That evening’s merry-making, in the course of which Vautrin had

given the drugged wine to Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene, 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 Eugene, 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. Eugene 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 Eugene.

“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 Eugene 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 Eugene, “yesterday she had not a

penny; this morning she has several millions to her fortune.”

“I say, M. Eugene!” 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 Eugene, 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

Eugene.

“Say that I will come directly.”

The man went. Eugene 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 Eugene.

“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 Eugene 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, Eugene,” 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.”

Eugene 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 Eugene, 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 Eugene. “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 Eugene, 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 Eugene

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 Eugene.

“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?” Eugene 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. Eugene 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

Eugene 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. Eugene,

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 Eugene.

“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 Eugene 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 Eugene’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 Eugene’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 to-day? 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, Eugene, 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. Eugene, the next thing is to borrow money of the Jews,

isn’t it?”

“There is positively no help for it,” said Eugene.

“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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene, 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.”

Eugene 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 Eugene, 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.

“Eugene,” 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 Eugene, “so long as my father is

with us, he monopolizes me. He will be rather in the way sometimes.”

Eugene 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 Eugene, 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. Eugene 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----”

Eugene 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?” Eugene 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. Eugene

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 Eugene 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, Eugene

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 Eugene 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 Eugene 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 Eugene, 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 Eugene; 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 Eugene.

“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.--Eugene,” 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 Eugene 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 Eugene.

“Ah! have we changed places, and am I the child to-night?” she asked,

laughingly.

Eugene 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 Eugene; “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 Eugene 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. Eugene

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, Eugene 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 Eugene’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?”

Eugene 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 Eugene!... 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 Eugene, 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.