort of
things?" asked Goriot. "This is like to be the death of me. My poor
head will not stand a double misfortune."
"Good-morning,
father," said the Countess from the threshold. "Oh! Delphine, are you
here?"
Mme. de Restaud seemed
taken aback by her sister’s presence.
"Good-morning,
Nasie," said the Baroness. "What is there so extraordinary in my
being here? _I_ see our father every day."
"Since when?"
"If you came
yourself you would know."
"Don’t tease,
Delphine," said the Countess fretfully. "I am very miserable, I am
lost. Oh! my poor father, it is hopeless this time!"
"What is it,
Nasie?" cried Goriot. "Tell us all about it, child! How white she is!
Quick, do something, Delphine; be kind to her, and I will love you even better,
if that were possible."
"Poor Nasie!"
said Mme. de Nucingen, drawing her sister to a chair. "We are the only two
people in the world whose love is always sufficient to forgive you everything.
Family affection is the surest, you see."
The Countess inhaled
the salts and revived.
"This will kill
me!" said their father. "There," he went on, stirring the
smouldering fire, "come nearer, both of you. It is cold. What is it,
Nasie? Be quick and tell me, this is enough to----"
"Well, then, my
husband knows everything," said the Countess. "Just imagine it; do
you remember, father, that bill of Maxime’s some time ago? Well, that was not
the first. I had paid ever so many before that. About the beginning of January
M. de Trailles seemed very much troubled. He said nothing to me; but it is so
easy to read the hearts of those you love, a mere trifle is enough; and then
you feel things instinctively. Indeed, he was more tender and affectionate than
ever, and I was happier than I had ever been before. Poor Maxime! in himself he
was really saying good-bye to me, so he has told me since; he meant to blow his
brains out! At last I worried him so, and begged and implored so hard; for two
hours I knelt at his knees and prayed and entreated, and at last he told
me--that he owed a hundred thousand francs. Oh! papa! a hundred thousand
francs! I was beside myself! You had not the money, I knew, I had eaten up all
that you had----"
"No," said
Goriot; "I could not have got it for you unless I had stolen it. But I
would have done that for you, Nasie! I will do it yet."
The words came from him
like a sob, a hoarse sound like the death rattle of a dying man; it seemed
indeed like the agony of death when the father’s love was powerless. There was
a pause, and neither of the sisters spoke. It must have been selfishness indeed
that could hear unmoved that cry of anguish that, like a pebble thrown over a
precipice, revealed the depths of his despair.
"I found the
money, father, by selling what was not mine to sell," and the Countess
burst into tears.
Delphine was touched;
she laid her head on her sister’s shoulder, and cried too.
"Then it is all
true," she said.
Anastasie bowed her
head, Mme. de Nucingen flung her arms about her, kissed her tenderly, and held
her sister to her heart.
"I shall always
love you and never judge you, Nasie," she said.
"My angels,"
murmured Goriot faintly. "Oh, why should it be trouble that draws you
together?"
This warm and
palpitating affection seemed to give the Countess courage.
"To save Maxime’s
life," she said, "to save all my own happiness, I went to the
money-lender you know of, a man of iron forged in hell- fire; nothing can melt
him; I took all the family diamonds that M. de Restaud is so proud of--his and
mine too--and sold them to that M. Gobseck. Sold them! Do you understand? I
saved Maxime, but I am lost. Restaud found it all out."
"How? Who told
him? I will kill him," cried Goriot.
"Yesterday he sent
to tell me to come to his room. I went-- ’Anastasie,’ he said in a voice--oh!
such a voice; that was enough, it told me everything--’where are your diamonds?’--’In
my room----’-- ’No,’ he said, looking straight at me, ’there they are on that
chest of drawers----’ and he lifted his handkerchief and showed me the casket. ’Do
you know where they came from?’ he said. I fell at his feet-- I cried; I
besought him to tell me the death he wished to see me die."
"You said
that!" cried Goriot. "By God in heaven, whoever lays a hand on either
of you so long as I am alive may reckon on being roasted by slow fires! Yes, I
will cut him in pieces like . . ."
Goriot stopped; the
words died away in his throat.
"And then, dear,
he asked something worse than death of me. Oh! heaven preserve all other women
from hearing such words as I heard then!"
"I will murder
that man," said Goriot quietly. "But he has only one life, and he
deserves to die twice.--And then, what next?" he added, looking at
Anastasie.
"Then," the
Countess resumed, "there was a pause, and he looked at me. ’Anastasie,’ he
said, ’I will bury this in silence; there shall be no separation; there are the
children. I will not kill M. de Trailles. I might miss him if we fought, and as
for other ways of getting rid of him, I should come into collision with the
law. If I killed him in your arms, it would bring dishonor on those children.
But if you do not want to see your children perish, nor their father nor me,
you must first of all submit to two conditions. Answer me. Have I a child of my
own?’ I answered, ’Yes,’--’Which?’--’Ernest, our eldest boy.’-- ’Very well,’ he
said, ’and now swear to obey me in this particular from this time forward.’ I
swore. ’You will make over your property to me when I require you to do so.’
"
"Do nothing of the
kind!" cried Goriot. "Aha! M. de Restaud, you could not make your
wife happy; she has looked for happiness and found it elsewhere, and you make
her suffer for your own ineptitude? He will have to reckon with me. Make
yourself easy, Nasie. Aha! he cares about his heir! Good, very good. I will get
hold of the boy; isn’t he my grandson? What the blazes! I can surely go to see
the brat! I will stow him away somewhere; I will take care of him, you may be
quite easy. I will bring Restaud to terms, the monster! I shall say to him, ’A
word or two with you! If you want your son back again, give my daughter her
property, and leave her to do as she pleases.’ "
"Father!"
"Yes. I am your
father, Nasie, a father indeed! That rogue of a great lord had better not
ill-treat my daughter. Tonnerre! What is it in my veins? There is the blood of
a tiger in me; I could tear those two men to pieces! Oh! children, children! so
this is what your lives are! Why, it is death! . . . What will become of you
when I shall be here no longer? Fathers ought to live as long as their children.
Ah! Lord God in heaven! how ill Thy world is ordered! Thou hast a Son, if what
they tell us is true, and yet Thou leavest us to suffer so through our
children. My darlings, my darlings! to think that trouble only should bring you
to me, that I should only see you with tears on your faces! Ah! yes, yes, you
love me, I see that you love me. Come to me and pour out your griefs to me; my
heart is large enough to hold them all. Oh! you might rend my heart in pieces,
and every fragment would make a father’s heart. If only I could bear all your
sorrows for you! . . . Ah! you were so happy when you were little and still
with me--"
"We have never
been happy since," said Delphine. "Where are the old days when we
slid down the sacks in the great granary?"
"That is not all,
father," said Anastasie in Goriot’s ear. The old man gave a startled
shudder. "The diamonds only sold for a hundred thousand francs. Maxime is
hard pressed. There are twelve thousand francs still to pay. He has given me
his word that he will be steady and give up play in future. His love is all
that I have left in the world. I have paid such a fearful price for it that I
should die if I lose him now. I have sacrificed my fortune, my honor, my peace
of mind, and my children for him. Oh! do something, so that at the least Maxime
may be at large and live undisgraced in the world, where he will assuredly make
a career for himself. Something more than my happiness is at stake; the
children have nothing, and if he is sent to Sainte-Pelagie all his prospects
will be ruined."
"I haven’t the
money, Nasie. I have nothing--nothing left. This is the end of everything. Yes,
the world is crumbling into ruin, I am sure. Fly! Save yourselves! Ah!--I have
still my silver buckles left, and half-a-dozen silver spoons and forks, the
first I ever had in my life. But I have nothing else except my life annuity,
twelve hundred francs . . ."
"Then what has
become of your money in the funds?"
"I sold out, and
only kept a trifle for my wants. I wanted twelve thousand francs to furnish
some rooms for Delphine."
"In your own
house?" asked Mme. de Restaud, looking at her sister.
"What does it
matter where they were?" asked Goriot. "The money is spent now."
"I see how it
is," said the Countess. "Rooms for M. de Rastignac. Poor Delphine,
take warning by me!"
"M. de Rastignac
is incapable of ruining the woman he loves, dear."
"Thanks! Delphine.
I thought you would have been kinder to me in my troubles, but you never did
love me."
"Yes, yes, she
loves you, Nasie," cried Goriot; "she was saying so only just now. We
were talking about you, and she insisted that you were beautiful, and that she
herself was only pretty!"
"Pretty!"
said the Countess. "She is as hard as a marble statue."
"And if I
am?" cried Delphine, flushing up, "how have you treated me? You would
not recognize me; you closed the doors of every house against me; you have
never let an opportunity of mortifying me slip by. And when did I come, as you
were always doing, to drain our poor father, a thousand francs at a time, till
he is left as you see him now? That is all your doing, sister! I myself have
seen my father as often as I could. I have not turned him out of the house, and
then come and fawned upon him when I wanted money. I did not so much as know
that he had spent those twelve thousand francs on me. I am economical, as you
know; and when papa has made me presents, it has never been because I came and
begged for them."
"You were better
off than I. M. de Marsay was rich, as you have reason to know. You always were
as slippery as gold. Good-bye; I have neither sister nor----"
"Oh! hush, hush,
Nasie!" cried her father.
"Nobody else would
repeat what everybody has ceased to believe. You are an unnatural sister!"
cried Delphine.
"Oh, children,
children! hush! hush! or I will kill myself before your eyes."
"There, Nasie, I
forgive you," said Mme. de Nucingen; "you are very unhappy. But I am
kinder than you are. How could you say that just when I was ready to do
anything in the world to help you, even to be reconciled with my husband, which
for my own sake I---- Oh! it is just like you; you have behaved cruelly to me
all through these nine years."
"Children,
children, kiss each other!" cried the father. "You are angels, both
of you."
"No. Let me
alone," cried the Countess shaking off the hand that her father had laid
on her arm. "She is more merciless than my husband. Any one might think
she was a model of all the virtues herself!"
"I would rather
have people think that I owed money to M. de Marsay than own that M. de
Trailles had cost me more than two hundred thousand francs," retorted Mme.
de Nucingen.
"Delphine!"
cried the Countess, stepping towards her sister.
"I shall tell you
the truth about yourself if you begin to slander me," said the Baroness
coldly.
"Delphine! you are
a ----"
Father Goriot sprang
between them, grasped the Countess’ hand, and laid his own over her mouth.
"Good heavens,
father! What have you been handling this morning?" said Anastasie.
"Ah! well, yes, I
ought not to have touched you," said the poor father, wiping his hands on
his trousers, "but I have been packing up my things; I did not know that
you were coming to see me."
He was glad that he had
drawn down her wrath upon himself.
"Ah!" he
sighed, as he sat down, "you children have broken my heart between you.
This is killing me. My head feels as if it were on fire. Be good to each other
and love each other! This will be the death of me! Delphine! Nasie! come, be
sensible; you are both in the wrong. Come, Dedel," he added, looking
through his tears at the Baroness, "she must have twelve thousand francs,
you see; let us see if we can find them for her. Oh, my girls, do not look at
each other like that!" and he sank on his knees beside Delphine. "Ask
her to forgive you-- just to please me," he said in her ear. "She is more
miserable than you are. Come now, Dedel."
"Poor Nasie!"
said Delphine, alarmed at the wild extravagant grief in her father’s face,
"I was in the wrong, kiss me----"
"Ah! that is like
balm to my heart," cried Father Goriot. "But how are we to find twelve
thousand francs? I might offer myself as a substitute in the army----"
"Oh! father
dear!" they both cried, flinging their arms about him. "No, no!"
"God reward you
for the thought. We are not worth it, are we, Nasie?" asked Delphine.
"And besides,
father dear, it would only be a drop in the bucket," observed the
Countess.
"But is flesh and
blood worth nothing?" cried the old man in his despair. "I would give
body and soul to save you, Nasie. I would do a murder for the man who would
rescue you. I would do, as Vautrin did, go to the hulks, go----" he
stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt, and put both hands to his head.
"Nothing left!" he cried, tearing his hair. "If I only knew of a
way to steal money, but it is so hard to do it, and then you can’t set to work
by yourself, and it takes time to rob a bank. Yes, it is time I was dead; there
is nothing left me to do but to die. I am no good in the world; I am no longer
a father! No. She has come to me in her extremity, and, wretch that I am, I have
nothing to give her. Ah! you put your money into a life annuity, old scoundrel;
and had you not daughters? You did not love them. Die, die in a ditch, like the
dog that you are! Yes, I am worse than a dog; a beast would not have done as I
have done! Oh! my head . . . it throbs as if it would burst."
"Papa!" cried
both the young women at once, "do, pray, be reasonable!" and they
clung to him to prevent him from dashing his head against the wall. There was a
sound of sobbing.
Eugène, greatly
alarmed, took the bill that bore Vautrin’s signature, saw that the stamp would
suffice for a larger sum, altered the figures, made it into a regular bill for
twelve thousand francs, payable to Goriot’s order, and went to his neighbor’s
room.
"Here is the
money, madame," he said, handing the piece of paper to her. "I was
asleep; your conversation awoke me, and by this means I learned all that I owed
to M. Goriot. This bill can be discounted, and I shall meet it punctually at
the due date."
The Countess stood
motionless and speechless, but she held the bill in her fingers.
"Delphine,"
she said, with a white face, and her whole frame quivering with indignation,
anger, and rage, "I forgave you everything; God is my witness that I
forgave you, but I cannot forgive this! So this gentleman was there all the
time, and you knew it! Your petty spite has let you to wreak your vengeance on
me by betraying my secrets, my life, my children’s lives, my shame, my honor!
There, you are nothing to me any longer. I hate you. I will do all that I can
to injure you. I will . . ."
Anger paralyzed her;
the words died in her dry parched throat.
"Why, he is my
son, my child; he is your brother, your preserver!" cried Goriot.
"Kiss his hand, Nasie! Stay, I will embrace him myself," he said,
straining Eugène to his breast in a frenzied clasp. "Oh my boy! I will be
more than a father to you; if I had God’s power, I would fling worlds at your
feet. Why don’t you kiss him, Nasie? He is not a man, but an angel, a angel out
of heaven."
"Never mind her,
father; she is mad just now."
"Mad! am I? And
what are you?" cried Mme. de Restaud.
"Children,
children, I shall die if you go on like this," cried the old man, and he
staggered and fell on the bed as if a bullet had struck him.--"They are killing
me between them," he said to himself.
The Countess fixed her
eyes on Eugène, who stood stock still; all his faculties were numbed by this
violent scene.
"Sir? . . ."
she said, doubt and inquiry in her face, tone, and bearing; she took no notice
now of her father nor of Delphine, who was hastily unfastening his waistcoat.
"Madame,"
said Eugène, answering the question before it was asked, "I will meet the bill,
and keep silence about it."
"You have killed
our father, Nasie!" said Delphine, pointing to Goriot, who lay unconscious
on the bed. The Countess fled.
"I freely forgive
her," said the old man, opening his eyes; "her position is horrible;
it would turn an older head than hers. Comfort Nasie, and be nice to her,
Delphine; promise it to your poor father before he dies," he asked,
holding Delphine’s hand in a convulsive clasp.
"Oh! what ails
you, father?" she cried in real alarm.
"Nothing, nothing,"
said Goriot; "it will go off. There is something heavy pressing on my
forehead, a little headache-- Ah! poor Nasie, what a life lies before
her!"
Just as he spoke, the
Countess came back again and flung herself on her knees before him.
"Forgive me!" she cried.
"Come," said
her father, "you are hurting me still more."
"Monsieur,"
the Countess said, turning to Rastignac, "misery made me unjust to you.
You will be a brother to me, will you not?" and she held out her hand. Her
eyes were full of tears as she spoke.
"Nasie,"
cried Delphine, flinging her arms round her sister, "my little Nasie, let
us forget and forgive."
"No, no,"
cried Nasie; "I shall never forget!"
"Dear
angels," cried Goriot, "it is as if a dark curtain over my eyes had
been raised; your voices have called me back to life. Kiss each other once
more. Well, now, Nasie, that bill will save you, won’t it?"
"I hope so. I say,
papa, will you write your name on it?"
"There! how stupid
of me to forget that! But I am not feeling at all well, Nasie, so you must not
remember it against me. Send and let me know as soon as you are out of your
strait. No, I will go to you. No, after all, I will not go; I might meet your
husband, and I should kill him on the spot. And as for signing away your
property, I shall have a word to say about that. Quick, my child, and keep
Maxime in order in future."
Eugène was too
bewildered to speak.
"Poor Anastasie,
she always had a violent temper," said Mme. de Nucingen, "but she has
a good heart."
"She came back for
the endorsement," said Eugène in Delphine’s ear.
"Do you think
so?"
"I only wish I
could think otherwise. Do not trust her," he answered, raising his eyes as
if he confided to heaven the thoughts that he did not venture to express.
"Yes. She is
always acting a part to some extent."
"How do you feel
now, dear Father Goriot?" asked Rastignac.
"I should like to
go to sleep," he replied.
Eugène helped him to
bed, and Delphine sat by the bedside, holding his hand until he fell asleep.
Then she went.
"This evening at
the Italiens," she said to Eugène, "and you can let me know how he
is. To-morrow you will leave this place, monsieur. Let us go into your
room.--Oh! how frightful!" she cried on the threshold. "Why, you are
even worse lodged than our father. Eugène, you have behaved well. I would love
you more if that were possible; but, dear boy, if you are to succeed in life,
you must not begin by flinging twelve thousand francs out of the windows like
that. The Comte de Trailles is a confirmed gambler. My sister shuts her eyes to
it. He would have made the twelve thousand francs in the same way that he wins
and loses heaps of gold."
A groan from the next
room brought them back to Goriot’s bedside; to all appearances he was asleep,
but the two lovers caught the words, "They are not happy!" Whether he
was awake or sleeping, the tone in which they were spoken went to his daughter’s
heart. She stole up to the pallet-bed on which her father lay, and kissed his
forehead. He opened his eyes.
"Ah!
Delphine!" he said.
"How are you
now?" she asked.
"Quite
comfortable. Do not worry about me; I shall get up presently. Don’t stay with
me, children; go, go and be happy."
Eugène went back with
Delphine as far as her door; but he was not easy about Goriot, and would not
stay to dinner, as she proposed. He wanted to be back at the Maison Vauquer.
Father Goriot had left his room, and was just sitting down to dinner as he came
in. Bianchon had placed himself where he could watch the old man carefully; and
when the old vermicelli maker took up his square of bread and smelled it to
find out the quality of the flour, the medical student, studying him closely,
saw that the action was purely mechanical, and shook his head.
"Just come and sit
over here, hospitaller of Cochin," said Eugène.
Bianchon went the more
willingly because his change of place brought him next to the old lodger.
"What is wrong
with him?" asked Rastignac.
"It is all up with
him, or I am much mistaken! Something very extraordinary must have taken place;
he looks to me as if he were in imminent danger of serous apoplexy. The lower
part of his face is composed enough, but the upper part is drawn and distorted.
Then there is that peculiar look about the eyes that indicates an effusion of
serum in the brain; they look as though they were covered with a film of fine
dust, do you notice? I shall know more about it by to-morrow morning."
"Is there any cure
for it?"
"None. It might be
possible to stave death off for a time if a way could be found of setting up a
reaction in the lower extremities; but if the symptoms do not abate by
to-morrow evening, it will be all over with him, poor old fellow! Do you know
what has happened to bring this on? There must have been some violent shock,
and his mind has given way."
"Yes, there
was," said Rastignac, remembering how the two daughters had struck blow on
blow at their father’s heart.
"But Delphine at
any rate loves her father," he said to himself.
That evening at the
opera Rastignac chose his words carefully, lest he should give Mme. de Nucingen
needless alarm.
"Do not be anxious
about him," she said, however, as soon as Eugène began, "our father
has really a strong constitution, but this morning we gave him a shock. Our
whole fortunes were in peril, so the thing was serious, you see. I could not
live if your affection did not make me insensible to troubles that I should
once have thought too hard to bear. At this moment I have but one fear left,
but one misery to dread--to lose the love that has made me feel glad to live.
Everything else is as nothing to me compared with our love; I care for nothing
else, for you are all the world to me. If I feel glad to be rich, it is for
your sake. To my shame be it said, I think of my lover before my father. Do you
ask why? I cannot tell you, but all my life is in you. My father gave me a
heart, but you have taught it to beat. The whole world may condemn me; what
does it matter if I stand acquitted in your eyes, for you have no right to
think ill of me for the faults which a tyrannous love has forced me to commit
for you! Do you think me an unnatural daughter? Oh! no, no one could help
loving such a dear kind father as ours. But how could I hide the inevitable
consequences of our miserable marriages from him? Why did he allow us to marry
when we did? Was it not his duty to think for us and foresee for us? To-day I
know he suffers as much as we do, but how can it be helped? And as for
comforting him, we could not comfort him in the least. Our resignation would
give him more pain and hurt him far more than complaints and upbraidings. There
are times in life when everything turns to bitterness."
Eugène was silent, the
artless and sincere outpouring made an impression on him.
Parisian women are
often false, intoxicated with vanity, selfish and self-absorbed, frivolous and
shallow; yet of all women, when they love, they sacrifice their personal
feelings to their passion; they rise but so much the higher for all the
pettiness overcome in their nature, and become sublime. Then Eugène was struck
by the profound discernment and insight displayed by this woman in judging of
natural affection, when a privileged affection had separated and set her at a
distance apart. Mme. de Nucingen was piqued by the silence,
"What are you
thinking about?" she asked.
"I am thinking
about what you said just now. Hitherto I have always felt sure that I cared far
more for you than you did for me."
She smiled, and would
not give way to the happiness she felt, lest their talk should exceed the
conventional limits of propriety. She had never heard the vibrating tones of a
sincere and youthful love; a few more words, and she feared for her
self-control.
"Eugène," she
said, changing the conversation, "I wonder whether you know what has been
happening? All Paris will go to Mme. de Beauseant’s to-morrow. The Rochefides
and the Marquis d’Ajuda have agreed to keep the matter a profound secret, but
to-morrow the king will sign the marriage-contract, and your poor cousin the
Vicomtesse knows nothing of it as yet. She cannot put off her ball, and the
Marquis will not be there. People are wondering what will happen?"
"The world laughs
at baseness and connives at it. But this will kill Mme. de Beauseant."
"Oh, no,"
said Delphine, smiling, "you do not know that kind of woman. Why, all
Paris will be there, and so shall I; I ought to go there for your sake."
"Perhaps, after
all, it is one of those absurd reports that people set in circulation
here."
"We shall know the
truth to-morrow."
Eugène did not return
to the Maison Vauquer. He could not forego the pleasure of occupying his new
rooms in the Rue d’Artois. Yesterday evening he had been obliged to leave
Delphine soon after midnight, but that night it was Delphine who stayed with
him until two o’clock in the morning. He rose late, and waited for Mme. de
Nucingen, who came about noon to breakfast with him. Youth snatches eagerly at
these rosy moments of happiness, and Eugène had almost forgotten Goriot’s existence.
The pretty things that surrounded him were growing familiar; this domestication
in itself was one long festival for him, and Mme. de Nucingen was there to
glorify it all by her presence. It was four o’clock before they thought of
Goriot, and of how he had looked forward to the new life in that house. Eugène
said that the old man ought to be moved at once, lest he should grow too ill to
move. He left Delphine and hurried back to the lodging-house. Neither Father
Goriot nor young Bianchon was in the dining-room with the others.
"Aha!" said
the painter as Eugène came in, "Father Goriot has broken down at last.
Bianchon is upstairs with him. One of his daughters--the Comtesse de
Restaurama--came to see the old gentleman, and he would get up and go out, and
made himself worse. Society is about to lose one of its brightest
ornaments."
Rastignac sprang to the
staircase.
"Hey! Monsieur Eugène!"
"Monsieur Eugène,
the mistress is calling you," shouted Sylvie.
"It is this,
sir," said the widow. "You and M. Goriot should by rights have moved
out on the 15th of February. That was three days ago; to- day is the 18th, I
ought really to be paid a month in advance; but if you will engage to pay for
both, I shall be quite satisfied."
"Why can’t you
trust him?"
"Trust him,
indeed! If the old gentleman went off his head and died, those daughters of his
would not pay me a farthing, and his things won’t fetch ten francs. This
morning he went out with all the spoons and forks he has left, I don’t know
why. He had got himself up to look quite young, and--Lord, forgive me--but I
thought he had rouge on his cheeks; he looked quite young again."
"I will be
responsible," said Eugène, shuddering with horror, for he foresaw the end.
He climbed the stairs
and reached Father Goriot’s room. The old man was tossing on his bed. Bianchon
was with him.
"Good-evening,
father," said Eugène.
The old man turned his
glassy eyes on him, smiled gently, and said:
"How is she?"
"She is quite well.
But how are you?"
"There is nothing
much the matter."
"Don’t tire
him," said Bianchon, drawing Eugène into a corner of the room.
"Well?" asked
Rastignac.
"Nothing but a
miracle can save him now. Serous congestion has set in; I have put on mustard
plasters, and luckily he can feel them, they are acting."
"Is it possible to
move him?"
"Quite out of the
question. He must stay where he is, and be kept as quiet as possible----"
"Dear
Bianchon," said Eugène, "we will nurse him between us."
"I have had the
head physician round from my hospital to see him."
"And what did he
say?"
"He will give no
opinion till to-morrow evening. He promised to look in again at the end of the
day. Unluckily, the preposterous creature must needs go and do something
foolish this morning; he will not say what it was. He is as obstinate as a
mule. As soon as I begin to talk to him he pretends not to hear, and lies as if
he were asleep instead of answering, or if he opens his eyes he begins to
groan. Some time this morning he went out on foot in the streets, nobody knows
where he went, and he took everything that he had of any value with him. He has
been driving some confounded bargain, and it has been too much for his
strength. One of his daughters has been here."
"Was it the
Countess?" asked Eugène. "A tall, dark-haired woman, with large
bright eyes, slender figure, and little feet?"
"Yes."
"Leave him to me
for a bit," said Rastignac. "I will make him confess; he will tell me
all about it."
"And meanwhile I
will get my dinner. But try not to excite him; there is still some hope
left."
"All right."
"How they will
enjoy themselves to-morrow," said Father Goriot when they were alone.
"They are going to a grand ball."
"What were you
doing this morning, papa, to make yourself so poorly this evening that you have
to stop in bed?"
"Nothing."
"Did not Anastasie
come to see you?" demanded Rastignac.
"Yes," said
Father Goriot.
"Well, then, don’t
keep anything from me. What more did she want of you?"
"Oh, she was very
miserable," he answered, gathering up all his strength to speak. "It
was this way, my boy. Since that affair of the diamonds, Nasie has not had a
penny of her own. For this ball she had ordered a golden gown like a setting
for a jewel. Her mantuamaker, a woman without a conscience, would not give her
credit, so Nasie’s waiting-woman advanced a thousand francs on account. Poor
Nasie! reduced to such shifts! It cut me to the heart to think of it! But when
Nasie’s maid saw how things were between her master and mistress, she was
afraid of losing her money, and came to an understanding with the dressmaker,
and the woman refuses to send the ball-dress until the money is paid. The gown
is ready, and the ball is to-morrow night! Nasie was in despair. She wanted to
borrow my forks and spoons to pawn them. Her husband is determined that she
shall go and wear the diamonds, so as to contradict the stories that are told
all over Paris. How can she go to that heartless scoundrel and say, ’I owe a
thousand francs to my dressmaker; pay her for me!’ She cannot. I saw that
myself. Delphine will be there too in a superb toilette, and Anastasie ought
not to be outshone by her younger sister. And then-- she was drowned in tears,
poor girl! I felt so humbled yesterday when I had not the twelve thousand
francs, that I would have given the rest of my miserable life to wipe out that
wrong. You see, I could have borne anything once, but latterly this want of
money has broken my heart. Oh! I did not do it by halves; I titivated myself up
a bit, and went out and sold my spoons and forks and buckles for six hundred
francs; then I went to old Daddy Gobseck, and sold a year’s interest on my
annuity for four hundred francs down. Pshaw! I can live on dry bread, as I did
when I was a young man; if I have done it before, I can do it again. My Nasie
shall have one happy evening, at any rate. She shall be smart. The banknote for
a thousand francs is under my pillow; it warms me to have it lying there under
my head, for it is going to make my poor Nasie happy. She can turn that bad
girl Victoire out of the house. A servant that cannot trust her mistress, did
any one ever hear the like! I shall be quite well to-morrow. Nasie is coming at
ten o’clock. They must not think that I am ill, or they will not go to the
ball; they will stop and take care of me. To-morrow Nasie will come and hold me
in her arms as if I were one of her children; her kisses will make me well
again. After all, I might have spent the thousand francs on physic; I would far
rather give them to my little Nasie, who can charm all the pain away. At any
rate, I am some comfort to her in her misery; and that makes up for my
unkindness in buying an annuity. She is in the depths, and I cannot draw her
out of them now. Oh! I will go into business again, I will buy wheat in Odessa;
out there, wheat fetches a quarter of the price it sells for here. There is a
law against the importation of grain, but the good folk who made the law forgot
to prohibit the introduction of wheat products and food stuffs made from corn.
Hey! hey! . . . That struck me this morning. There is a fine trade to be done
in starch."
Eugène, watching the
old man’s face, thought that his friend was light-headed.
"Come," he
said, "do not talk any more, you must rest----" Just then Bianchon
came up, and Eugène went down to dinner.
The two students sat up
with him that night, relieving each other in turn. Bianchon brought up his
medical books and studied; Eugène wrote letters home to his mother and sisters.
Next morning Bianchon thought the symptoms more hopeful, but the patient’s
condition demanded continual attention, which the two students alone were
willing to give--a task impossible to describe in the squeamish phraseology of
the epoch. Leeches must be applied to the wasted body, the poultices and hot
foot-baths, and other details of the treatment required the physical strength
and devotion of the two young men. Mme. de Restaud did not come; but she sent a
messenger for the money.
"I expected she
would come herself; but it would have been a pity for her to come, she would
have been anxious about me," said the father, and to all appearances he
was well content.
At seven o’clock that
evening Therese came with a letter from Delphine.
"What are you
doing, dear friend? I have been loved for a very little while, and I am
neglected already? In the confidences of heart and heart, I have learned to
know your soul--you are too noble not to be faithful for ever, for you know
that love with all its infinite subtle changes of feeling is never the same.
Once you said, as we were listening to the Prayer in Mose in Egitto, ’For some
it is the monotony of a single note; for others, it is the infinite of sound.’
Remember that I am expecting you this evening to take me to Mme. de Beauseant’s
ball. Every one knows now that the King signed M. d’Ajuda’s marriage-contract
this morning, and the poor Vicomtesse knew nothing of it until two o’clock this
afternoon. All Paris will flock to her house, of course, just as a crowd fills
the Place de Greve to see an execution. It is horrible, is it not, to go out of
curiosity to see if she will hide her anguish, and whether she will die
courageously? I certainly should not go, my friend, if I had been at her house
before; but, of course, she will not receive society any more after this, and
all my efforts would be in vain. My position is a very unusual one, and
besides, I am going there partly on your account. I am waiting for you. If you are
not beside me in less than two hours, I do not know whether I could forgive
such treason."
Rastignac took up a pen
and wrote--
"I am waiting till
the doctor comes to know if there is any hope of your father’s life. He is
lying dangerously ill. I will come and bring you the news, but I am afraid it
may be a sentence of death. When I come you can decide whether you can go to
the ball.--Yours a thousand times."
At half-past eight the
doctor arrived. He did not take a very hopeful view of the case, but thought
that there was no immediate danger. Improvements and relapses might be
expected, and the good man’s life and reason hung in the balance.
"It would be
better for him to die at once," the doctor said as he took leave.
Eugène left Goriot to
Bianchon’s care, and went to carry the sad news to Mme. de Nucingen. Family
feeling lingered in her, and this must put an end for the present to her plans
of amusement.
"Tell her to enjoy
her evening as if nothing had happened," cried Goriot. He had been lying
in a sort of stupor, but he suddenly sat upright as Eugène went out.
Eugène, half
heartbroken, entered Delphine’s. Her hair had been dressed; she wore her
dancing slippers; she had only to put on her ball-dress; but when the artist is
giving the finishing stroke to his creation, the last touches require more time
than the whole groundwork of the picture.
"Why, you are not
dressed!" she cried.
"Madame, your
father----"
"My father
again!" she exclaimed, breaking in upon him. "You need not teach me what
is due to my father, I have known my father this long while. Not a word, Eugène.
I will hear what you have to say when you are dressed. My carriage is waiting,
take it, go round to your rooms and dress, Therese has put out everything in
readiness for you. Come back as soon as you can; we will talk about my father
on the way to Mme. de Beauseant’s. We must go early; if we have to wait our
turn in a row of carriages, we shall be lucky if we get there by eleven o’clock."
"Madame----"
"Quick! not a word!"
she cried, darting into her dressing-room for a necklace.
"Do go, Monsieur
Eugène, or you will vex madame," said Therese, hurrying him away; and Eugène
was too horror-stricken by this elegant parricide to resist.
He went to his rooms
and dressed, sad, thoughtful, and dispirited. The world of Paris was like an
ocean of mud for him just then; and it seemed that whoever set foot in that
black mire must needs sink into it up to the chin.
"Their crimes are
paltry," said Eugène to himself. "Vautrin was greater."
He had seen society in
its three great phases--Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt; the Family, the World,
and Vautrin; and he hesitated in his choice. Obedience was dull, Revolt
impossible, Struggle hazardous. His thoughts wandered back to the home circle.
He thought of the quiet uneventful life, the pure happiness of the days spent
among those who loved him there. Those loving and beloved beings passed their
lives in obedience to the natural laws of the hearth, and in that obedience
found a deep and constant serenity, unvexed by torments such as these. Yet, for
all his good impulses, he could not bring himself to make profession of the
religion of pure souls to Delphine, nor to prescribe the duties of piety to her
in the name of love. His education had begun to bear its fruits; he loved
selfishly already. Besides, his tact had discovered to him the real nature of
Delphine; he divined instinctively that she was capable of stepping over her
father’s corpse to go to the ball; and within himself he felt that he had
neither the strength of mind to play the part of mentor, nor the strength of
character to vex her, nor the courage to leave her to go alone.
"She would never
forgive me for putting her in the wrong over it," he said to himself. Then
he turned the doctor’s dictum over in his mind; he tried to believe that Goriot
was not so dangerously ill as he had imagined, and ended by collecting together
a sufficient quantity of traitorous excuses for Delphine’s conduct. She did not
know how ill her father was; the kind old man himself would have made her go to
the ball if she had gone to see him. So often it happens that this one or that
stands condemned by the social laws that govern family relations; and yet there
are peculiar circumstances in the case, differences of temperament, divergent
interests, innumerable complications of family life that excuse the apparent
offence.
Eugène did not wish to
see too clearly; he was ready to sacrifice his conscience to his mistress.
Within the last few days his whole life had undergone a change. Woman had
entered into his world and thrown it into chaos, family claims dwindled away
before her; she had appropriated all his being to her uses. Rastignac and
Delphine found each other at a crisis in their lives when their union gave them
the most poignant bliss. Their passion, so long proved, had only gained in
strength by the gratified desire that often extinguishes passion. This woman
was his, and Eugène recognized that not until then had he loved her; perhaps
love is only gratitude for pleasure. This woman, vile or sublime, he adored for
the pleasure she had brought as her dower; and Delphine loved Rastignac as
Tantalus would have loved some angel who had satisfied his hunger and quenched
the burning thirst in his parched throat.
"Well," said
Mme. de Nucingen when he came back in evening dress, "how is my
father?"
"Very dangerously
ill," he answered; "if you will grant me a proof of your affections,
we will just go in to see him on the way."
"Very well,"
she said. "Yes, but afterwards. Dear Eugène, do be nice, and don’t preach
to me. Come."
They set out for the
ball. Eugène said nothing for a while, apparently absorbed in deep mediatation.
"What is it
now?" she asked.
"I can hear the
death-rattle in your father’s throat," he said almost angrily. And with
the hot indignation of youth, he told the story of Mme. de Restaud’s vanity and
cruelty, of her father’s final act of self-sacrifice, that had brought about
this struggle between life and death, of the price that had been paid for
Anastasie’s golden embroideries. Delphine cried.
"I shall look
frightful," she thought. She dried her tears.
"I will nurse my
father; I will not leave his bedside," she said aloud.
"Ah! now you are
as I would have you," exclaimed Rastignac.
The lamps of five
hundred carriages lit up the darkness about the Hotel de Beauseant. A gendarme
in all the glory of his uniform stood on either side of the brightly lighted
gateway. The great world was flocking thither that night in its eager curiosity
to see the great lady at the moment of her fall, and the rooms on the ground
floor were already full to overflowing, when Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac
appeared. Never since Louis XIV. tore her lover away from La grand
Mademoiselle, and the whole court hastened to visit that unfortunate princess,
had a disastrous love affair made such a sensation in Paris. But the youngest
daughter of the almost royal house of Burgundy had risen proudly above her
pain, and moved till the last moment like a queen in this world--its vanities
had always been valueless for her, save in so far as they contributed to the
triumph of her passion. The salons were filled with the most beautiful women in
Paris, resplendent in their toilettes, and radiant with smiles. Ministers and
ambassadors, the most distinguished men at court, men bedizened with
decorations, stars, and ribbons, men who bore the most illustrious names in
France, had gathered about the Vicomtesse.
The music of the
orchestra vibrated in wave after wave of sound from the golden ceiling of the
palace, now made desolate for its queen.
Madame de Beauseant
stood at the door of the first salon to receive the guests who were styled her
friends. She was dressed in white, and wore no ornament in the plaits of hair
braided about her head; her face was calm; there was no sign there of pride,
nor of pain, nor of joy that she did not feel. No one could read her soul; she
stood there like some Niobe carved in marble. For a few intimate friends there
was a tinge of satire in her smile; but no scrutiny saw any change in her, nor
had she looked otherwise in the days of the glory of her happiness. The most
callous of her guests admired her as young Rome applauded some gladiator who
could die smiling. It seemed as if society had adorned itself for a last
audience of one of its sovereigns.
"I was afraid that
you would not come," she said to Rastignac.
"Madame," he
said, in an unsteady voice, taking her speech as a reproach, "I shall be
the last to go, that is why I am here."
"Good," she
said, and she took his hand. "You are perhaps the only one I can trust
here among all these. Oh, my friend, when you love, love a woman whom you are
sure that you can love always. Never forsake a woman."
She took Rastignac’s
arm, and went towards a sofa in the card-room.
"I want you to go
to the Marquis," she said. "Jacques, my footman, will go with you; he
has a letter that you will take. I am asking the Marquis to give my letters
back to me. He will give them all up, I like to think that. When you have my
letters, go up to my room with them. Some one shall bring me word."
She rose to go to meet
the Duchesse de Langeais, her most intimate friend, who had come like the rest
of the world.
Rastignac went. He
asked for the Marquis d’Ajuda at the Hotel Rochefide, feeling certain that the
latter would be spending his evening there, and so it proved. The Marquis went
to his own house with Rastignac, and gave a casket to the student, saying as he
did so, "They are all there."
He seemed as if he was
about to say something to Eugène, to ask about the ball, or the Vicomtesse;
perhaps he was on the brink of the confession that, even then, he was in
despair, and knew that his marriage had been a fatal mistake; but a proud gleam
shone in his eyes, and with deplorable courage he kept his noblest feelings a
secret.
"Do not even
mention my name to her, my dear Eugène." He grasped Rastignac’s hand sadly
and affectionately, and turned away from him. Eugène went back to the Hotel
Beauseant, the servant took him to the Vicomtesse’s room. There were signs
there of preparations for a journey. He sat down by the fire, fixed his eyes on
the cedar wood casket, and fell into deep mournful musings. Mme. de Beauseant
loomed large in these imaginings, like a goddess in the Iliad.
"Ah! my friend! .
. ." said the Vicomtesse; she crossed the room and laid her hand on
Rastignac’s shoulder. He saw the tears in his cousin’s uplifted eyes, saw that
one hand was raised to take the casket, and that the fingers of the other
trembled. Suddenly she took the casket, put it in the fire, and watched it
burn.
"They are
dancing," she said. "They all came very early; but death will be long
in coming. Hush! my friend," and she laid a finger on Rastignac’s lips,
seeing that he was about to speak. "I shall never see Paris again. I am
taking my leave of the world. At five o’clock this morning I shall set out on
my journey; I mean to bury myself in the remotest part of Normandy. I have had
very little time to make my arrangements; since three o’clock this afternoon I
have been busy signing documents, setting my affairs in order; there was no one
whom I could send to . . ."
She broke off.
"He was sure to
be--"
Again she broke off; the
weight of her sorrow was more than she could bear. In such moments as these
everything is agony, and some words are impossible to utter.
"And so I counted
upon you to do me this last piece of service this evening," she said.
"I should like to give you some pledge of friendship. I shall often think
of you. You have seemed to me to be kind and noble, fresh-hearted and true, in
this world where such qualities are seldom found. I should like you to think
sometimes of me. Stay," she said, glancing about her, "there is this
box that has held my gloves. Every time I opened it before going to a ball or
to the theatre, I used to feel that I must be beautiful, because I was so
happy; and I never touched it except to lay some gracious memory in it: there is
so much of my old self in it, of a Madame de Beauseant who now lives no longer.
Will you take it? I will leave directions that it is to be sent to you in the
Rue d’Artois.--Mme. de Nucingen looked very charming this evening. Eugène, you
must love her. Perhaps we may never see each other again, my friend; but be
sure of this, that I shall pray for you who have been kind to me.--Now, let us
go downstairs. People shall not think that I am weeping. I have all time and
eternity before me, and where I am going I shall be alone, and no one will ask
me the reason of my tears. One last look round first."
She stood for a moment.
Then she covered her eyes with her hands for an instant, dashed away the tears,
bathed her face with cold water, and took the student’s arm.
"Let us go!"
she said.
This suffering, endured
with such noble fortitude, shook Eugène with a more violent emotion than he had
felt before. They went back to the ballroom, and Mme. de Beauseant went through
the rooms on Eugène’s arm --the last delicately gracious act of a gracious
woman. In another moment he saw the sisters, Mme. de Restaud and Mme. de
Nucingen. The Countess shone in all the glory of her magnificent diamonds;
every stone must have scorched like fire, she was never to wear them again. Strong
as love and pride might be in her, she found it difficult to meet her husband’s
eyes. The sight of her was scarcely calculated to lighten Rastignac’s sad
thoughts; through the blaze of those diamonds he seemed to see the wretched
pallet-bed on which Father Goriot was lying. The Vicomtesse misread his
melancholy; she withdrew her hand from his arm.
"Come," she
said, "I must not deprive you of a pleasure."
Eugène was soon claimed
by Delphine. She was delighted by the impression that she had made, and eager
to lay at her lover’s feet the homage she had received in this new world in
which she hoped to live and move henceforth.
"What do you think
of Nasie?" she asked him.
"She has
discounted everything, even her own father’s death," said Rastignac.
Towards four o’clock in
the morning the rooms began to empty. A little later the music ceased, and the
Duchesse de Langeais and Rastignac were left in the great ballroom. The
Vicomtesse, who thought to find the student there alone, came back there at
last. She had taken leave of M. de Beauseant, who had gone off to bed, saying
again as he went, "It is a great pity, my dear, to shut yourself up at
your age! Pray stay among us."
Mme. de Beauseant saw
the Duchesse, and, in spite of herself, an exclamation broke from her.
"I saw how it was,
Clara," said Mme. de Langeais. "You are going from among us, and you
will never come back. But you must not go until you have heard me, until we
have understood each other."
She took her friend’s
arm, and they went together into the next room. There the Duchess looked at her
with tears in her eyes; she held her friend in close embrace and kissed her
cheek.
"I could not let
you go without a word, dearest; the remorse would have been too hard to bear.
You can count upon me as surely as upon yourself. You have shown yourself great
this evening; I feel that I am worthy of our friendship, and I mean to prove
myself worthy of it. I have not always been kind; I was in the wrong; forgive
me, dearest; I wish I could unsay anything that may have hurt you; I take back
those words. One common sorrow has brought us together again, for I do not know
which of us is the more miserable. M. de Montriveau was not here to-night; do
you understand what that means?--None of those who saw you to-night, Clara,
will ever forget you. I mean to make one last effort. If I fail, I shall go
into a convent. Clara, where are you going?"
"Into Normandy, to
Courcelles. I shall love and pray there until the day when God shall take me
from this world.--M. de Rastignac!" called the Vicomtesse, in a tremulous
voice, remembering that the young man was waiting there.
The student knelt to
kiss his cousin’s hand.
"Good-bye,
Antoinette!" said Mme. de Beauseant. "May you be happy."-- She
turned to the student. "You are young," she said; "you have some
beliefs still left. I have been privileged, like some dying people, to find
sincere and reverent feeling in those about me as I take my leave of this
world."
It was nearly five o’clock
that morning when Rastignac came away. He had put Mme. de Beauseant into her
traveling carriage, and received her last farewells, spoken amid fast-falling
tears; for no greatness is so great that it can rise above the laws of human
affection, or live beyond the jurisdiction of pain, as certain demagogues would
have the people believe. Eugène returned on foot to the Maison Vauquer through
the cold and darkness. His education was nearly complete.
"There is no hope
for poor Father Goriot," said Bianchon, as Rastignac came into the room.
Eugène looked for a while at the sleeping man, then he turned to his friend.
"Dear fellow, you are content with the modest career you have marked out
for yourself; keep to it. I am in hell, and I must stay there. Believe
everything that you hear said of the world, nothing is too impossibly bad. No
Juvenal could paint the horrors hidden away under the covering of gems and
gold."
At two o’clock in the
afternoon Bianchon came to wake Rastignac, and begged him to take charge of
Goriot, who had grown worse as the day wore on. The medical student was obliged
to go out.
"Poor old man, he
has not two days to live, maybe not many hours," he said; "but we
must do our utmost, all the same, to fight the disease. It will be a very
troublesome case, and we shall want money. We can nurse him between us, of
course, but, for my own part, I have not a penny. I have turned out his
pockets, and rummaged through his drawers--result, nix. I asked him about it
while his mind was clear, and he told me he had not a farthing of his own. What
have you?"
"I have twenty
francs left," said Rastignac; "but I will take them to the roulette
table, I shall be sure to win."
"And if you
lose?"
"Then I shall go
to his sons-in-law and his daughters and ask them for money."
"And suppose they
refuse?" Bianchon retorted. "The most pressing thing just now is not
really money; we must put mustard poultices, as hot as they can be made, on his
feet and legs. If he calls out, there is still some hope for him. You know how
to set about doing it, and besides, Christophe will help you. I am going round
to the dispensary to persuade them to let us have the things we want on credit.
It is a pity that we could not move him to the hospital; poor fellow, he would
be better there. Well, come along, I leave you in charge; you must stay with
him till I come back."
The two young men went
back to the room where the old man was lying. Eugène was startled at the change
in Goriot’s face, so livid, distorted, and feeble.
"How are you,
papa?" he said, bending over the pallet-bed. Goriot turned his dull eyes
upon Eugène, looked at him attentively, and did not recognize him. It was more
than the student could bear; the tears came into his eyes.
"Bianchon, ought
we to have the curtains put up in the windows?"
"No, the
temperature and the light do not affect him now. It would be a good thing for
him if he felt heat or cold; but we must have a fire in any case to make
tisanes and heat the other things. I will send round a few sticks; they will
last till we can have in some firewood. I burned all the bark fuel you had
left, as well as his, poor man, yesterday and during the night. The place is so
damp that the water stood in drops on the walls; I could hardly get the room
dry. Christophe came in and swept the floor, but the place is like a stable; I
had to burn juniper, the smell was something horrible.
"Mon Dieu!"
said Rastignac. "To think of those daughters of his."
"One moment, if he
asks for something to drink, give him this," said the house student, pointing
to a large white jar. "If he begins to groan, and the belly feels hot and
hard to the touch, you know what to do; get Christophe to help you. If he
should happen to grow much excited, and begin to talk a good deal and even to
ramble in his talk, do not be alarmed. It would not be a bad symptom. But send
Christophe to the Hospice Cochin. Our doctor, my chum, or I will come and apply
moxas. We had a great consultation this morning while you were asleep. A
surgeon, a pupil of Gall’s came, and our house surgeon, and the head physician
from the Hotel-Dieu. Those gentlemen considered that the symptoms were very
unusual and interesting; the case must be carefully watched, for it throws a
light on several obscure and rather important scientific problems. One of the
authorities says that if there is more pressure of serum on one or other
portion of the brain, it should affect his mental capacities in such and such
directions. So if he should talk, notice very carefully what kind of ideas his
mind seems to run on; whether memory, or penetration, or the reasoning
faculties are exercised; whether sentiments or practical questions fill his
thoughts; whether he makes forecasts or dwells on the past; in fact; you must
be prepared to give an accurate report of him. It is quite likely that the
extravasation fills the whole brain, in which case he will die in the imbecile
state in which he is lying now. You cannot tell anything about these mysterious
nervous diseases. Suppose the crash came here," said Bianchon, touching the
back of the head, "very strange things have been known to happen; the
brain sometimes partially recovers, and death is delayed. Or the congested
matter may pass out of the brain altogether through channels which can only be
determined by a post-mortem examination. There is an old man at the Hospital
for Incurables, an imbecile patient, in his case the effusion has followed the
direction of the spinal cord; he suffers horrid agonies, but he lives."
"Did they enjoy
themselves?" It was Father Goriot who spoke. He had recognized Eugène.
"Oh! he thinks of
nothing but his daughters," said Bianchon. "Scores of times last
night he said to me, ’They are dancing now! She has her dress.’ He called them
by their names. He made me cry, the devil take it, calling with that tone in
his voice, for ’Delphine! my little Delphine! and Nasie!’ Upon my word,"
said the medical student, "it was enough to make any one burst out
crying."
"Delphine,"
said the old man, "she is there, isn’t she? I knew she was there,"
and his eyes sought the door.
"I am going down
now to tell Sylvie to get the poultices ready," said Bianchon. "They
ought to go on at once."
Rastignac was left
alone with the old man. He sat at the foot of the bed, and gazed at the face
before him, so horribly changed that it was shocking to see.
"Noble natures
cannot dwell in this world," he said; "Mme de Beauseant has fled from
it, and there he lies dying. What place indeed is there in the shallow petty
frivolous thing called society for noble thoughts and feelings?"
Pictures of yesterday’s
ball rose up in his memory, in strange contrast to the deathbed before him.
Bianchon suddenly appeared.
"I say, Eugène, I
have just seen our head surgeon at the hospital, and I ran all the way back
here. If the old man shows any signs of reason, if he begins to talk, cover him
with a mustard poultice from the neck to the base of the spine, and send round
for us."
"Dear
Bianchon," exclaimed Eugène.
"Oh! it is an
interesting case from a scientific point of view," said the medical
student, with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte.
"So!" said
Eugène. "Am I really the only one who cares for the poor old man for his
own sake?"
"You would not
have said so if you had seen me this morning," returned Bianchon, who did
not take offence at this speech. "Doctors who have seen a good deal of
practice never see anything but the disease, but, my dear fellow, I can see the
patient still."
He went. Eugène was
left alone with the old man, and with an apprehension of a crisis that set in,
in fact, before very long.
"Ah! dear boy, is
that you?" said Father Goriot, recognizing Eugène.
"Do you feel
better?" asked the law student, taking his hand.
"Yes. My head felt
as if it were being screwed up in a vise, but now it is set free again. Did you
see my girls? They will be here directly; as soon as they know that I am ill
they will hurry here at once; they used to take such care of me in the Rue de
la Jussienne! Great Heavens! if only my room was fit for them to come into!
There has been a young man here, who has burned up all my bark fuel."
"I can hear
Christophe coming upstairs," Eugène answered. "He is bringing up some
firewood that that young man has sent you."
"Good, but how am
I to pay for the wood. I have not a penny left, dear boy. I have given
everything, everything. I am a pauper now. Well, at least the golden gown was
grand, was it not? (Ah! what pain this is!) Thanks, Christophe! God will reward
you, my boy; I have nothing left now."
Eugène went over to
Christophe and whispered in the man’s ear, "I will pay you well, and
Sylvie too, for your trouble."
"My daughters told
you that they were coming, didn’t they, Christophe? Go again to them, and I
will give you five francs. Tell them that I am not feeling well, that I should
like to kiss them both and see them once again before I die. Tell them that,
but don’t alarm them more than you can help."
Rastignac signed to
Christophe to go, and the man went.
"They will come
before long," the old man went on. "I know them so well. My
tender-hearted Delphine! If I am going to die, she will feel it so much! And so
will Nasie. I do not want to die; they will cry if I die; and if I die, dear
Eugène, I shall not see them any more. It will be very dreary there where I am
going. For a father it is hell to be without your children; I have served my
apprenticeship already since they married. My heaven was in the Rue de la
Jussienne. Eugène, do you think that if I go to heaven I can come back to
earth, and be near them in spirit? I have heard some such things said. It is
true? It is as if I could see them at this moment as they used to be when we
all lived in the Rue de la Jussienne. They used to come downstairs of a
morning. ’Good-morning, papa!’ they used to say, and I would take them on my
knees; we had all sorts of little games of play together, and they had such
pretty coaxing ways. We always had breakfast together, too, every morning, and
they had dinner with me--in fact, I was a father then. I enjoyed my children.
They did not think for themselves so long as they lived in the Rue de la
Jussienne; they knew nothing of the world; they loved me with all their hearts.
Mon Dieu! why could they not always be little girls? (Oh! my head! this racking
pain in my head!) Ah! ah! forgive me, children, this pain is fearful; it must
be agony indeed, for you have used me to endure pain. Mon Dieu! if only I held
their hands in mine, I should not feel it at all.--Do you think that they are
on the way? Christophe is so stupid; I ought to have gone myself. He will see
them. But you went to the ball yesterday; just tell me how they looked. They
did not know that I was ill, did they, or they would not have been dancing,
poor little things? Oh! I must not be ill any longer. They stand too much in
need of me; their fortunes are in danger. And such husbands as they are bound
to! I must get well! (Oh! what pain this is! what pain this is! . . . ah!
ah!)--I must get well, you see; for they must have money, and I know how to set
about making some. I will go to Odessa and manufacture starch there. I am an
old hand, I will make millions. (Oh! this is agony!)"
Goriot was silent for a
moment; it seemed to require his whole strength to endure the pain.
"If they were
here, I should not complain," he said. "So why should I complain
now?"
He seemed to grow
drowsy with exhaustion, and lay quietly for a long time. Christophe came back;
and Rastignac, thinking that Goriot was asleep, allowed the man to give his
story aloud.
"First of all,
sir, I went to Madame la Comtesse," he said; "but she and her husband
were so busy that I couldn’t get to speak to her. When I insisted that I must
see her, M. de Restaud came out to me himself, and went on like this: ’M.
Goriot is dying, is he? Very well, it is the best thing he can do. I want Mme.
de Restaud to transact some important business, when it is all finished she can
go.’ The gentleman looked angry, I thought. I was just going away when Mme. de
Restaud came out into an ante-chamber through a door that I did not notice, and
said, ’Christophe, tell my father that my husband wants me to discuss some
matters with him, and I cannot leave the house, the life or death of my
children is at stake; but as soon as it is over, I will come.’ As for Madame la
Baronne, that is another story! I could not speak to her either, and I did not
even see her. Her waiting-woman said, ’Ah yes, but madame only came back from a
ball at a quarter to five this morning; she is asleep now, and if I wake her
before mid-day she will be cross. As soon as she rings, I will go and tell her
that her father is worse. It will be time enough then to tell her bad news!’ I
begged and I prayed, but, there! it was no good. Then I asked for M. le Baron,
but he was out."
"To think that
neither of his daughters should come!" exclaimed Rastignac. "I will
write to them both."
"Neither of
them!" cried the old man, sitting upright in bed. "They are busy,
they are asleep, they will not come! I knew that they would not. Not until you
are dying do you know your children-- Oh! my friend, do not marry; do not have
children! You give them life; they give you your deathblow. You bring them into
the world, and they send you out of it. No, they will not come. I have known
that these ten years. Sometimes I have told myself so, but I did not dare to
believe it."
The tears gathered and
stood without overflowing the red sockets.
"Ah! if I were
rich still, if I had kept my money, if I had not given all to them, they would
be with me now; they would fawn on me and cover my cheeks with their kisses! I
should be living in a great mansion; I should have grand apartments and
servants and a fire in my room; and they would be about me all in tears, and
their husbands and their children. I should have had all that; now--I have
nothing. Money brings everything to you; even your daughters. My money. Oh!
where is my money? If I had plenty of money to leave behind me, they would
nurse me and tend me; I should hear their voices, I should see their faces. Ah,
God! who knows? They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too much;
it was not likely that they should love me. A father ought always to be rich;
he ought to keep his children well in hand, like unruly horses. I have gone
down on my knees to them. Wretches! this is the crowning act that brings the
last ten years to a proper close. If you but knew how much they made of me just
after they were married. (Oh! this is cruel torture!) I had just given them
each eight hundred thousand francs; they were bound to be civil to me after
that, and their husbands too were civil. I used to go to their houses: it was ’My
kind father’ here, ’My dear father’ there. There was always a place for me at
their tables. I used to dine with their husbands now and then, and they were
very respectful to me. I was still worth something, they thought. How should
they know? I had not said anything about my affairs. It is worth while to be
civil to a man who has given his daughters eight hundred thousand francs
apiece; and they showed me every attention then--but it was all for my money.
Grand people are not great. I found that out by experience! I went to the
theatre with them in their carriage; I might stay as long as I cared to stay at
their evening parties. In fact, they acknowledged me their father; publicly
they owned that they were my daughters. But I was always a shrewd one, you see,
and nothing was lost upon me. Everything went straight to the mark and pierced
my heart. I saw quite well that it was all sham and pretence, but there is no
help for such things as these. I felt less at my ease at their dinner-table
than I did downstairs here. I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand
folks would ask in my son-in-law’s ear, ’Who may that gentleman be?’-- ’The
father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.’--’The devil, he is!’ they
would say, and look again at me with the respect due to my money. Well, if I
was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly for my mistakes. And besides, who is
perfect? (My head is one sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugène, I am suffering so now,
that a man might die of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the
pain I endured when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said
something stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all my
veins. I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did
learn thoroughly --I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.
"The next day I
went to Delphine for comfort, and what should I do there but make some stupid
blunder that made her angry with me. I was like one driven out of his senses.
For a week I did not know what to do; I did not dare to go to see them for fear
they should reproach me. And that was how they both turned me out of the house.
"Oh God! Thou
knowest all the misery and anguish that I have endured; Thou hast counted all
the wounds that have been dealt to me in these years that have aged and changed
me and whitened my hair and drained my life; why dost Thou make me to suffer so
to-day? Have I not more than expiated the sin of loving them too much? They
themselves have been the instruments of vengeance; they have tortured me for my
sin of affection.
"Ah, well! fathers
know no better; I loved them so; I went back to them as a gambler goes to the
gaming table. This love was my vice, you see, my mistress--they were everything
in the world to me. They were always wanting something or other, dresses and
ornaments, and what not; their maids used to tell me what they wanted, and I
used to give them the things for the sake of the welcome that they bought for
me. But, at the same time, they used to give me little lectures on my behavior
in society; they began about it at once. Then they began to feel ashamed of me.
That is what comes of having your children well brought up. I could not go to
school again at my time of life. (This pain is fearful! Mon Dieu! These
doctors! these doctors! If they would open my head, it would give me some
relief!) Oh, my daughters, my daughters! Anastasie! Delphine! If I could only
see them! Send for the police, and make them come to me! Justice is on my side,
the whole world is on my side, I have natural rights, and the law with me. I
protest! The country will go to ruin if a father’s rights are trampled under
foot. That is easy to see. The whole world turns on fatherly love; fatherly
love is the foundation of society; it will crumble into ruin when children do
not love their fathers. Oh! if I could only see them, and hear them, no matter
what they said; if I could simply hear their voices, it would soothe the pain.
Delphine! Delphine most of all. But tell them when they come not to look so
coldly at me as they do. Oh! my friend, my good Monsieur Eugène, you do not
know that it is when all the golden light in a glance suddenly turns to a
leaden gray. It has been one long winter here since the light in their eyes
shone no more for me. I have had nothing but disappointments to devour.
Disappointment has been my daily bread; I have lived on humiliation and
insults. I have swallowed down all the affronts for which they sold me my poor
stealthy little moments of joy; for I love them so! Think of it! a father
hiding himself to get a glimpse of his children! I have given all my life to
them, and to-day they will not give me one hour! I am hungering and thirsting
for them, my heart is burning in me, but they will not come to bring relief in
the agony, for I am dying now, I feel that this is death. Do they not know what
it means to trample on a father’s corpse? There is a God in heaven who avenges
us fathers whether we will or no.
"Oh! they will
come! Come to me, darlings, and give me one more kiss; one last kiss, the
Viaticum for your father, who will pray God for you in heaven. I will tell Him
that you have been good children to your father, and plead your cause with God!
After all, it is not their fault. I tell you they are innocent, my friend. Tell
every one that it is not their fault, and no one need be distressed on my
account. It is all my own fault, I taught them to trample upon me. I loved to
have it so. It is no one’s affair but mine; man’s justice and God’s justice
have nothing to do in it. God would be unjust if He condemned them for anything
they may have done to me. I did not behave to them properly; I was stupid
enough to resign my rights. I would have humbled myself in the dust for them.
What could you expect? The most beautiful nature, the noblest soul, would have
been spoiled by such indulgence. I am a wretch, I am justly punished. I, and I
only, am to blame for all their sins; I spoiled them. To-day they are as eager
for pleasure as they used to be for sugar-plums. When they were little girls I
indulged them in every whim. They had a carriage of their own when they were
fifteen. They have never been crossed. I am guilty, and not they--but I sinned
through love.
"My heart would
open at the sound of their voices. I can hear them; they are coming. Yes! yes!
they are coming. The law demands that they should be present at their father’s
deathbed; the law is on my side. It would only cost them the hire of a cab. I
would pay that. Write to them, tell them that I have millions to leave to them!
On my word of honor, yes. I am going to manufacture Italian paste foods at
Odessa. I understand the trade. There are millions to be made in it. Nobody has
thought of the scheme as yet. You see, there will be no waste, no damage in
transit, as there always is with wheat and flour. Hey! hey! and starch too;
there are millions to be made in the starch trade! You will not be telling a
lie. Millions, tell them; and even if they really come because they covet the
money, I would rather let them deceive me; and I shall see them in any case. I
want my children! I gave them life; they are mine, mine!" and he sat
upright. The head thus raised, with its scanty white hair, seemed to Eugène
like a threat; every line that could still speak spoke of menace.
"There, there,
dear father," said Eugène, "lie down again; I will write to them at
once. As soon as Bianchon comes back I will go for them myself, if they do not
come before."
"If they do not
come?" repeated the old man, sobbing. "Why, I shall be dead before
then; I shall die in a fit of rage, of rage! Anger is getting the better of me.
I can see my whole life at this minute. I have been cheated! They do not love
me--they have never loved me all their lives! It is all clear to me. They have
not come, and they will not come. The longer they put off their coming, the
less they are likely to give me this joy. I know them. They have never cared to
guess my disappointments, my sorrows, my wants; they never cared to know my
life; they will have no presentiment of my death; they do not even know the secret
of my tenderness for them. Yes, I see it all now. I have laid my heart open so
often, that they take everything I do for them as a matter of course. They
might have asked me for the very eyes out of my head and I would have bidden
them to pluck them out. They think that all fathers are like theirs. You should
always make your value felt. Their own children will avenge me. Why, for their
own sakes they should come to me! Make them understand that they are laying up
retribution for their own deathbeds. All crimes are summed up in this one-- Go
to them; just tell them that if they stay away it will be parricide! There is
enough laid to their charge already without adding that to the list. Cry aloud
as I do now, ’Nasie! Delphine! here! Come to your father; the father who has
been so kind to you is lying ill!’--Not a sound; no one comes! Then am I do die
like a dog? This is to be my reward--I am forsaken at the last. They are
wicked, heartless women; curses on them, I loathe them. I shall rise at night
from my grave to curse them again; for, after all, my friends, have I done
wrong? They are behaving very badly to me, eh? . . . What am I saying? Did you
not tell me just now that Delphine is in the room? She is more tender-hearted
than her sister-- Eugène, you are my son, you know. You will love her; be a
father to her! Her sister is very unhappy. And there are their fortunes! Ah,
God! I am dying, this anguish is almost more than I can bear! Cut off my head;
leave me nothing but my heart."
"Christophe!"
shouted Eugène, alarmed by the way in which the old man moaned, and by his
cries, "go for M. Bianchon, and send a cab here for me.--I am going to
fetch them, dear father; I will bring them back to you."
"Make them come!
Compel them to come! Call out the Guard, the military, anything and everything,
but make them come!" He looked at Eugène, and a last gleam of intelligence
shone in his eyes. "Go to the authorities, to the Public Prosecutor, let
them bring them here; come they shall!"
"But you have
cursed them."
"Who said
that!" said the old man in dull amazement. "You know quite well that
I love them, I adore them! I shall be quite well again if I can see them-- Go
for them, my good neighbor, my dear boy, you are kind-hearted; I wish I could
repay you for your kindness, but I have nothing to give you now, save the
blessing of a dying man. Ah! if I could only see Delphine, to tell her to pay
my debt to you. If the other cannot come, bring Delphine to me at any rate.
Tell her that unless she comes, you will not love her any more. She is so fond
of you that she will come to me then. Give me something to drink! There is a
fire in my bowels. Press something against my forehead! If my daughters would
lay their hands there, I think I should get better. . . . Mon Dieu! who will
recover their money for them when I am gone? . . . I will manufacture
vermicelli out in Odessa; I will go to Odessa for their sakes."
"Here is something
to drink," said Eugène, supporting the dying man on his left arm, while he
held a cup of tisane to Goriot’s lips.
"How you must love
your own father and mother!" said the old man, and grasped the student’s
hand in both of his. It was a feeble, trembling grasp. "I am going to die;
I shall die without seeing my daughters; do you understand? To be always
thirsting, and never to drink; that has been my life for the last ten years-- I
have no daughters, my sons-in-law killed them. No, since their marriages they
have been dead to me. Fathers should petition the Chambers to pass a law
against marriage. If you love your daughters, do not let them marry. A son-in-
law is a rascal who poisons a girl’s mind and contaminates her whole nature.
Let us have no more marriages! It robs us of our daughters; we are left alone
upon our deathbeds, and they are not with us then. They ought to pass a law for
dying fathers. This is awful! It cries for vengeance! They cannot come, because
my sons-in-law forbid them! . . . Kill them! . . . Restaud and the Alsatian,
kill them both! They have murdered me between them! . . . Death or my
daughters! . . . Ah! it is too late, I am dying, and they are not here! . . .
Dying without them! . . . Nasie! Fifine! Why do you not come to me? Your papa
is going----"
"Dear Father
Goriot, calm yourself. There, there, lie quietly and rest; don’t worry
yourself, don’t think."
"I shall not see
them. Oh! the agony of it!"
"You shall see
them."
"Really?"
cried the old man, still wandering. "Oh! shall I see them; I shall see
them and hear their voices. I shall die happy. Ah! well, after all, I do not
wish to live; I cannot stand this much longer; this pain that grows worse and
worse. But, oh! to see them, to touch their dresses--ah! nothing but their
dresses, that is very little; still, to feel something that belongs to them.
Let me touch their hair with my fingers . . . their hair . . ."
His head fell back on
the pillow, as if a sudden heavy blow had struck him down, but his hands groped
feebly over the quilt, as if to find his daughters’ hair.
"My blessing on
them . . ." he said, making an effort, "my blessing . . ."
His voice died away.
Just at that moment Bianchon came into the room.
"I met
Christophe," he said; "he is gone for your cab."
Then he looked at the
patient, and raised the closed eyelids with his fingers. The two students saw
how dead and lustreless the eyes beneath had grown.
"He will not get
over this, I am sure," said Bianchon. He felt the old man’s pulse, and
laid a hand over his heart.
"The machinery
works still; more is the pity, in his state it would be better for him to
die."
"Ah! my word, it
would!"
"What is the
matter with you? You are as pale as death."
"Dear fellow, the
moans and cries that I have just heard-- There is a God! Ah! yes, yes, there is
a God, and He has made a better world for us, or this world of ours would be a
nightmare. I could have cried like a child; but this is too tragical, and I am
sick at heart.
"We want a lot of
things, you know; and where is the money to come from?"
Rastignac took out his
watch.
"There, be quick
and pawn it. I do not want to stop on the way to the Rue du Helder; there is
not a moment to lose, I am afraid, and I must wait here till Christophe comes
back. I have not a farthing; I shall have to pay the cabman when I get home
again."
Rastignac rushed down
the stairs, and drove off to the Rue du Helder. The awful scene through which
he had just passed quickened his imagination, and he grew fiercely indignant.
He reached Mme. de Restaud’s house only to be told by the servant that his
mistress could see no one.
"But I have
brought a message from her father, who is dying," Rastignac told the man.
"The Count has
given us the strictest orders, sir----"
"If it is M. de
Restaud who has given the orders, tell him that his father-in-law is dying, and
that I am here, and must speak with him at once."
The man went out.
Eugène waited for a
long while. "Perhaps her father is dying at this moment," he thought.
Then the man came back,
and Eugène followed him to the little drawing- room. M. de Restaud was standing
before the fireless grate, and did not ask his visitor to seat himself.
"Monsieur le
Comte," said Rastignac, "M. Goriot, your father-in-law, is lying at
the point of death in a squalid den in the Latin Quarter. He has not a penny to
pay for firewood; he is expected to die at any moment, and keeps calling for
his daughter----"
"I feel very
little affection for M. Goriot, sir, as you probably are aware," the Count
answered coolly. "His character has been compromised in connection with
Mme. de Restaud; he is the author of the misfortunes that have embittered my
life and troubled my peace of mind. It is a matter of perfect indifference to
me if he lives or dies. Now you know my feelings with regard to him. Public
opinion may blame me, but I care nothing for public opinion. Just now I have
other and much more important matters to think about than the things that fools
and chatterers may say about me. As for Mme. de Restaud, she cannot leave the
house; she is in no condition to do so. And, besides, I shall not allow her to
leave it. Tell her father that as soon as she has done her duty by her husband
and child she shall go to see him. If she has any love for her father, she can
be free to go to him, if she chooses, in a few seconds; it lies entirely with
her----"
"Monsieur le
Comte, it is no business of mine to criticise your conduct; you can do as you
please with your wife, but may I count upon your keeping your word with me?
Well, then, promise me to tell her that her father has not twenty-four hours to
live; that he looks in vain for her, and has cursed her already as he lies on
his deathbed,-- that is all I ask."
"You can tell her
yourself," the Count answered, impressed by the thrill of indignation in
Eugène’s voice.
The Count led the way
to the room where his wife usually sat. She was drowned in tears, and lay
crouching in the depths of an armchair, as if she were tired of life and longed
to die. It was piteous to see her. Before venturing to look at Rastignac, she
glanced at her husband in evident and abject terror that spoke of complete
prostration of body and mind; she seemed crushed by a tyranny both mental and
physical. The Count jerked his head towards her; she construed this as a
permission to speak.
"I heard all that
you said, monsieur. Tell my father that if he knew all he would forgive me-- I
did not think there was such torture in the world as this; it is more than I
can endure, monsieur!--But I will not give way as long as I live," she
said, turning to her husband. "I am a mother.--Tell my father that I have
never sinned against him in spite of appearances!" she cried aloud in her
despair.
Eugène bowed to the
husband and wife; he guessed the meaning of the scene, and that this was a
terrible crisis in the Countess’ life. M. de Restaud’s manner had told him that
his errand was a fruitless one; he saw that Anastasie had no longer any liberty
of action. He came away mazed and bewildered, and hurried to Mme. de Nucingen.
Delphine was in bed.
"Poor dear Eugène,
I am ill," she said. "I caught cold after the ball, and I am afraid
of pneumonia. I am waiting for the doctor to come."
"If you were at
death’s door," Eugène broke in, "you must be carried somehow to your
father. He is calling for you. If you could hear the faintest of those cries,
you would not feel ill any longer."
"Eugène, I dare
say my father is not quite so ill as you say; but I cannot bear to do anything
that you do not approve, so I will do just as you wish. As for HIM, he would
die of grief I know if I went out to see him and brought on a dangerous
illness. Well, I will go as soon as I have seen the doctor.--Ah!" she
cried out, "you are not wearing your watch, how is that?"
Eugène reddened.
"Eugène, Eugène!
if you have sold it already or lost it-- Oh! it would be very wrong of
you!"
The student bent over
Delphine and said in her ear, "Do you want to know? Very well, then, you
shall know. Your father has nothing left to pay for the shroud that they will lay
him in this evening. Your watch has been pawned, for I had nothing
either."
Delphine sprang out of
bed, ran to her desk, and took out her purse. She gave it to Eugène, and rang
the bell, crying:
"I will go, I will
go at once, Eugène. Leave me, I will dress. Why, I should be an unnatural
daughter! Go back; I will be there before you. --Therese," she called to
the waiting-woman, "ask M. de Nucingen to come upstairs at once and speak
to me."
Eugène was almost happy
when he reached the Rue Nueve-Sainte- Genevieve; he was so glad to bring the
news to the dying man that one of his daughters was coming. He fumbled in
Delphine’s purse for money, so as to dismiss the cab at once; and discovered
that the young, beautiful, and wealthy woman of fashion had only seventy francs
in her private purse. He climbed the stairs and found Bianchon supporting
Goriot, while the house surgeon from the hospital was applying moxas to the
patient’s back--under the direction of the physician, it was the last expedient
of science, and it was tried in vain.
"Can you feel
them?" asked the physician. But Goriot had caught sight of Rastignac, and
answered, "They are coming, are they not?"
"There is hope
yet," said the surgeon; "he can speak."
"Yes," said
Eugène, "Delphine is coming."
"Oh! that is
nothing!" said Bianchon; "he has been talking about his daughters all
the time. He calls for them as a man impaled calls for water, they
say----"
"We may as well
give up," said the physician, addressing the surgeon. "Nothing more
can be done now; the case is hopeless."
Bianchon and the house
surgeon stretched the dying man out again on his loathsome bed.
"But the sheets
ought to be changed," added the physician. "Even if there is no hope
left, something is due to human nature. I shall come back again,
Bianchon," he said, turning to the medical student. "If he complains
again, rub some laudanum over the diaphragm."
He went, and the house
surgeon went with him.
"Come, Eugène,
pluck up heart, my boy," said Bianchon, as soon as they were alone;
"we must set about changing his sheets, and put him into a clean shirt. Go
and tell Sylvie to bring some sheets and come and help us to make the
bed."
Eugène went downstairs,
and found Mme. Vauquer engaged in setting the table; Sylvie was helping her.
Eugène had scarcely opened his mouth before the widow walked up to him with the
acidulous sweet smile of a cautious shopkeeper who is anxious neither to lose
money nor to offend a customer.
"My dear Monsieur
Eugène," she said, when he had spoken, "you know quite as well as I
do that Father Goriot has not a brass farthing left. If you give out clean
linen for a man who is just going to turn up his eyes, you are not likely to
see your sheets again, for one is sure to be wanted to wrap him in. Now, you
owe me a hundred and forty- four francs as it is, add forty francs for the pair
of sheets, and then there are several little things, besides the candle that
Sylvie will give you; altogether it will all mount up to at least two hundred
francs, which is more than a poor widow like me can afford to lose. Lord! now,
Monsieur Eugène, look at it fairly. I have lost quite enough in these five days
since this run of ill-luck set in for me. I would rather than ten crowns that
the old gentlemen had moved out as you said. It sets the other lodgers against
the house. It would not take much to make me send him to the workhouse. In
short, just put yourself in my place. I have to think of my establishment
first, for I have my own living to make."
Eugène hurried up to
Goriot’s room.
"Bianchon,"
he cried, "the money for the watch?"
"There it is on
the table, or the three hundred and sixty odd francs that are left of it. I
paid up all the old scores out of it before they let me have the things. The
pawn ticket lies there under the money."
Rastignac hurried
downstairs.
"Here,
madame" he said in disgust, "let us square accounts. M. Goriot will
not stay much longer in your house, nor shall I----"
"Yes, he will go
out feet foremost, poor old gentleman," she said, counting the francs with
a half-facetious, half-lugubrious expression.
"Let us get this
over," said Rastignac.
"Sylvie, look out
some sheets, and go upstairs to help the gentlemen."
"You won’t forget
Sylvie," said Mme. Vauquer in Eugène’s ear; "she has been sitting up
these two nights."
As soon as Eugène’s
back was turned, the old woman hurried after her handmaid.
"Take the sheets
that have had the sides turned into the middle, number 7. Lord! they are plenty
good enough for a corpse," she said in Sylvie’s ear.
Eugène, by this time,
was part of the way upstairs, and did not overhear the elderly economist.
"Quick," said
Bianchon, "let us change his shirt. Hold him upright."
Eugène went to the head
of the bed and supported the dying man, while Bianchon drew off his shirt; and
then Goriot made a movement as if he tried to clutch something to his breast,
uttering a low inarticulate moaning the while, like some dumb animal in mortal
pain.
"Ah! yes!"
cried Bianchon. "It is the little locket and the chain made of hair that
he wants; we took it off a while ago when we put the blisters on him. Poor
fellow! he must have it again. There it lies on the chimney-piece."
Eugène went to the
chimney-piece and found the little plait of faded golden hair--Mme. Goriot’s
hair, no doubt. He read the name on the little round locket, ANASTASIE on the
one side, DELPHINE on the other. It was the symbol of his own heart that the
father always wore on his breast. The curls of hair inside the locket were so
fine and soft that is was plain they had been taken from two childish heads.
When the old man felt the locket once more, his chest heaved with a long deep
sigh of satisfaction, like a groan. It was something terrible to see, for it
seemed as if the last quiver of the nerves were laid bare to their eyes, the
last communication of sense to the mysterious point within whence our
sympathies come and whither they go. A delirious joy lighted up the distorted
face. The terrific and vivid force of the feeling that had survived the power
of thought made such an impression on the students, that the dying man felt
their hot tears falling on him, and gave a shrill cry of delight.
"Nasie!
Fifine!"
"There is life in
him yet," said Bianchon.
"What does he go
on living for?" said Sylvie.
"To suffer,"
answered Rastignac.
Bianchon made a sign to
his friend to follow his example, knelt down and pressed his arms under the
sick man, and Rastignac on the other side did the same, so that Sylvie, standing
in readiness, might draw the sheet from beneath and replace it with the one
that she had brought. Those tears, no doubt, had misled Goriot; for he gathered
up all his remaining strength in a last effort, stretched out his hands, groped
for the students’ heads, and as his fingers caught convulsively at their hair,
they heard a faint whisper:
"Ah! my
angels!"
Two words, two
inarticulate murmurs, shaped into words by the soul which fled forth with them
as they left his lips.
"Poor dear!"
cried Sylvie, melted by that exclamation; the expression of the great love
raised for the last time to a sublime height by that most ghastly and
involuntary of lies.
The father’s last
breath must have been a sigh of joy, and in that sigh his whole life was summed
up; he was cheated even at the last. They laid Father Goriot upon his wretched
bed with reverent hands. Thenceforward there was no expression on his face,
only the painful traces of the struggle between life and death that was going
on in the machine; for that kind of cerebral consciousness that distinguishes
between pleasure and pain in a human being was extinguished; it was only a
question of time--and the mechanism itself would be destroyed.
"He will lie like
this for several hours, and die so quietly at last, that we shall not know when
he goes; there will be no rattle in the throat. The brain must be completely
suffused."
As he spoke there was a
footstep on the staircase, and a young woman hastened up, panting for breath.
"She has come too
late," said Rastignac.
But it was not
Delphine; it was Therese, her waiting-woman, who stood in the doorway.
"Monsieur Eugène,"
she said, "monsieur and madame have had a terrible scene about some money
that Madame (poor thing!) wanted for her father. She fainted, and the doctor
came, and she had to be bled, calling out all the while, ’My father is dying; I
want to see papa!’ It was heartbreaking to hear her----"
"That will do,
Therese. If she came now, it would be trouble thrown away. M. Goriot cannot
recognize any one now."
"Poor, dear
gentleman, is he as bad at that?" said Therese.
"You don’t want me
now, I must go and look after my dinner; it is half-past four," remarked
Sylvie. The next instant she all but collided with Mme. de Restaud on the
landing outside.
There was something
awful and appalling in the sudden apparition of the Countess. She saw the bed
of death by the dim light of the single candle, and her tears flowed at the
sight of her father’s passive features, from which the life had almost ebbed.
Bianchon with thoughtful tact left the room.
"I could not
escape soon enough," she said to Rastignac.
The student bowed sadly
in reply. Mme. de Restaud took her father’s hand and kissed it.
"Forgive me,
father! You used to say that my voice would call you back from the grave; ah!
come back for one moment to bless your penitent daughter. Do you hear me? Oh!
this is fearful! No one on earth will ever bless me henceforth; every one hates
me; no one loves me but you in all the world. My own children will hate me.
Take me with you, father; I will love you, I will take care of you. He does not
hear me . . . I am mad . . ."
She fell on her knees,
and gazed wildly at the human wreck before her.
"My cup of misery
is full," she said, turning her eyes upon Eugène. "M. de Trailles has
fled, leaving enormous debts behind him, and I have found out that he was
deceiving me. My husband will never forgive me, and I have left my fortune in
his hands. I have lost all my illusions. Alas! I have forsaken the one heart
that loved me (she pointed to her father as she spoke), and for whom? I have
held his kindness cheap, and slighted his affection; many and many a time I
have given him pain, ungrateful wretch that I am!"
"He knew it,"
said Rastignac.
Just then Goriot’s
eyelids unclosed; it was only a muscular contraction, but the Countess’ sudden
start of reviving hope was no less dreadful than the dying eyes.
"Is it possible
that he can hear me?" cried the Countess. "No," she answered
herself, and sat down beside the bed. As Mme. de Restaud seemed to wish to sit
by her father, Eugène went down to take a little food. The boarders were
already assembled.
"Well,"
remarked the painter, as he joined them, "it seems that there is to be a
death-orama upstairs."
"Charles, I think
you might find something less painful to joke about," said Eugène.
"So we may not
laugh here?" returned the painter. "What harm does it do? Bianchon
said that the old man was quite insensible."
"Well, then,"
said the employe from the Museum, "he will die as he has lived."
"My father is
dead!" shrieked the Countess.
The terrible cry
brought Sylvie, Rastignac, and Bianchon; Mme. de Restaud had fainted away. When
she recovered they carried her downstairs, and put her into the cab that stood
waiting at the door. Eugène sent Therese with her, and bade the maid take the
Countess to Mme. de Nucingen.
Bianchon came down to
them.
"Yes, he is
dead," he said.
"Come, sit down to
dinner, gentlemen," said Mme. Vauquer, "or the soup will be
cold."
The two students sat
down together.
"What is the next
thing to be done?" Eugène asked of Bianchon.
"I have closed his
eyes and composed his limbs," said Bianchon. "When the certificate
has been officially registered at the Mayor’s office, we will sew him in his
winding sheet and bury him somewhere. What do you think we ought to do?"
"He will not smell
at his bread like this any more," said the painter, mimicking the old man’s
little trick.
"Oh, hang it
all!" cried the tutor, "let Father Goriot drop, and let us have
something else for a change. He is a standing dish, and we have had him with
every sauce this hour or more. It is one of the privileges of the good city of
Paris that anybody may be born, or live, or die there without attracting any
attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization. There
are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to do it, you can sit
down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Father Goriot
has gone off the hooks, has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his
memory, keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us feed in peace."
"Oh, to be
sure," said the widow, "it is all the better for him that he is dead.
It looks as though he had had trouble enough, poor soul, while he was
alive."
And this was all the
funeral oration delivered over him who had been for Eugène the type and
embodiment of Fatherhood.
The fifteen lodgers
began to talk as usual. When Bianchon and Eugène had satisfied their hunger,
the rattle of spoons and forks, the boisterous conversation, the expressions on
the faces that bespoke various degrees of want of feeling, gluttony, or
indifference, everything about them made them shiver with loathing. They went
out to find a priest to watch that night with the dead. It was necessary to
measure their last pious cares by the scanty sum of money that remained. Before
nine o’clock that evening the body was laid out on the bare sacking of the
bedstead in the desolate room; a lighted candle stood on either side, and the
priest watched at the foot. Rastignac made inquiries of this latter as to the
expenses of the funeral, and wrote to the Baron de Nucingen and the Comte de
Restaud, entreating both gentlemen to authorize their man of business to defray
the charges of laying their father-in-law in the grave. He sent Christophe with
the letters; then he went to bed, tired out, and slept.
Next day Bianchon and
Rastignac were obliged to take the certificate to the registrar themselves, and
by twelve o’clock the formalities were completed. Two hours went by, no word
came from the Count nor from the Baron; nobody appeared to act for them, and
Rastignac had already been obliged to pay the priest. Sylvie asked ten francs
for sewing the old man in his winding-sheet and making him ready for the grave,
and Eugène and Bianchon calculated that they had scarcely sufficient to pay for
the funeral, if nothing was forthcoming from the dead man’s family. So it was
the medical student who laid him in a pauper’s coffin, despatched from Bianchon’s
hospital, whence he obtained it at a cheaper rate.
"Let us play those
wretches a trick," said he. "Go to the cemetery, buy a grave for five
years at Pere-Lachaise, and arrange with the Church and the undertaker to have
a third-class funeral. If the daughters and their husbands decline to repay
you, you can carve this on the headstone--’HERE LIES M. GORIOT, FATHER OF THE
COMTESSE DE RESTAUD AND THE BARONNE DE NUCINGEN, INTERRED AT THE EXPENSE OF TWO
STUDENTS.’ "
Eugène took part of his
friend’s advice, but only after he had gone in person first to M. and Mme. de
Nucingen, and then to M. and Mme. de Restaud--a fruitless errand. He went no
further than the doorstep in either house. The servants had received strict
orders to admit no one.
"Monsieur and
Madame can see no visitors. They have just lost their father, and are in deep
grief over their loss."
Eugène’s Parisian
experience told him that it was idle to press the point. Something clutched
strangely at his heart when he saw that it was impossible to reach Delphine.
"Sell some of your
ornaments," he wrote hastily in the porter’s room, "so that your
father may be decently laid in his last resting-place."
He sealed the note, and
begged the porter to give it to Therese for her mistress; but the man took it
to the Baron de Nucingen, who flung the note into the fire. Eugène, having finished
his errands, returned to the lodging-house about three o’clock. In spite of
himself, the tears came into his eyes. The coffin, in its scanty covering of
black cloth, was standing there on the pavement before the gate, on two chairs.
A withered sprig of hyssop was soaking in the holy water bowl of silver-plated
copper; there was not a soul in the street, not a passer-by had stopped to
sprinkle the coffin; there was not even an attempt at a black drapery over the
wicket. It was a pauper who lay there; no one made a pretence of mourning for
him; he had neither friends nor kindred--there was no one to follow him to the
grave.
Bianchon’s duties
compelled him to be at the hospital, but he had left a few lines for Eugène,
telling his friend about the arrangements he had made for the burial service.
The house student’s note told Rastignac that a mass was beyond their means,
that the ordinary office for the dead was cheaper, and must suffice, and that
he had sent word to the undertaker by Christophe. Eugène had scarcely finished
reading Bianchon’s scrawl, when he looked up and saw the little circular gold
locket that contained the hair of Goriot’s two daughters in Mme. Vauquer’s
hands.
"How dared you
take it?" he asked.
"Good Lord! is
that to be buried along with him?" retorted Sylvie. "It is
gold."
"Of course it
shall!" Eugène answered indignantly; "he shall at any rate take one
thing that may represent his daughters into the grave with him."
When the hearse came,
Eugène had the coffin carried into the house again, unscrewed the lid, and
reverently laid on the old man’s breast the token that recalled the days when
Delphine and Anastasie were innocent little maidens, before they began "to
think for themselves," as he had moaned out in his agony.
Rastignac and
Christophe and the two undertaker’s men were the only followers of the funeral.
The Church of Saint-Etienne du Mont was only a little distance from the Rue
Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve. When the coffin had been deposited in a low, dark,
little chapel, the law student looked round in vain for Goriot’s two daughters
or their husbands. Christophe was his only fellow-mourner; Christophe, who
appeared to think it was his duty to attend the funeral of the man who had put
him in the way of such handsome tips. As they waited there in the chapel for
the two priests, the chorister, and the beadle, Rastignac grasped Christophe’s
hand. He could not utter a word just then.
"Yes, Monsieur Eugène,"
said Christophe, "he was a good and worthy man, who never said one word louder
than another; he never did any one any harm, and gave nobody any trouble."
The two priests, the
chorister, and the beadle came, and said and did as much as could be expected
for seventy francs in an age when religion cannot afford to say prayers for
nothing.
The ecclesiatics
chanted a psalm, the Libera nos and the De profundis. The whole service lasted
about twenty minutes. There was but one mourning coach, which the priest and
chorister agreed to share with Eugène and Christophe.
"There is no one
else to follow us," remarked the priest, "so we may as well go
quickly, and so save time; it is half-past five."
But just as the coffin
was put in the hearse, two empty carriages, with the armorial bearings of the
Comte de Restaud and the Baron de Nucingen, arrived and followed in the
procession to Pere-Lachaise. At six o’clock Goriot’s coffin was lowered into
the grave, his daughters’ servants standing round the while. The ecclesiastic
recited the short prayer that the students could afford to pay for, and then
both priest and lackeys disappeared at once. The two grave diggers flung in
several spadefuls of earth, and then stopped and asked Rastignac for their fee.
Eugène felt in vain in his pocket, and was obliged to borrow five francs of
Christophe. This thing, so trifling in itself, gave Rastignac a terrible pang
of distress. It was growing dusk, the damp twilight fretted his nerves; he
gazed down into the grave and the tears he shed were drawn from him by the
sacred emotion, a single- hearted sorrow. When such tears fall on earth, their
radiance reaches heaven. And with that tear that fell on Father Goriot’s grave,
Eugène Rastignac’s youth ended. He folded his arms and gazed at the clouded
sky; and Christophe, after a glance at him, turned and went--Rastignac was left
alone.
He went a few paces
further, to the highest point of the cemetery, and looked out over Paris and
the windings of the Seine; the lamps were beginning to shine on either side of
the river. His eyes turned almost eagerly to the space between the column of
the Place Vendome and the cupola of the Invalides; there lay the shining world
that he had wished to reach. He glanced over that humming hive, seeming to draw
a foretaste of its honey, and said magniloquently:
"Henceforth there
is war between us."
And by way of throwing
down the glove to Society, Rastignac went to dine with Mme. de Nucingen.