FATHER GORIOT

Mme. Vauquer (_nee_ 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 Eugene 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.

Eugene 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 Eugene 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.

Eugene 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, Eugene 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 Eugene 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, Eugene 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. Eugene 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.

Eugene 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. Eugene

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,” “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 Eugene 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. Eugene 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?” Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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. Eugene 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 Eugene, 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. Eugene,” 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. Eugene 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.