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Father Goriot

by Honore de Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage

March, 1998  [Etext #1237]


The Project Gutenberg Etext of Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac
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Typed and first proof by Dagny
[e-mail]



FATHER GORIOT

BY

HONORE DE BALZAC



Translator
Ellen Marriage



To the great and illustrious Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, a token
of admiration for his works and genius.
DE BALZAC.



Mme. Vauquer (nee de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the
past forty years has kept a lodging-house in the Rue Nueve-
Sainte-Genevieve, in the district that lies between the Latin
Quarter and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. Her house (known in the
neighborhood as the Maison Vauquer) receives men and women, old
and young, and no word has ever been breathed against her
respectable establishment; but, at the same time, it must be said
that as a matter of fact no young woman has been under her roof
for thirty years, and that if a young man stays there for any
length of time it is a sure sign that his allowance must be of
the slenderest. In 1819, however, the time when this drama opens,
there was an almost penniless young girl among Mme. Vauquer's
boarders.

That word drama has been somewhat discredited of late; it has
been overworked and twisted to strange uses in these days of
dolorous literature; but it must do service again here, not
because this story is dramatic in the restricted sense of the
word, but because some tears may perhaps be shed intra et extra
muros before it is over.

Will any one without the walls of Paris understand it? It is open
to doubt. The only audience who could appreciate the results of
close observation, the careful reproduction of minute detail and
local color, are dwellers between the heights of Montrouge and
Montmartre, in a vale of crumbling stucco watered by streams of
black mud, a vale of sorrows which are real and joys too often
hollow; but this audience is so accustomed to terrible
sensations, that only some unimaginable and well-neigh impossible
woe could produce any lasting impression there. Now and again
there are tragedies so awful and so grand by reason of the
complication of virtues and vices that bring them about, that
egotism and selfishness are forced to pause and are moved to
pity; but the impression that they receive is like a luscious
fruit, soon consumed. Civilization, like the car of Juggernaut,
is scarcely stayed perceptibly in its progress by a heart less
easy to break than the others that lie in its course; this also
is broken, and Civilization continues on her course triumphant.
And you, too, will do the like; you who with this book in your
white hand will sink back among the cushions of your armchair,
and say to yourself, "Perhaps this may amuse me." You will read
the story of Father Goriot's secret woes, and, dining thereafter
with an unspoiled appetite, will lay the blame of your
insensibility upon the writer, and accuse him of exaggeration, of
writing romances. Ah! once for all, this drama is neither a
fiction nor a romance! ALL IS TRUE,--so true, that every one can
discern the elements of the tragedy in his own house, perhaps in
his own heart.

The lodging-house is Mme. Vauquer's own property. It is still
standing in the lower end of the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, just
where the road slopes so sharply down to the Rue de l'Arbalete,
that wheeled traffic seldom passes that way, because it is so
stony and steep. This position is sufficient to account for the
silence prevalent in the streets shut in between the dome of the
Pantheon and the dome of the Val-de-Grace, two conspicuous public
buildings which give a yellowish tone to the landscape and darken
the whole district that lies beneath the shadow of their leaden-
hued cupolas.

In that district the pavements are clean and dry, there is
neither mud nor water in the gutters, grass grows in the chinks
of the walls. The most heedless passer-by feels the depressing
influences of a place where the sound of wheels creates a
sensation; there is a grim look about the houses, a suggestion of
a jail about those high garden walls. A Parisian straying into a
suburb apparently composed of lodging-houses and public
institutions would see poverty and dullness, old age lying down
to die, and joyous youth condemned to drudgery. It is the ugliest
quarter of Paris, and, it may be added, the least known. But,
before all things, the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve is like a
bronze frame for a picture for which the mind cannot be too well
prepared by the contemplation of sad hues and sober images. Even
so, step by step the daylight decreases, and the cicerone's
droning voice grows hollower as the traveler descends into the
Catacombs. The comparison holds good! Who shall say which is more
ghastly, the sight of the bleached skulls or of dried-up human
hearts?



The front of the lodging-house is at right angles to the road,
and looks out upon a little garden, so that you see the side of
the house in section, as it were, from the Rue Nueve-Sainte-
Genevieve. Beneath the wall of the house front there lies a
channel, a fathom wide, paved with cobble-stones, and beside it
runs a graveled walk bordered by geraniums and oleanders and
pomegranates set in great blue and white glazed earthenware pots.
Access into the graveled walk is afforded by a door, above which
the words MAISON VAUQUER may be read, and beneath, in rather
smaller letters, "Lodgings for both sexes, etc."

During the day a glimpse into the garden is easily obtained
through a wicket to which a bell is attached. On the opposite
wall, at the further end of the graveled walk, a green marble
arch was painted once upon a time by a local artist, and in this
semblance of a shrine a statue representing Cupid is installed; a
Parisian Cupid, so blistered and disfigured that he looks like a
candidate for one of the adjacent hospitals, and might suggest an
allegory to lovers of symbolism. The half-obliterated inscription
on the pedestal beneath determines the date of this work of art,
for it bears witness to the widespread enthusiasm felt for
Voltaire on his return to Paris in 1777:

  "Whoe'er thou art, thy master see;
  He is, or was, or ought to be."

At night the wicket gate is replaced by a solid door. The little
garden is no wider than the front of the house; it is shut in
between the wall of the street and the partition wall of the
neighboring house. A mantle of ivy conceals the bricks and
attracts the eyes of passers-by to an effect which is picturesque
in Paris, for each of the walls is covered with trellised vines
that yield a scanty dusty crop of fruit, and furnish besides a
subject of conversation for Mme. Vauquer and her lodgers; every
year the widow trembles for her vintage.

A straight path beneath the walls on either side of the garden
leads to a clump of lime-trees at the further end of it; LINE-
trees, as Mme. Vauquer persists in calling them, in spite of the
fact that she was a de Conflans, and regardless of repeated
corrections from her lodgers.

The central space between the walls is filled with artichokes and
rows of pyramid fruit-trees, and surrounded by a border of
lettuce, pot-herbs, and parsley. Under the lime-trees there are a
few green-painted garden seats and a wooden table, and hither,
during the dog-days, such of the lodgers as are rich enough to
indulge in a cup of coffee come to take their pleasure, though it
is hot enough to roast eggs even in the shade.

The house itself is three stories high, without counting the
attics under the roof. It is built of rough stone, and covered
with the yellowish stucco that gives a mean appearance to almost
every house in Paris. There are five windows in each story in the
front of the house; all the blinds visible through the small
square panes are drawn up awry, so that the lines are all at
cross purposes. At the side of the house there are but two
windows on each floor, and the lowest of all are adorned with a
heavy iron grating.

Behind the house a yard extends for some twenty feet, a space
inhabited by a happy family of pigs, poultry, and rabbits; the
wood-shed is situated on the further side, and on the wall
between the wood-shed and the kitchen window hangs the meat-safe,
just above the place where the sink discharges its greasy
streams. The cook sweeps all the refuse out through a little door
into the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, and frequently cleanses the
yard with copious supplies of water, under pain of pestilence.

The house might have been built on purpose for its present uses.
Access is given by a French window to the first room on the
ground floor, a sitting-room which looks out upon the street
through the two barred windows already mentioned. Another door
opens out of it into the dining-room, which is separated from the
kitchen by the well of the staircase, the steps being constructed
partly of wood, partly of tiles, which are colored and beeswaxed.
Nothing can be more depressing than the sight of that sitting-
room. The furniture is covered with horse hair woven in alternate
dull and glossy stripes. There is a round table in the middle,
with a purplish-red marble top, on which there stands, by way of
ornament, the inevitable white china tea-service, covered with a
half-effaced gilt network. The floor is sufficiently uneven, the
wainscot rises to elbow height, and the rest of the wall space is
decorated with a varnished paper, on which the principal scenes
from Telemaque are depicted, the various classical personages
being colored. The subject between the two windows is the banquet
given by Calypso to the son of Ulysses, displayed thereon for the
admiration of the boarders, and has furnished jokes these forty
years to the young men who show themselves superior to their
position by making fun of the dinners to which poverty condemns
them. The hearth is always so clean and neat that it is evident
that a fire is only kindled there on great occasions; the stone
chimney-piece is adorned by a couple of vases filled with faded
artificial flowers imprisoned under glass shades, on either side
of a bluish marble clock in the very worst taste.

The first room exhales an odor for which there is no name in the
language, and which should be called the odeur de pension. The
damp atmosphere sends a chill through you as you breathe it; it
has a stuffy, musty, and rancid quality; it permeates your
clothing; after-dinner scents seem to be mingled in it with
smells from the kitchen and scullery and the reek of a hospital.
It might be possible to describe it if some one should discover a
process by which to distil from the atmosphere all the nauseating
elements with which it is charged by the catarrhal exhalations of
every individual lodger, young or old. Yet, in spite of these
stale horrors, the sitting-room is as charming and as delicately
perfumed as a boudoir, when compared with the adjoining dining-
room.

The paneled walls of that apartment were once painted some color,
now a matter of conjecture, for the surface is incrusted with
accumulated layers of grimy deposit, which cover it with
fantastic outlines. A collection of dim-ribbed glass decanters,
metal discs with a satin sheen on them, and piles of blue-edged
earthenware plates of Touraine ware cover the sticky surfaces of
the sideboards that line the room. In a corner stands a box
containing a set of numbered pigeon-holes, in which the lodgers'
table napkins, more or less soiled and stained with wine, are
kept. Here you see that indestructible furniture never met with
elsewhere, which finds its way into lodging-houses much as the
wrecks of our civilization drift into hospitals for incurables.
You expect in such places as these to find the weather-house
whence a Capuchin issues on wet days; you look to find the
execrable engravings which spoil your appetite, framed every one
in a black varnished frame, with a gilt beading round it; you
know the sort of tortoise-shell clock-case, inlaid with brass;
the green stove, the Argand lamps, covered with oil and dust,
have met your eyes before. The oilcloth which covers the long
table is so greasy that a waggish externe will write his name on
the surface, using his thumb-nail as a style. The chairs are
broken-down invalids; the wretched little hempen mats slip away
from under your feet without slipping away for good; and finally,
the foot-warmers are miserable wrecks, hingeless, charred, broken
away about the holes. It would be impossible to give an idea of
the old, rotten, shaky, cranky, worm-eaten, halt, maimed, one-
eyed, rickety, and ramshackle condition of the furniture without
an exhaustive description, which would delay the progress of the
story to an extent that impatient people would not pardon. The
red tiles of the floor are full of depressions brought about by
scouring and periodical renewings of color. In short, there is no
illusory grace left to the poverty that reigns here; it is dire,
parsimonious, concentrated, threadbare poverty; as yet it has not
sunk into the mire, it is only splashed by it, and though not in
rags as yet, its clothing is ready to drop to pieces.

This apartment is in all its glory at seven o'clock in the
morning, when Mme. Vauquer's cat appears, announcing the near
approach of his mistress, and jumps upon the sideboards to sniff
at the milk in the bowls, each protected by a plate, while he
purrs his morning greeting to the world. A moment later the widow
shows her face; she is tricked out in a net cap attached to a
false front set on awry, and shuffles into the room in her
slipshod fashion. She is an oldish woman, with a bloated
countenance, and a nose like a parrot's beak set in the middle of
it; her fat little hands (she is as sleek as a church rat) and
her shapeless, slouching figure are in keeping with the room that
reeks of misfortune, where hope is reduced to speculate for the
meanest stakes. Mme. Vauquer alone can breathe that tainted air
without being disheartened by it. Her face is as fresh as a
frosty morning in autumn; there are wrinkles about the eyes that
vary in their expression from the set smile of a ballet-dancer to
the dark, suspicious scowl of a discounter of bills; in short,
she is at once the embodiment and interpretation of her lodging-
house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the existence of
its mistress. You can no more imagine the one without the other,
than you can think of a jail without a turnkey. The unwholesome
corpulence of the little woman is produced by the life she leads,
just as typhus fever is bred in the tainted air of a hospital.
The very knitted woolen petticoat that she wears beneath a skirt
made of an old gown, with the wadding protruding through the
rents in the material, is a sort of epitome of the sitting-room,
the dining-room, and the little garden; it discovers the cook, it
foreshadows the lodgers--the picture of the house is completed by
the portrait of its mistress.

Mme. Vauquer at the age of fifty is like all women who "have seen
a deal of trouble." She has the glassy eyes and innocent air of a
trafficker in flesh and blood, who will wax virtuously indignant
to obtain a higher price for her services, but who is quite ready
to betray a Georges or a Pichegru, if a Georges or a Pichegru
were in hiding and still to be betrayed, or for any other
expedient that may alleviate her lot. Still, "she is a good woman
at bottom," said the lodgers who believed that the widow was
wholly dependent upon the money that they paid her, and
sympathized when they heard her cough and groan like one of
themselves.

What had M. Vauquer been? The lady was never very explicit on
this head. How had she lost her money? "Through trouble," was her
answer. He had treated her badly, had left her nothing but her
eyes to cry over his cruelty, the house she lived in, and the
privilege of pitying nobody, because, so she was wont to say, she
herself had been through every possible misfortune.

Sylvie, the stout cook, hearing her mistress' shuffling
footsteps, hastened to serve the lodgers' breakfasts. Beside
those who lived in the house, Mme. Vauquer took boarders who came
for their meals; but these externes usually only came to dinner,
for which they paid thirty francs a month.

At the time when this story begins, the lodging-house contained
seven inmates. The best rooms in the house were on the first
story, Mme. Vauquer herself occupying the least important, while
the rest were let to a Mme. Couture, the widow of a commissary-
general in the service of the Republic. With her lived Victorine
Taillefer, a schoolgirl, to whom she filled the place of mother.
These two ladies paid eighteen hundred francs a year.

The two sets of rooms on the second floor were respectively
occupied by an old man named Poiret and a man of forty or
thereabouts, the wearer of a black wig and dyed whiskers, who
gave out that he was a retired merchant, and was addressed as M.
Vautrin. Two of the four rooms on the third floor were also let--
one to an elderly spinster, a Mlle. Michonneau, and the other to
a retired manufacturer of vermicelli, Italian paste and starch,
who allowed the others to address him as "Father Goriot." The
remaining rooms were allotted to various birds of passage, to
impecunious students, who like "Father Goriot" and Mlle.
Michonneau, could only muster forty-five francs a month to pay
for their board and lodging. Mme. Vauquer had little desire for
lodgers of this sort; they ate too much bread, and she only took
them in default of better.

At that time one of the rooms was tenanted by a law student, a
young man from the neighborhood of Angouleme, one of a large
family who pinched and starved themselves to spare twelve hundred
francs a year for him. Misfortune had accustomed Eugene de
Rastignac, for that was his name, to work. He belonged to the
number of young men who know as children that their parents'
hopes are centered on them, and deliberately prepare themselves
for a great career, subordinating their studies from the first to
this end, carefully watching the indications of the course of
events, calculating the probable turn that affairs will take,
that they may be the first to profit by them. But for his
observant curiosity, and the skill with which he managed to
introduce himself into the salons of Paris, this story would not
have been colored by the tones of truth which it certainly owes
to him, for they are entirely due to his penetrating sagacity and
desire to fathom the mysteries of an appalling condition of
things, which was concealed as carefully by the victim as by
those who had brought it to pass.

Above the third story there was a garret where the linen was hung
to dry, and a couple of attics. Christophe, the man-of-all-work,
slept in one, and Sylvie, the stout cook, in the other. Beside
the seven inmates thus enumerated, taking one year with another,
some eight law or medical students dined in the house, as well as
two or three regular comers who lived in the neighborhood. There
were usually eighteen people at dinner, and there was room, if
need be, for twenty at Mme. Vauquer's table; at breakfast,
however, only the seven lodgers appeared. It was almost like a
family party. Every one came down in dressing-gown and slippers,
and the conversation usually turned on anything that had happened
the evening before; comments on the dress or appearance of the
dinner contingent were exchanged in friendly confidence.

These seven lodgers were Mme. Vauquer's spoiled children. Among
them she distributed, with astronomical precision, the exact
proportion of respect and attention due to the varying amounts
they paid for their board. One single consideration influenced
all these human beings thrown together by chance. The two second-
floor lodgers only paid seventy-two francs a month. Such prices
as these are confined to the Faubourg Saint-Marcel and the
district between La Bourbe and the Salpetriere; and, as might be
expected, poverty, more or less apparent, weighed upon them all,
Mme. Couture being the sole exception to the rule.

The dreary surroundings were reflected in the costumes of the
inmates of the house; all were alike threadbare. The color of the
men's coats were problematical; such shoes, in more fashionable
quarters, are only to be seen lying in the gutter; the cuffs and
collars were worn and frayed at the edges; every limp article of
clothing looked like the ghost of its former self. The women's
dresses were faded, old-fashioned, dyed and re-dyed; they wore
gloves that were glazed with hard wear, much-mended lace, dingy
ruffles, crumpled muslin fichus. So much for their clothing; but,
for the most part, their frames were solid enough; their
constitutions had weathered the storms of life; their cold, hard
faces were worn like coins that have been withdrawn from
circulation, but there were greedy teeth behind the withered
lips. Dramas brought to a close or still in progress are
foreshadowed by the sight of such actors as these, not the dramas
that are played before the footlights and against a background of
painted canvas, but dumb dramas of life, frost-bound dramas that
sere hearts like fire, dramas that do not end with the actors'
lives.

Mlle. Michonneau, that elderly young lady, screened her weak eyes
from the daylight by a soiled green silk shade with a rim of
brass, an object fit to scare away the Angel of Pity himself. Her
shawl, with its scanty, draggled fringe, might have covered a
skeleton, so meagre and angular was the form beneath it. Yet she
must have been pretty and shapely once. What corrosive had
destroyed the feminine outlines? Was it trouble, or vice, or
greed? Had she loved too well? Had she been a second-hand clothes
dealer, a frequenter of the backstairs of great houses, or had
she been merely a courtesan? Was she expiating the flaunting
triumphs of a youth overcrowded with pleasures by an old age in
which she was shunned by every passer-by? Her vacant gaze sent a
chill through you; her shriveled face seemed like a menace. Her
voice was like the shrill, thin note of the grasshopper sounding
from the thicket when winter is at hand. She said that she had
nursed an old gentleman, ill of catarrh of the bladder, and left
to die by his children, who thought that he had nothing left. His
bequest to her, a life annuity of a thousand francs, was
periodically disputed by his heirs, who mingled slander with
their persecutions. In spite of the ravages of conflicting
passions, her face retained some traces of its former fairness
and fineness of tissue, some vestiges of the physical charms of
her youth still survived.

M. Poiret was a sort of automaton. He might be seen any day
sailing like a gray shadow along the walks of the Jardin des
Plantes, on his head a shabby cap, a cane with an old yellow
ivory handle in the tips of his thin fingers; the outspread
skirts of his threadbare overcoat failed to conceal his meagre
figure; his breeches hung loosely on his shrunken limbs; the
thin, blue-stockinged legs trembled like those of a drunken man;
there was a notable breach of continuity between the dingy white
waistcoat and crumpled shirt frills and the cravat twisted about
a throat like a turkey gobbler's; altogether, his appearance set
people wondering whether this outlandish ghost belonged to the
audacious race of the sons of Japhet who flutter about on the
Boulevard Italien. What devouring kind of toil could have so
shriveled him? What devouring passions had darkened that bulbous
countenance, which would have seemed outrageous as a caricature?
What had he been? Well, perhaps he had been part of the machinery
of justice, a clerk in the office to which the executioner sends
in his accounts,--so much for providing black veils for
parricides, so much for sawdust, so much for pulleys and cord for
the knife. Or he might have been a receiver at the door of a
public slaughter-house, or a sub-inspector of nuisances. Indeed,
the man appeared to have been one of the beasts of burden in our
great social mill; one of those Parisian Ratons whom their
Bertrands do not even know by sight; a pivot in the obscure
machinery that disposes of misery and things unclean; one of
those men, in short, at sight of whom we are prompted to remark
that, "After all, we cannot do without them."

Stately Paris ignores the existence of these faces bleached by
moral or physical suffering; but, then, Paris is in truth an
ocean that no line can plumb. You may survey its surface and
describe it; but no matter how numerous and painstaking the
toilers in this sea, there will always be lonely and unexplored
regions in its depths, caverns unknown, flowers and pearls and
monsters of the deep overlooked or forgotten by the divers of
literature. The Maison Vauquer is one of these curious
monstrosities.

Two, however, of Mme. Vauquer's boarders formed a striking
contrast to the rest. There was a sickly pallor, such as is often
seen in anaemic girls, in Mlle. Victorine Taillefer's face; and
her unvarying expression of sadness, like her embarrassed manner
and pinched look, was in keeping with the general wretchedness of
the establishment in the Rue Nueve-Saint-Genevieve, which forms a
background to this picture; but her face was young, there was
youthfulness in her voice and elasticity in her movements. This
young misfortune was not unlike a shrub, newly planted in an
uncongenial soil, where its leaves have already begun to wither.
The outlines of her figure, revealed by her dress of the simplest
and cheapest materials, were also youthful. There was the same
kind of charm about her too slender form, her faintly colored
face and light-brown hair, that modern poets find in mediaeval
statuettes; and a sweet expression, a look of Christian
resignation in the dark gray eyes. She was pretty by force of
contrast; if she had been happy, she would have been charming.
Happiness is the poetry of woman, as the toilette is her tinsel.
If the delightful excitement of a ball had made the pale face
glow with color; if the delights of a luxurious life had brought
the color to the wan cheeks that were slightly hollowed already;
if love had put light into the sad eyes, then Victorine might
have ranked among the fairest; but she lacked the two things
which create woman a second time--pretty dresses and love-
letters.

A book might have been made of her story. Her father was
persuaded that he had sufficient reason for declining to
acknowledge her, and allowed her a bare six hundred francs a
year; he had further taken measures to disinherit his daughter,
and had converted all his real estate into personalty, that he
might leave it undivided to his son. Victorine's mother had died
broken-hearted in Mme. Couture's house; and the latter, who was a
near relation, had taken charge of the little orphan. Unluckily,
the widow of the commissary-general to the armies of the Republic
had nothing in the world but her jointure and her widow's
pension, and some day she might be obliged to leave the helpless,
inexperienced girl to the mercy of the world. The good soul,
therefore, took Victorine to mass every Sunday, and to confession
once a fortnight, thinking that, in any case, she would bring up
her ward to be devout. She was right; religion offered a solution
of the problem of the young girl's future. The poor child loved
the father who refused to acknowledge her. Once every year she
tried to see him to deliver her mother's message of forgiveness,
but every year hitherto she had knocked at that door in vain; her
father was inexorable. Her brother, her only means of
communication, had not come to see her for four years, and had
sent her no assistance; yet she prayed to God to unseal her
father's eyes and to soften her brother's heart, and no
accusations mingled with her prayers. Mme. Couture and Mme.
Vauquer exhausted the vocabulary of abuse, and failed to find
words that did justice to the banker's iniquitous conduct; but
while they heaped execrations on the millionaire, Victorine's
words were as gentle as the moan of the wounded dove, and
affection found expression even in the cry drawn from her by
pain.

Eugene de Rastignac was a thoroughly southern type; he had a fair
complexion, blue eyes, black hair. In his figure, manner, and his
whole bearing it was easy to see that he had either come of a
noble family, or that, from his earliest childhood, he had been
gently bred. If he was careful of his wardrobe, only taking last
year's clothes into daily wear, still upon occasion he could
issue forth as a young man of fashion. Ordinarily he wore a
shabby coat and waistcoat, the limp black cravat, untidily
knotted, that students affect, trousers that matched the rest of
his costume, and boots that had been resoled.

Vautrin (the man of forty with the dyed whiskers) marked a
transition stage between these two young people and the others.
He was the kind of man that calls forth the remark: "He looks a
jovial sort!" He had broad shoulders, a well-developed chest,
muscular arms, and strong square-fisted hands; the joints of his
fingers were covered with tufts of fiery red hair. His face was
furrowed by premature wrinkles; there was a certain hardness
about it in spite of his bland and insinuating manner. His bass
voice was by no means unpleasant, and was in keeping with his
boisterous laughter. He was always obliging, always in good
spirits; if anything went wrong with one of the locks, he would
soon unscrew it, take it to pieces, file it, oil and clean and
set it in order, and put it back in its place again; "I am an old
hand at it," he used to say. Not only so, he knew all about
ships, the sea, France, foreign countries, men, business, law,
great houses and prisons,--there was nothing that he did not
know. If any one complained rather more than usual, he would
offer his services at once. He had several times lent money to
Mme. Vauquer, or to the boarders; but, somehow, those whom he
obliged felt that they would sooner face death than fail to repay
him; a certain resolute look, sometimes seen on his face,
inspired fear of him, for all his appearance of easy good-nature.
In the way he spat there was an imperturbable coolness which
seemed to indicate that this was a man who would not stick at a
crime to extricate himself from a false position. His eyes, like
those of a pitiless judge, seemed to go to the very bottom of all
questions, to read all natures, all feelings and thoughts. His
habit of life was very regular; he usually went out after
breakfast, returning in time for dinner, and disappeared for the
rest of the evening, letting himself in about midnight with a
latch key, a privilege that Mme. Vauquer accorded to no other
boarder. But then he was on very good terms with the widow; he
used to call her "mamma," and put his arm round her waist, a
piece of flattery perhaps not appreciated to the full! The worthy
woman might imagine this to be an easy feat; but, as a matter of
fact, no arm but Vautrin's was long enough to encircle her.

It was a characteristic trait of his generously to pay fifteen
francs a month for the cup of coffee with a dash of brandy in it,
which he took after dinner. Less superficial observers than young
men engulfed by the whirlpool of Parisian life, or old men, who
took no interest in anything that did not directly concern them,
would not have stopped short at the vaguely unsatisfactory
impression that Vautrin made upon them. He knew or guessed the
concerns of every one about him; but none of them had been able
to penetrate his thoughts, or to discover his occupation. He had
deliberately made his apparent good-nature, his unfailing
readiness to oblige, and his high spirits into a barrier between
himself and the rest of them, but not seldom he gave glimpses of
appalling depths of character. He seemed to delight in scourging
the upper classes of society with the lash of his tongue, to take
pleasure in convicting it of inconsistency, in mocking at law and
order with some grim jest worthy of Juvenal, as if some grudge
against the social system rankled in him, as if there were some
mystery carefully hidden away in his life.

Mlle. Taillefer felt attracted, perhaps unconsciously, by the
strength of the one man, and the good looks of the other; her
stolen glances and secret thoughts were divided between them; but
neither of them seemed to take any notice of her, although some
day a chance might alter her position, and she would be a wealthy
heiress. For that matter, there was not a soul in the house who
took any trouble to investigate the various chronicles of
misfortunes, real or imaginary, related by the rest. Each one
regarded the others with indifference, tempered by suspicion; it
was a natural result of their relative positions. Practical
assistance not one could give, this they all knew, and they had
long since exhausted their stock of condolence over previous
discussions of their grievances. They were in something the same
position as an elderly couple who have nothing left to say to
each other. The routine of existence kept them in contact, but
they were parts of a mechanism which wanted oil. There was not
one of them but would have passed a blind man begging in the
street, not one that felt moved to pity by a tale of misfortune,
not one who did not see in death the solution of the all-
absorbing problem of misery which left them cold to the most
terrible anguish in others.

The happiest of these hapless beings was certainly Mme. Vauquer,
who reigned supreme over this hospital supported by voluntary
contributions. For her, the little garden, which silence, and
cold, and rain, and drought combined to make as dreary as an
Asian steppe, was a pleasant shaded nook; the gaunt yellow house,
the musty odors of a back shop had charms for her, and for her
alone. Those cells belonged to her. She fed those convicts
condemned to penal servitude for life, and her authority was
recognized among them. Where else in Paris would they have found
wholesome food in sufficient quantity at the prices she charged
them, and rooms which they were at liberty to make, if not
exactly elegant or comfortable, at any rate clean and healthy? If
she had committed some flagrant act of injustice, the victim
would have borne it in silence.

Such a gathering contained, as might have been expected, the
elements out of which a complete society might be constructed.
And, as in a school, as in the world itself, there was among the
eighteen men and women who met round the dinner table a poor
creature, despised by all the others, condemned to be the butt of
all their jokes. At the beginning of Eugene de Rastignac's second
twelvemonth, this figure suddenly started out into bold relief
against the background of human forms and faces among which the
law student was yet to live for another two years to come. This
laughing-stock was the retired vermicelli-merchant, Father
Goriot, upon whose face a painter, like the historian, would have
concentrated all the light in his picture.

How had it come about that the boarders regarded him with a half-
malignant contempt? Why did they subject the oldest among their
number to a kind of persecution, in which there was mingled some
pity, but no respect for his misfortunes? Had he brought it on
himself by some eccentricity or absurdity, which is less easily
forgiven or forgotten than more serious defects? The question
strikes at the root of many a social injustice. Perhaps it is
only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will
endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or
indifference, or sheer helplessness. Do we not, one and all, like
to feel our strength even at the expense of some one or of
something? The poorest sample of humanity, the street arab, will
pull the bell handle at every street door in bitter weather, and
scramble up to write his name on the unsullied marble of a
monument.

In the year 1813, at the age of sixty-nine or thereabouts,
"Father Goriot" had sold his business and retired--to Mme.
Vauquer's boarding house. When he first came there he had taken
the rooms now occupied by Mme. Couture; he had paid twelve
hundred francs a year like a man to whom five louis more or less
was a mere trifle. For him Mme. Vauquer had made various
improvements in the three rooms destined for his use, in
consideration of a certain sum paid in advance, so it was said,
for the miserable furniture, that is to say, for some yellow
cotton curtains, a few chairs of stained wood covered with
Utrecht velvet, several wretched colored prints in frames, and
wall papers that a little suburban tavern would have disdained.
Possibly it was the careless generosity with which Father Goriot
allowed himself to be overreached at this period of his life
(they called him Monsieur Goriot very respectfully then) that
gave Mme. Vauquer the meanest opinion of his business abilities;
she looked on him as an imbecile where money was concerned.

Goriot had brought with him a considerable wardrobe, the gorgeous
outfit of a retired tradesman who denies himself nothing. Mme.
Vauquer's astonished eyes beheld no less than eighteen cambric-
fronted shirts, the splendor of their fineness being enhanced by
a pair of pins each bearing a large diamond, and connected by a
short chain, an ornament which adorned the vermicelli-maker's
shirt front. He usually wore a coat of corn-flower blue; his
rotund and portly person was still further set off by a clean
white waistcoat, and a gold chain and seals which dangled over
that broad expanse. When his hostess accused him of being "a bit
of a beau," he smiled with the vanity of a citizen whose foible
is gratified. His cupboards (ormoires, as he called them in the
popular dialect) were filled with a quantity of plate that he
brought with him. The widow's eyes gleamed as she obligingly
helped him to unpack the soup ladles, table-spoons, forks, cruet-
stands, tureens, dishes, and breakfast services--all of silver,
which were duly arranged upon shelves, besides a few more or less
handsome pieces of plate, all weighing no inconsiderable number
of ounces; he could not bring himself to part with these gifts
that reminded him of past domestic festivals.

"This was my wife's present to me on the first anniversary of our
wedding day," he said to Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little
silver posset dish, with two turtle-doves billing on the cover.
"Poor dear! she spent on it all the money she had saved before we
were married. Do you know, I would sooner scratch the earth with
my nails for a living, madame, than part with that. But I shall
be able to take my coffee out of it every morning for the rest of
my days, thank the Lord! I am not to be pitied. There's not much
fear of my starving for some time to come."

Finally, Mme. Vauquer's magpie's eye had discovered and read
certain entries in the list of shareholders in the funds, and,
after a rough calculation, was disposed to credit Goriot (worthy
man) with something like ten thousand francs a year. From that
day forward Mme. Vauquer (nee de Conflans), who, as a matter of
fact, had seen forty-eight summers, though she would only own to
thirty-nine of them--Mme. Vauquer had her own ideas. Though
Goriot's eyes seemed to have shrunk in their sockets, though they
were weak and watery, owing to some glandular affection which
compelled him to wipe them continually, she considered him to be
a very gentlemanly and pleasant-looking man. Moreover, the widow
saw favorable indications of character in the well-developed
calves of his legs and in his square-shaped nose, indications
still further borne out by the worthy man's full-moon countenance
and look of stupid good-nature. This, in all probability, was a
strongly-build animal, whose brains mostly consisted in a
capacity for affection. His hair, worn in ailes de pigeon, and
duly powdered every morning by the barber from the Ecole
Polytechnique, described five points on his low forehead, and
made an elegant setting to his face. Though his manners were
somewhat boorish, he was always as neat as a new pin and he took
his snuff in a lordly way, like a man who knows that his snuff-
box is always likely to be filled with maccaboy, so that when
Mme. Vauquer lay down to rest on the day of M. Goriot's
installation, her heart, like a larded partridge, sweltered
before the fire of a burning desire to shake off the shroud of
Vauquer and rise again as Goriot. She would marry again, sell her
boarding-house, give her hand to this fine flower of citizenship,
become a lady of consequence in the quarter, and ask for
subscriptions for charitable purposes; she would make little
Sunday excursions to Choisy, Soissy, Gentilly; she would have a
box at the theatre when she liked, instead of waiting for the
author's tickets that one of her boarders sometimes gave her, in
July; the whole Eldorado of a little Parisian household rose up
before Mme. Vauquer in her dreams. Nobody knew that she herself
possessed forty thousand francs, accumulated sou by sou, that was
her secret; surely as far as money was concerned she was a very
tolerable match. "And in other respects, I am quite his equal,"
she said to herself, turning as if to assure herself of the
charms of a form that the portly Sylvie found moulded in down
feathers every morning.

For three months from that day Mme. Veuve Vauquer availed herself
of the services of M. Goriot's coiffeur, and went to some expense
over her toilette, expense justifiable on the ground that she
owed it to herself and her establishment to pay some attention to
appearances when such highly-respectable persons honored her
house with their presence. She expended no small amount of
ingenuity in a sort of weeding process of her lodgers, announcing
her intention of receiving henceforward none but people who were
in every way select. If a stranger presented himself, she let him
know that M. Goriot, one of the best known and most highly-
respected merchants in Paris, had singled out her boarding-house
for a residence. She drew up a prospectus headed MAISON VAUQUER,
in which it was asserted that hers was "one of the oldest and
most highly recommended boarding-houses in the Latin Quarter."
"From the windows of the house," thus ran the prospectus, "there
is a charming view of the Vallee des Gobelins (so there is--from
the third floor), and a BEAUTIFUL garden, EXTENDING down to AN
AVENUE OF LINDENS at the further end." Mention was made of the
bracing air of the place and its quiet situation.

It was this prospectus that attracted Mme. la Comtesse de
l'Ambermesnil, a widow of six and thirty, who was awaiting the
final settlement of her husband's affairs, and of another matter
regarding a pension due to her as the wife of a general who had
died "on the field of battle." On this Mme. Vauquer saw to her
table, lighted a fire daily in the sitting-room for nearly six
months, and kept the promise of her prospectus, even going to
some expense to do so. And the Countess, on her side, addressed
Mme. Vauquer as "my dear," and promised her two more boarders,
the Baronne de Vaumerland and the widow of a colonel, the late
Comte de Picquoisie, who were about to leave a boarding-house in
the Marais, where the terms were higher than at the Maison
Vauquer. Both these ladies, moreover, would be very well to do
when the people at the War Office had come to an end of their
formalities. "But Government departments are always so dilatory,"
the lady added.

After dinner the two widows went together up to Mme. Vauquer's
room, and had a snug little chat over some cordial and various
delicacies reserved for the mistress of the house. Mme. Vauquer's
ideas as to Goriot were cordially approved by Mme. de
l'Ambermesnil; it was a capital notion, which for that matter she
had guessed from the very first; in her opinion the vermicelli
maker was an excellent man.

"Ah! my dear lady, such a well-preserved man of his age, as sound
as my eyesight--a man who might make a woman happy!" said the
widow.

The good-natured Countess turned to the subject of Mme. Vauquer's
dress, which was not in harmony with her projects. "You must put
yourself on a war footing," said she.

After much serious consideration the two widows went shopping
together--they purchased a hat adorned with ostrich feathers and
a cap at the Palais Royal, and the Countess took her friend to
the Magasin de la Petite Jeannette, where they chose a dress and
a scarf. Thus equipped for the campaign, the widow looked exactly
like the prize animal hung out for a sign above an a la mode beef
shop; but she herself was so much pleased with the improvement,
as she considered it, in her appearance, that she felt that she
lay under some obligation to the Countess; and, though by no
means open-handed, she begged that lady to accept a hat that cost
twenty francs. The fact was that she needed the Countess'
services on the delicate mission of sounding Goriot; the countess
must sing her praises in his ears. Mme. de l'Ambermesnil lent
herself very good-naturedly to this manoeuvre, began her
operations, and succeeded in obtaining a private interview; but
the overtures that she made, with a view to securing him for
herself, were received with embarrassment, not to say a repulse.
She left him, revolted by his coarseness.

"My angel," said she to her dear friend, "you will make nothing
of that man yonder. He is absurdly suspicious, and he is a mean
curmudgeon, an idiot, a fool; you would never be happy with him."

After what had passed between M. Goriot and Mme. de
l'Ambermesnil, the Countess would no longer live under the same
roof. She left the next day, forgot to pay for six months' board,
and left behind her wardrobe, cast-off clothing to the value of
five francs. Eagerly and persistently as Mme. Vauquer sought her
quondam lodger, the Comtesse de l'Ambermesnil was never heard of
again in Paris. The widow often talked of this deplorable
business, and regretted her own too confiding disposition. As a
matter of fact, she was as suspicious as a cat; but she was like
many other people, who cannot trust their own kin and put
themselves at the mercy of the next chance comer--an odd but
common phenomenon, whose causes may readily be traced to the
depths of the human heart.

Perhaps there are people who know that they have nothing more to
look for from those with whom they live; they have shown the
emptiness of their hearts to their housemates, and in their
secret selves they are conscious that they are severely judged,
and that they deserve to be judged severely; but still they feel
an unconquerable craving for praises that they do not hear, or
they are consumed by a desire to appear to possess, in the eyes
of a new audience, the qualities which they have not, hoping to
win the admiration or affection of strangers at the risk of
forfeiting it again some day. Or, once more, there are other
mercenary natures who never do a kindness to a friend or a
relation simply because these have a claim upon them, while a
service done to a stranger brings its reward to self-love. Such
natures feel but little affection for those who are nearest to
them; they keep their kindness for remoter circles of
acquaintance, and show most to those who dwell on its utmost
limits. Mme. Vauquer belonged to both these essentially mean,
false, and execrable classes.

"If I had been there at the time," Vautrin would say at the end
of the story, I would have shown her up, and that misfortune
would not have befallen you. I know that kind of phiz!"

Like all narrow natures, Mme. Vauquer was wont to confine her
attention to events, and did not go very deeply into the causes
that brought them about; she likewise preferred to throw the
blame of her own mistakes on other people, so she chose to
consider that the honest vermicelli maker was responsible for her
misfortune. It had opened her eyes, so she said, with regard to
him. As soon as she saw that her blandishments were in vain, and
that her outlay on her toilette was money thrown away, she was
not slow to discover the reason of his indifference. It became
plain to her at once that there was SOME OTHER ATTRACTION, to use
her own expression. In short, it was evident that the hope she
had so fondly cherished was a baseless delusion, and that she
would "never make anything out of that man yonder," in the
Countess' forcible phrase. The Countess seemed to have been a
judge of character. Mme. Vauquer's aversion was naturally more
energetic than her friendship, for her hatred was not in
proportion to her love, but to her disappointed expectations. The
human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the
highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep,
downward slope of hatred. Still, M. Goriot was a lodger, and the
widow's wounded self-love could not vent itself in an explosion
of wrath; like a monk harassed by the prior of his convent, she
was forced to stifle her sighs of disappointment, and to gulp
down her craving for revenge. Little minds find gratification for
their feelings, benevolent or otherwise, by a constant exercise
of petty ingenuity. The widow employed her woman's malice to
devise a system of covert persecution. She began by a course of
retrenchment--various luxuries which had found their way to the
table appeared there no more.

"No more gherkins, no more anchovies; they have made a fool of
me!" she said to Sylvie one morning, and they returned to the old
bill of fare.

The thrifty frugality necessary to those who mean to make their
way in the world had become an inveterate habit of life with M.
Goriot. Soup, boiled beef, and a dish of vegetables had been, and
always would be, the dinner he liked best, so Mme. Vauquer found
it very difficult to annoy a boarder whose tastes were so simple.
He was proof against her malice, and in desperation she spoke to
him and of him slightingly before the other lodgers, who began to
amuse themselves at his expense, and so gratified her desire for
revenge.

Towards the end of the first year the widow's suspicions had
reached such a pitch that she began to wonder how it was that a
retired merchant with a secure income of seven or eight thousand
livres, the owner of such magnificent plate and jewelry handsome
enough for a kept mistress, should be living in her house. Why
should he devote so small a proportion of his money to his
expenses? Until the first year was nearly at an end, Goriot had
dined out once or twice every week, but these occasions came less
frequently, and at last he was scarcely absent from the dinner-
table twice a month. It was hardly expected that Mme. Vauquer
should regard the increased regularity of her boarder's habits
with complacency, when those little excursions of his had been so
much to her interest. She attributed the change not so much to a
gradual diminution of fortune as to a spiteful wish to annoy his
hostess. It is one of the most detestable habits of a Liliputian
mind to credit other people with its own malignant pettiness.

Unluckily, towards the end of the second year, M. Goriot's
conduct gave some color to the idle talk about him. He asked Mme.
Vauquer to give him a room on the second floor, and to make a
corresponding reduction in her charges. Apparently, such strict
economy was called for, that he did without a fire all through
the winter. Mme. Vauquer asked to be paid in advance, an
arrangement to which M. Goriot consented, and thenceforward she
spoke of him as "Father Goriot."

What had brought about this decline and fall? Conjecture was
keen, but investigation was difficult. Father Goriot was not
communicative; in the sham countess' phrase he was "a
curmudgeon." Empty-headed people who babble about their own
affairs because they have nothing else to occupy them, naturally
conclude that if people say nothing of their doings it is because
their doings will not bear being talked about; so the highly
respectable merchant became a scoundrel, and the late beau was an
old rogue. Opinion fluctuated. Sometimes, according to Vautrin,
who came about this time to live in the Maison Vauquer, Father
Goriot was a man who went on 'Change and DABBLED (to use the
sufficiently expressive language of the Stock Exchange) in stocks
and shares after he had ruined himself by heavy speculation.
Sometimes it was held that he was one of those petty gamblers who
nightly play for small stakes until they win a few francs. A
theory that he was a detective in the employ of the Home Office
found favor at one time, but Vautrin urged that "Goriot was not
sharp enough for one of that sort." There were yet other
solutions; Father Goriot was a skinflint, a shark of a money-
lender, a man who lived by selling lottery tickets. He was by
turns all the most mysterious brood of vice and shame and misery;
yet, however vile his life might be, the feeling of repulsion
which he aroused in others was not so strong that he must be
banished from their society--he paid his way. Besides, Goriot had
his uses, every one vented his spleen or sharpened his wit on
him; he was pelted with jokes and belabored with hard words. The
general consensus of opinion was in favor of a theory which
seemed the most likely; this was Mme. Vauquer's view. According
to her, the man so well preserved at his time of life, as sound
as her eyesight, with whom a woman might be very happy, was a
libertine who had strange tastes. These are the facts upon which
Mme. Vauquer's slanders were based.

Early one morning, some few months after the departure of the
unlucky Countess who had managed to live for six months at the
widow's expense, Mme. Vauquer (not yet dressed) heard the rustle
of a silk dress and a young woman's light footstep on the stair;
some one was going to Goriot's room. He seemed to expect the
visit, for his door stood ajar. The portly Sylvie presently came
up to tell her mistress that a girl too pretty to be honest,
"dressed like a goddess," and not a speck of mud on her laced
cashmere boots, had glided in from the street like a snake, had
found the kitchen, and asked for M. Goriot's room. Mme. Vauquer
and the cook, listening, overheard several words affectionately
spoken during the visit, which lasted for some time. When M.
Goriot went downstairs with the lady, the stout Sylvie forthwith
took her basket and followed the lover-like couple, under pretext
of going to do her marketing.

"M. Goriot must be awfully rich, all the same, madame," she
reported on her return, "to keep her in such style. Just imagine
it! There was a splendid carriage waiting at the corner of the
Place de l'Estrapade, and SHE got into it."

While they were at dinner that evening, Mme. Vauquer went to the
window and drew the curtain, as the sun was shining into Goriot's
eyes.

"You are beloved of fair ladies, M. Goriot--the sun seeks you
out," she said, alluding to his visitor. "Peste! you have good
taste; she was very pretty."

"That was my daughter," he said, with a kind of pride in his
voice, and the rest chose to consider this as the fatuity of an
old man who wishes to save appearances.

A month after this visit M. Goriot received another. The same
daughter who had come to see him that morning came again after
dinner, this time in evening dress. The boarders, in deep
discussion in the dining-room, caught a glimpse of a lovely,
fair-haired woman, slender, graceful, and much too distinguished-
looking to be a daughter of Father Goriot's.

"Two of them!" cried the portly Sylvie, who did not recognize the
lady of the first visit.

A few days later, and another young lady--a tall, well-moulded
brunette, with dark hair and bright eyes--came to ask for M.
Goriot.

"Three of them!" said Sylvie.

Then the second daughter, who had first come in the morning to
see her father, came shortly afterwards in the evening. She wore
a ball dress, and came in a carriage.

"Four of them!" commented Mme. Vauquer and her plump handmaid.
Sylvie saw not a trace of resemblance between this great lady and
the girl in her simple morning dress who had entered her kitchen
on the occasion of her first visit.

At that time Goriot was paying twelve hundred francs a year to
his landlady, and Mme. Vauquer saw nothing out of the common in
the fact that a rich man had four or five mistresses; nay, she
thought it very knowing of him to pass them off as his daughters.
She was not at all inclined to draw a hard-and-fast line, or to
take umbrage at his sending for them to the Maison Vauquer; yet,
inasmuch as these visits explained her boarder's indifference to
her, she went so far (at the end of the second year) as to speak
of him as an "ugly old wretch." When at length her boarder
declined to nine hundred francs a year, she asked him very
insolently what he took her house to be, after meeting one of
these ladies on he stairs. Father Goriot answered that the lady
was his eldest daughter.

"So you have two or three dozen daughters, have you?" said Mme.
Vauquer sharply.

"I have only two," her boarder answered meekly, like a ruined man
who is broken in to all the cruel usage of misfortune.



Towards the end of the third year Father Goriot reduced his
expenses still further; he went up to the third story, and now
paid forty-five francs a month. He did without snuff, told his
hairdresser that he no longer required his services, and gave up
wearing powder. When Goriot appeared for the first time in this
condition, an exclamation of astonishment broke from his hostess
at the color of his hair--a dingy olive gray. He had grown sadder
day by day under the influence of some hidden trouble; among all
the faces round the table, his was the most woe-begone. There was
no longer any doubt. Goriot was an elderly libertine, whose eyes
had only been preserved by the skill of the physician from the
malign influence of the remedies necessitated by the state of his
health. The disgusting color of his hair was a result of his
excesses and of the drugs which he had taken that he might
continue his career. The poor old man's mental and physical
condition afforded some grounds for the absurd rubbish talked
about him. When his outfit was worn out, he replaced the fine
linen by calico at fourteen sous the ell. His diamonds, his gold
snuff-box, watch-chain and trinkets, disappeared one by one. He
had left off wearing the corn-flower blue coat, and was
sumptuously arrayed, summer as well as winter, in a coarse
chestnut-brown coat, a plush waistcoat, and doeskin breeches. He
grew thinner and thinner; his legs were shrunken, his cheeks,
once so puffed out by contented bourgeois prosperity, were
covered with wrinkles, and the outlines of the jawbones were
distinctly visible; there were deep furrows in his forehead. In
the fourth year of his residence in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-
Genevieve he was no longer like his former self. The hale
vermicelli manufacturer, sixty-two years of age, who had looked
scarce forty, the stout, comfortable, prosperous tradesman, with
an almost bucolic air, and such a brisk demeanor that it did you
good to look at him; the man with something boyish in his smile,
had suddenly sunk into his dotage, and had become a feeble,
vacillating septuagenarian.

The keen, bright blue eyes had grown dull, and faded to a steel-
gray color; the red inflamed rims looked as though they had shed
tears of blood. He excited feelings of repulsion in some, and of
pity in others. The young medical students who came to the house
noticed the drooping of his lower lip and the conformation of the
facial angle; and, after teasing him for some time to no purpose,
they declared that cretinism was setting in.

One evening after dinner Mme. Vauquer said half banteringly to
him, "So those daughters of yours don't come to see you any more,
eh?" meaning to imply her doubts as to his paternity; but Father
Goriot shrank as if his hostess had touched him with a sword-
point.

"They come sometimes," he said in a tremulous voice.

"Aha! you still see them sometimes?" cried the students. "Bravo,
Father Goriot!"

The old man scarcely seemed to hear the witticisms at his expense
that followed on the words; he had relapsed into the dreamy state
of mind that these superficial observers took for senile torpor,
due to his lack of intelligence. If they had only known, they
might have been deeply interested by the problem of his
condition; but few problems were more obscure. It was easy, of
course, to find out whether Goriot had really been a vermicelli
manufacturer; the amount of his fortune was readily discoverable;
but the old people, who were most inquisitive as to his concerns,
never went beyond the limits of the Quarter, and lived in the
lodging-house much as oysters cling to a rock. As for the rest,
the current of life in Paris daily awaited them, and swept them
away with it; so soon as they left the Rue Neuve-Sainte-
Genevieve, they forgot the existence of the old man, their butt
at dinner. For those narrow souls, or for careless youth, the
misery in Father Goriot's withered face and its dull apathy were
quite incompatible with wealth or any sort of intelligence. As
for the creatures whom he called his daughters, all Mme.
Vauquer's boarders were of her opinion. With the faculty for
severe logic sedulously cultivated by elderly women during long
evenings of gossip till they can always find an hypothesis to fit
all circumstances, she was wont to reason thus:

"If Father Goriot had daughters of his own as rich as those
ladies who came here seemed to be, he would not be lodging in my
house, on the third floor, at forty-five francs a month; and he
would not go about dressed like a poor man."

No objection could be raised to these inferences. So by the end
of the month of November 1819, at the time when the curtain rises
on this drama, every one in the house had come to have a very
decided opinion as to the poor old man. He had never had either
wife or daughter; excesses had reduced him to this sluggish
condition; he was a sort of human mollusk who should be classed
among the capulidoe, so one of the dinner contingent, an employe
at the Museum, who had a pretty wit of his own. Poiret was an
eagle, a gentleman, compared with Goriot. Poiret would join the
talk, argue, answer when he was spoken to; as a matter of fact,
his talk, arguments, and responses contributed nothing to the
conversation, for Poiret had a habit of repeating what the others
said in different words; still, he did join in the talk; he was
alive, and seemed capable of feeling; while Father Goriot (to
quote the Museum official again) was invariably at zero--Reaumur.

Eugene de Rastignac had just returned to Paris in a state of mind
not unknown to young men who are conscious of unusual powers, and
to those whose faculties are so stimulated by a difficult
position, that for the time being they rise above the ordinary
level.

Rastignac's first year of study for the preliminary examinations
in law had left him free to see the sights of Paris and to enjoy
some of its amusements. A student has not much time on his hands
if he sets himself to learn the repertory of every theatre, and
to study the ins and outs of the labyrinth of Paris. To know its
customs; to learn the language, and become familiar with the
amusements of the capital, he must explore its recesses, good and
bad, follow the studies that please him best, and form some idea
of the treasures contained in galleries and museums.

At this stage of his career a student grows eager and excited
about all sorts of follies that seem to him to be of immense
importance. He has his hero, his great man, a professor at the
College de France, paid to talk down to the level of his
audience. He adjusts his cravat, and strikes various attitudes
for the benefit of the women in the first galleries at the Opera-
Comique. As he passes through all these successive initiations,
and breaks out of his sheath, the horizons of life widen around
him, and at length he grasps the plan of society with the
different human strata of which it is composed.

If he begins by admiring the procession of carriages on sunny
afternoons in the Champs-Elysees, he soon reaches the further
stage of envying their owners. Unconsciously, Eugene had served
his apprenticeship before he went back to Angouleme for the long
vacation after taking his degrees as bachelor of arts and
bachelor of law. The illusions of childhood had vanished, so also
had the ideas he brought with him from the provinces; he had
returned thither with an intelligence developed, with loftier
ambitions, and saw things as they were at home in the old manor
house. His father and mother, his two brothers and two sisters,
with an aged aunt, whose whole fortune consisted in annuities,
lived on the little estate of Rastignac. The whole property
brought in about three thousand francs; and though the amount
varied with the season (as must always be the case in a vine-
growing district), they were obliged to spare an unvarying twelve
hundred francs out of their income for him. He saw how constantly
the poverty, which they had generously hidden from him, weighed
upon them; he could not help comparing the sisters, who had
seemed so beautiful to his boyish eyes, with women in Paris, who
had realized the beauty of his dreams. The uncertain future of
the whole family depended upon him. It did not escape his eyes
that not a crumb was wasted in the house, nor that the wine they
drank was made from the second pressing; a multitude of small
things, which it is useless to speak of in detail here, made him
burn to distinguish himself, and his ambition to succeed
increased tenfold.

He meant, like all great souls, that his success should be owing
entirely to his merits; but his was pre-eminently a southern
temperament, the execution of his plans was sure to be marred by
the vertigo that seizes on youth when youth sees itself alone in
a wide sea, uncertain how to spend its energies, whither to steer
its course, how to adapt its sails to the winds. At first he
determined to fling himself heart and soul into his work, but he
was diverted from this purpose by the need of society and
connections; then he saw how great an influence women exert in
social life, and suddenly made up his mind to go out into this
world to seek a protectress there. Surely a clever and high-
spirited young man, whose wit and courage were set off to
advantage by a graceful figure and the vigorous kind of beauty
that readily strikes a woman's imagination, need not despair of
finding a protectress. These ideas occurred to him in his country
walks with his sisters, whom he had once joined so gaily. The
girls thought him very much changed.

His aunt, Mme. de Marcillac, had been presented at court, and had
moved among the brightest heights of that lofty region. Suddenly
the young man's ambition discerned in those recollections of
hers, which had been like nursery fairy tales to her nephews and
nieces, the elements of a social success at least as important as
the success which he had achieved at the Ecole de Droit. He began
to ask his aunt about those relations; some of the old ties might
still hold good. After much shaking of the branches of the family
tree, the old lady came to the conclusion that of all persons who
could be useful to her nephew among the selfish genus of rich
relations, the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was the least likely to
refuse. To this lady, therefore, she wrote in the old-fashioned
style, recommending Eugene to her; pointing out to her nephew
that if he succeeded in pleasing Mme. de Beauseant, the
Vicomtesse would introduce him to other relations. A few days
after his return to Paris, therefore, Rastignac sent his aunt's
letter to Mme. de Beauseant. The Vicomtesse replied by an
invitation to a ball for the following evening. This was the
position of affairs at the Maison Vauquer at the end of November
1819.

A few days later, after Mme. de Beauseant's ball, Eugene came in
at two o'clock in the morning. The persevering student meant to
make up for the lost time by working until daylight. It was the
first time that he had attempted to spend the night in this way
in that silent quarter. The spell of a factitious energy was upon
him; he had beheld the pomp and splendor of the world. He had not
dined at the Maison Vauquer; the boarders probably would think
that he would walk home at daybreak from the dance, as he had
done sometimes on former occasions, after a fete at the Prado, or
a ball at the Odeon, splashing his silk stockings thereby, and
ruining his pumps.

It so happened that Christophe took a look into the street before
drawing the bolts of the door; and Rastignac, coming in at that
moment, could go up to his room without making any noise,
followed by Christophe, who made a great deal. Eugene exchanged
his dress suit for a shabby overcoat and slippers, kindled a fire
with some blocks of patent fuel, and prepared for his night's
work in such a sort that the faint sounds he made were drowned by
Christophe's heavy tramp on the stairs.

Eugene sat absorbed in thought for a few moments before plunging
into his law books. He had just become aware of the fact that the
Vicomtesse de Beauseant was one of the queens of fashion, that
her house was thought to be the pleasantest in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain. And not only so, she was, by right of her fortune,
and the name she bore, one of the most conspicuous figures in
that aristocratic world. Thanks to the aunt, thanks to Mme. de
Marcillac's letter of introduction, the poor student had been
kindly received in that house before he knew the extent of the
favor thus shown to him. It was almost like a patent of nobility
to be admitted to those gilded salons; he had appeared in the
most exclusive circle in Paris, and now all doors were open for
him. Eugene had been dazzled at first by the brilliant assembly,
and had scarcely exchanged a few words with the Vicomtesse; he
had been content to single out a goddess among this throng of
Parisian divinities, one of those women who are sure to attract a
young man's fancy.

The Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud was tall and gracefully made;
she had one of the prettiest figures in Paris. Imagine a pair of
great dark eyes, a magnificently moulded hand, a shapely foot.
There was a fiery energy in her movements; the Marquis de
Ronquerolles had called her "a thoroughbred," "a pure pedigree,"
these figures of speech have replaced the "heavenly angel" and
Ossianic nomenclature; the old mythology of love is extinct,
doomed to perish by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac, Mme.
Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He had
contrived to write his name twice upon the list of partners upon
her fan, and had snatched a few words with her during the first
quadrille.

"Where shall I meet you again, Madame?" he asked abruptly, and
the tones of his voice were full of the vehement energy that
women like so well.

"Oh, everywhere!" said she, "in the Bois, at the Bouffons, in my
own house."

With the impetuosity of his adventurous southern temper, he did
all he could to cultivate an acquaintance with this lovely
countess, making the best of his opportunities in the quadrille
and during a waltz that she gave him. When he told her that he
was a cousin of Mme. de Beauseant's, the Countess, whom he took
for a great lady, asked him to call at her house, and after her
parting smile, Rastignac felt convinced that he must make this
visit. He was so lucky as to light upon some one who did not
laugh at his ignorance, a fatal defect among the gilded and
insolent youth of that period; the coterie of Maulincourts,
Maximes de Trailles, de Marsays, Ronquerolles, Ajuda-Pintos, and
Vandenesses who shone there in all the glory of coxcombry among
the best-dressed women of fashion in Paris--Lady Brandon, the
Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouet, Mme. de Serizy,
the Duchesse de Carigliano, the Comtesse Ferraud, Mme. de Lanty,
the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani, the Marquise de
Listomere and the Marquise d'Espard, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse
and the Grandlieus. Luckily, therefore, for him, the novice
happened upon the Marquis de Montriveau, the lover of the
Duchesse de Langeais, a general as simple as a child; from him
Rastignac learned that the Comtesse lived in the Rue du Helder.

Ah, what it is to be young, eager to see the world, greedily on
the watch for any chance that brings you nearer the woman of your
dreams, and behold two houses open their doors to you! To set
foot in the Vicomtesse de Beauseant's house in the Faubourg
Saint-Germain; to fall on your knees before a Comtesse de Restaud
in the Chaussee d'Antin; to look at one glance across a vista of
Paris drawing-rooms, conscious that, possessing sufficient good
looks, you may hope to find aid and protection there in a
feminine heart! To feel ambitious enough to spurn the tight-rope
on which you must walk with the steady head of an acrobat for
whom a fall is impossible, and to find in a charming woman the
best of all balancing poles.

He sat there with his thoughts for a while, Law on the one hand,
and Poverty on the other, beholding a radiant vision of a woman
rise above the dull, smouldering fire. Who would not have paused
and questioned the future as Eugene was doing? who would not have
pictured it full of success? His wondering thoughts took wings;
he was transported out of the present into that blissful future;
he was sitting by Mme. de Restaud's side, when a sort of sigh,
like the grunt of an overburdened St. Joseph, broke the silence
of the night. It vibrated through the student, who took the sound
for a death groan. He opened his door noiselessly, went out upon
the landing, and saw a thin streak of light under Father Goriot's
door. Eugene feared that his neighbor had been taken ill; he went
over and looked through the keyhole; the old man was busily
engaged in an occupation so singular and so suspicious that
Rastignac thought he was only doing a piece of necessary service
to society to watch the self-styled vermicelli maker's nocturnal
industries.

The table was upturned, and Goriot had doubtless in some way
secured a silver plate and cup to the bar before knotting a thick
rope round them; he was pulling at this rope with such enormous
force that they were being crushed and twisted out of shape; to
all appearance he meant to convert the richly wrought metal into
ingots.

"Peste! what a man!" said Rastignac, as he watched Goriot's
muscular arms; there was not a sound in the room while the old
man, with the aid of the rope, was kneading the silver like
dough. "Was he then, indeed, a thief, or a receiver of stolen
goods, who affected imbecility and decrepitude, and lived like a
beggar that he might carry on his pursuits the more securely?"
Eugene stood for a moment revolving these questions, then he
looked again through the keyhole.

Father Goriot had unwound his coil of rope; he had covered the
table with a blanket, and was now employed in rolling the
flattened mass of silver into a bar, an operation which he
performed with marvelous dexterity.

"Why, he must be as strong as Augustus, King of Poland!" said
Eugene to himself when the bar was nearly finished.

Father Goriot looked sadly at his handiwork, tears fell from his
eyes, he blew out the dip which had served him for a light while
he manipulated the silver, and Eugene heard him sigh as he lay
down again.

"He is mad," thought the student.

"Poor child!" Father Goriot said aloud. Rastignac, hearing those
words, concluded to keep silence; he would not hastily condemn
his neighbor. He was just in the doorway of his room when a
strange sound from the staircase below reached his ears; it might
have been made by two men coming up in list slippers. Eugene
listened; two men there certainly were, he could hear their
breathing. Yet there had been no sound of opening the street
door, no footsteps in the passage. Suddenly, too, he saw a faint
gleam of light on the second story; it came from M. Vautrin's
room.

"There are a good many mysteries here for a lodging-house!" he
said to himself.

He went part of the way downstairs and listened again. The rattle
of gold reached his ears. In another moment the light was put
out, and again he distinctly heard the breathing of two men, but
no sound of a door being opened or shut. The two men went
downstairs, the faint sounds growing fainter as they went.

"Who is there?" cried Mme. Vauquer out of her bedroom window.

"I, Mme. Vauquer," answered Vautrin's deep bass voice. "I am
coming in."

"That is odd! Christophe drew the bolts," said Eugene, going back
to his room. "You have to sit up at night, it seems, if you
really mean to know all that is going on about you in Paris."

These incidents turned his thought from his ambitious dreams; he
betook himself to his work, but his thought wandered back to
Father Goriot's suspicious occupation; Mme. de Restaud's face
swam again and again before his eyes like a vision of a brilliant
future; and at last he lay down and slept with clenched fists.
When a young man makes up his mind that he will work all night,
the chances are that seven times out of ten he will sleep till
morning. Such vigils do not begin before we are turned twenty.

The next morning Paris was wrapped in one of the dense fogs that
throw the most punctual people out in their calculations as to
the time; even the most business-like folk fail to keep their
appointments in such weather, and ordinary mortals wake up at
noon and fancy it is eight o'clock. On this morning it was half-
past nine, and Mme. Vauquer still lay abed. Christophe was late,
Sylvie was late, but the two sat comfortably taking their coffee
as usual. It was Sylvie's custom to take the cream off the milk
destined for the boarders' breakfast for her own, and to boil the
remainder for some time, so that madame should not discover this
illegal exaction.

"Sylvie," said Christophe, as he dipped a piece of toast into the
coffee, "M. Vautrin, who is not such a bad sort, all the same,
had two people come to see him again last night. If madame says
anything, mind you say nothing about it."

"Has he given you something?"

"He gave me a five-franc piece this month, which is as good as
saying, 'Hold your tongue.' "

"Except him and Mme. Couture, who doesn't look twice at every
penny, there's no one in the house that doesn't try to get back
with the left hand all that they give with the right at New
Year," said Sylvie.

"And, after all," said Christophe, "what do they give you? A
miserable five-franc piece. There is Father Goriot, who has
cleaned his shoes himself these two years past. There is that old
beggar Poiret, who goes without blacking altogether; he would
sooner drink it than put it on his boots. Then there is that
whipper-snapper of a student, who gives me a couple of francs,
Two francs will not pay for my brushes, and he sells his old
clothes, and gets more for them than they are worth. Oh! they're
a shabby lot!"

"Pooh!" said Sylvie, sipping her coffee, "our places are the best
in the Quarter, that I know. But about that great big chap
Vautrin, Christophe; has any one told you anything about him?"

"Yes. I met a gentleman in the street a few days ago; he said to
me, 'There's a gentleman in your place, isn't there? a tall man
that dyes his whiskers?' I told him, 'No, sir; they aren't dyed.
A gay fellow like him hasn't the time to do it.' And when I told
M. Vautrin about it afterwards, he said, 'Quite right, my boy.
That is the way to answer them. There is nothing more unpleasant
than to have your little weaknesses known; it might spoil many a
match.' "

"Well, and for my part," said Sylvie, "a man tried to humbug me
at the market wanting to know if I had seen him put on his shirt.
Such bosh! There," she cried, interrupting herself, "that's a
quarter to ten striking at the Val-de-Grace, and not a soul
stirring!"

"Pooh! they are all gone out. Mme. Couture and the girl went out
at eight o'clock to take the wafer at Saint-Etienne. Father
Goriot started off somewhere with a parcel, and the student won't
be back from his lecture till ten o'clock. I saw them go while I
was sweeping the stairs; Father Goriot knocked up against me, and
his parcel was as hard as iron. What is the old fellow up to, I
wonder? He is as good as a plaything for the rest of them; they
can never let him alone; but he is a good man, all the same, and
worth more than all of them put together. He doesn't give you
much himself, but he sometimes sends you with a message to ladies
who fork out famous tips; they are dressed grandly, too."

"His daughters, as he calls them, eh? There are a dozen of them."

"I have never been to more than two--the two who came here."

"There is madame moving overhead; I shall have to go, or she will
raise a fine racket. Just keep an eye on the milk, Christophe;
don't let the cat get at it."

Sylvie went up to her mistress' room.

"Sylvie! How is this? It's nearly ten o'clock, and you let me
sleep like a dormouse! Such a thing has never happened before."

"It's the fog; it is that thick, you could cut it with a knife."

"But how about breakfast?"

"Bah! the boarders are possessed, I'm sure. They all cleared out
before there was a wink of daylight."

"Do speak properly, Sylvie," Mme. Vauquer retorted; "say a blink
of daylight."

"Ah, well, madame, whichever you please. Anyhow, you can have
breakfast at ten o'clock. La Michonnette and Poiret have neither
of them stirred. There are only those two upstairs, and they are
sleeping like the logs they are."

"But, Sylvie, you put their names together as if----"

"As if what?" said Sylvie, bursting into a guffaw. "The two of
them make a pair."

"It is a strange thing, isn't it, Sylvie, how M. Vautrin got in
last night after Christophe had bolted the door?"

"Not at all, madame. Christophe heard M. Vautrin, and went down
and undid the door. And here are you imagining that----?"

"Give me my bodice, and be quick and get breakfast ready. Dish up
the rest of the mutton with the potatoes, and you can put the
stewed pears on the table, those at five a penny."

A few moments later Mme. Vauquer came down, just in time to see
the cat knock down a plate that covered a bowl of milk, and begin
to lap in all haste.

"Mistigris!" she cried.

The cat fled, but promptly returned to rub against her ankles.

"Oh! yes, you can wheedle, you old hypocrite!" she said. "Sylvie!
Sylvie!"

"Yes, madame; what is it?"

"Just see what the cat has done!"

"It is all that stupid Christophe's fault. I told him to stop and
lay the table. What has become of him? Don't you worry, madame;
Father Goriot shall have it. I will fill it up with water, and he
won't know the difference; he never notices anything, not even
what he eats."

"I wonder where the old heathen can have gone?" said Mme.
Vauquer, setting the plates round the table.

"Who knows? He is up to all sorts of tricks."

"I have overslept myself," said Mme. Vauquer.

"But madame looks as fresh as a rose, all the same."

The door bell rang at that moment, and Vautrin came through the
sitting-room, singing loudly:

  " 'Tis the same old story everywhere,
  A roving heart and a roving glance . .

"Oh! Mamma Vauquer! good-morning!" he cried at the sight of his
hostess, and he put his arm gaily round her waist.

"There! have done----"

" 'Impertinence!' Say it!" he answered. "Come, say it! Now,
isn't that what you really mean? Stop a bit, I will help you to
set the table. Ah! I am a nice man, am I not?

  "For the locks of brown and the golden hair
  A sighing lover . . .

"Oh! I have just seen something so funny----

  . . . . led by chance."

"What?" asked the widow.

"Father Goriot in the goldsmith's shop in the Rue Dauphine at
half-past eight this morning. They buy old spoons and forks and
gold lace there, and Goriot sold a piece of silver plate for a
good round sum. It had been twisted out of shape very neatly for
a man that's not used to the trade."

"Really? You don't say so?"

"Yes. One of my friends is expatriating himself; I had been to
see him off on board the Royal Mail steamer, and was coming back
here. I waited after that to see what Father Goriot would do; it
is a comical affair. He came back to this quarter of the world,
to the Rue des Gres, and went into a money-lender's house;
everybody knows him, Gobseck, a stuck-up rascal, that would make
dominoes out of his father's bones, a Turk, a heathen, an old
Jew, a Greek; it would be a difficult matter to rob HIM, for he
puts all his coin into the Bank."

"Then what was Father Goriot doing there?"

"Doing?" said Vautrin. "Nothing; he was bent on his own undoing.
He is a simpleton, stupid enough to ruin himself by running
after----"

"There he is!" cried Sylvie.

"Christophe," cried Father Goriot's voice, "come upstairs with
me."

Christophe went up, and shortly afterwards came down again.

"Where are you going?" Mme. Vauquer asked of her servant.

"Out on an errand for M. Goriot."

"What may that be?" said Vautrin, pouncing on a letter in
Christophe's hand. "Mme. la Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud," he
read. "Where are you going with it?" he added, as he gave the
letter back to Christophe.

"To the Rue du Helder. I have orders to give this into her hands
myself."

"What is there inside it?" said Vautrin, holding the letter up to
the light. "A banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A
receipted account!" he cried. "My word! 'tis a gallant old
dotard. Off with you, old chap," he said, bringing down a hand on
Christophe's head, and spinning the man round like a thimble;
"you will have a famous tip."

By this time the table was set. Sylvie was boiling the milk, Mme.
Vauquer was lighting a fire in the stove with some assistance
from Vautrin, who kept humming to himself:

  "The same old story everywhere,
  A roving heart and a roving glance."

When everything was ready, Mme. Couture and Mlle. Taillefer came
in.

"Where have you been this morning, fair lady?" said Mme. Vauquer,
turning to Mme. Couture.

"We have just been to say our prayers at Saint-Etienne du Mont.
To-day is the day when we must go to see M. Taillefer. Poor
little thing! She is trembling like a leaf," Mme. Couture went
on, as she seated herself before the fire and held the steaming
soles of her boots to the blaze.

"Warm yourself, Victorine," said Mme. Vauquer.

"It is quite right and proper, mademoiselle, to pray to Heaven to
soften your father's heart," said Vautrin, as he drew a chair
nearer to the orphan girl; "but that is not enough. What you want
is a friend who will give the monster a piece of his mind; a
barbarian that has three millions (so they say), and will not
give you a dowry; and a pretty girl needs a dowry nowadays."

"Poor child!" said Mme. Vauquer. "Never mind, my pet, your wretch
of a father is going just the way to bring trouble upon himself."

Victorine's eyes filled with tears at the words, and the widow
checked herself at a sign from Mme. Couture.

"If we could only see him!" said the Commissary-General's widow;
"if I could speak to him myself and give him his wife's last
letter! I have never dared to run the risk of sending it by post;
he knew my handwriting----"

" 'Oh woman, persecuted and injured innocent!' " exclaimed
Vautrin, breaking in upon her. "So that is how you are, is it? In
a few days' time I will look into your affairs, and it will be
all right, you shall see."

"Oh! sir," said Victorine, with a tearful but eager glance at
Vautrin, who showed no sign of being touched by it, "if you know
of any way of communicating with my father, please be sure and
tell him that his affection and my mother's honor are more to me
than all the money in the world. If you can induce him to relent
a little towards me, I will pray to God for you. You may be sure
of my gratitude----"

"The same old story everywhere," sang Vautrin, with a satirical
intonation. At this juncture, Goriot, Mlle. Michonneau, and
Poiret came downstairs together; possibly the scent of the gravy
which Sylvie was making to serve with the mutton had announced
breakfast. The seven people thus assembled bade each other good-
morning, and took their places at the table; the clock struck
ten, and the student's footstep was heard outside.

"Ah! here you are, M. Eugene," said Sylvie; "every one is
breakfasting at home to-day."

The student exchanged greetings with the lodgers, and sat down
beside Goriot.

"I have just met with a queer adventure," he said, as he helped
himself abundantly to the mutton, and cut a slice of bread, which
Mme. Vauquer's eyes gauged as usual.

"An adventure?" queried Poiret.

"Well, and what is there to astonish you in that, old boy?"
Vautrin asked of Poiret. "M. Eugene is cut out for that kind of
thing."

Mlle. Taillefer stole a timid glance at the young student.

"Tell us about your adventure!" demanded M. Vautrin.

"Yesterday evening I went to a ball given by a cousin of mine,
the Vicomtesse de Beauseant. She has a magnificent house; the
rooms are hung with silk--in short, it was a splendid affair, and
I was as happy as a king---"

"Fisher," put in Vautrin, interrupting.

"What do you mean, sir?" said Eugene sharply.

"I said 'fisher,' because kingfishers see a good deal more fun
than kings."

"Quite true; I would much rather be the little careless bird than
a king," said Poiret the ditto-ist, "because----"

"In fact"--the law-student cut him short--"I danced with one of
the handsomest women in the room, a charming countess, the most
exquisite creature I have ever seen. There was peach blossom in
her hair, and she had the loveliest bouquet of flowers--real
flowers, that scented the air----but there! it is no use trying
to describe a woman glowing with the dance. You ought to have
seen her! Well, and this morning I met this divine countess about
nine o'clock, on foot in the Rue de Gres. Oh! how my heart beat!
I began to think----"

"That she was coming here," said Vautrin, with a keen look at the
student. "I expect that she was going to call on old Gobseck, a
money-lender. If ever you explore a Parisian woman's heart, you
will find the money-lender first, and the lover afterwards. Your
countess is called Anastasie de Restaud, and she lives in the Rue
du Helder."

The student stared hard at Vautrin. Father Goriot raised his head
at the words, and gave the two speakers a glance so full of
intelligence and uneasiness that the lodgers beheld him with
astonishment.

"Then Christophe was too late, and she must have gone to him!"
cried Goriot, with anguish in his voice.

"It is just as I guessed," said Vautrin, leaning over to whisper
in Mme. Vauquer's ear.

Goriot went on with his breakfast, but seemed unconscious of what
he was doing. He had never looked more stupid nor more taken up
with his own thoughts than he did at that moment.

"Who the devil could have told you her name, M. Vautrin?" asked
Eugene.

"Aha! there you are!" answered Vautrin. "Old Father Goriot there
knew it quite well! and why should I not know it too?"

"M. Goriot?" the student cried.

"What is it?" asked the old man. "So she was very beautiful, was
she, yesterday night?"

"Who?"

"Mme. de Restaud."

"Look at the old wretch," said Mme. Vauquer, speaking to Vautrin;
"how his eyes light up!"

"Then does he really keep her?" said Mlle. Michonneau, in a
whisper to the student.

"Oh! yes, she was tremendously pretty," Eugene answered. Father
Goriot watched him with eager eyes. "If Mme. de Beauseant had not
been there, my divine countess would have been the queen of the
ball; none of the younger men had eyes for any one else. I was
the twelfth on her list, and she danced every quadrille. The
other women were furious. She must have enjoyed herself, if ever
creature did! It is a true saying that there is no more beautiful
sight than a frigate in full sail, a galloping horse, or a woman
dancing."

"So the wheel turns," said Vautrin; "yesterday night at a
duchess' ball, this morning in a money-lender's office, on the
lowest rung of the ladder--just like a Parisienne! If their
husbands cannot afford to pay for their frantic extravagance,
they will sell themselves. Or if they cannot do that, they will
tear out their mothers' hearts to find something to pay for their
splendor. They will turn the world upside down. Just a Parisienne
through and through!"

Father Goriot's face, which had shone at the student's words like
the sun on a bright day, clouded over all at once at this cruel
speech of Vautrin's.

"Well," said Mme. Vauquer, "but where is your adventure? Did you
speak to her? Did you ask her if she wanted to study law?"

"She did not see me," said Eugene. "But only think of meeting one
of the prettiest women in Paris in the Rue des Gres at nine
o'clock! She could not have reached home after the ball till two
o'clock this morning. Wasn't it queer? There is no place like
Paris for this sort of adventures."

"Pshaw! much funnier things than THAT happen here!" exclaimed
Vautrin.

Mlle. Taillefer had scarcely heeded the talk, she was so absorbed
by the thought of the new attempt that she was about to make.
Mme. Couture made a sign that it was time to go upstairs and
dress; the two ladies went out, and Father Goriot followed their
example.

"Well, did you see?" said Mme. Vauquer, addressing Vautrin and
the rest of the circle. "He is ruining himself for those women,
that is plain."

"Nothing will ever make me believe that that beautiful Comtesse
de Restaud is anything to Father Goriot," cried the student.

"Well, and if you don't," broke in Vautrin, "we are not set on
convincing you. You are too young to know Paris thoroughly yet;
later on you will find out that there are what we call men with a
passion----"

Mlle. Michonneau gave Vautrin a quick glance at these words. They
seemed to be like the sound of a trumpet to a trooper's horse.
"Aha!" said Vautrin, stopping in his speech to give her a
searching glance, "so we have had our little experiences, have
we?"

The old maid lowered her eyes like a nun who sees a statue.

"Well," he went on, "when folk of that kind get a notion into
their heads, they cannot drop it. They must drink the water from
some particular spring--it is stagnant as often as not; but they
will sell their wives and families, they will sell their own
souls to the devil to get it. For some this spring is play, or
the stock-exchange, or music, or a collection of pictures or
insects; for others it is some woman who can give them the
dainties they like. You might offer these last all the women on
earth--they would turn up their noses; they will have the only
one who can gratify their passion. It often happens that the
woman does not care for them at all, and treats them cruelly;
they buy their morsels of satisfaction very dear; but no matter,
the fools are never tired of it; they will take their last
blanket to the pawnbroker's to give their last five-franc piece
to her. Father Goriot here is one of that sort. He is discreet,
so the Countess exploits him--just the way of the gay world. The
poor old fellow thinks of her and of nothing else. In all other
respects you see he is a stupid animal; but get him on that
subject, and his eyes sparkle like diamonds. That secret is not
difficult to guess. He took some plate himself this morning to
the melting-pot, and I saw him at Daddy Gobseck's in the Rue des
Gres. And now, mark what follows--he came back here, and gave a
letter for the Comtesse de Restaud to that noodle of a
Christophe, who showed us the address; there was a receipted bill
inside it. It is clear that it was an urgent matter if the
Countess also went herself to the old money lender. Father Goriot
has financed her handsomely. There is no need to tack a tale
together; the thing is self-evident. So that shows you, sir
student, that all the time your Countess was smiling, dancing,
flirting, swaying her peach-flower crowned head, with her gown
gathered into her hand, her slippers were pinching her, as they
say; she was thinking of her protested bills, or her lover's
protested bills."

"You have made me wild to know the truth," cried Eugene; "I will
go to call on Mme. de Restaud to-morrow."

"Yes," echoed Poiret; "you must go and call on Mme. de Restaud."

"And perhaps you will find Father Goriot there, who will take
payment for the assistance he politely rendered."

Eugene looked disgusted. "Why, then, this Paris of yours is a
slough."

"And an uncommonly queer slough, too," replied Vautrin. "The mud
splashes you as you drive through it in your carriage--you are a
respectable person; you go afoot and are splashed--you are a
scoundrel. You are so unlucky as to walk off with something or
other belonging to somebody else, and they exhibit you as a
curiosity in the Place du Palais-de-Justice; you steal a million,
and you are pointed out in every salon as a model of virtue. And
you pay thirty millions for the police and the courts of justice,
for the maintenance of law and order! A pretty slate of things it
is!"

"What," cried Mme. Vauquer, "has Father Goriot really melted down
his silver posset-dish?"

"There were two turtle-doves on the lid, were there not?" asked
Eugene.

"Yes, that there were."

"Then, was he fond of it?" said Eugene. "He cried while he was
breaking up the cup and plate. I happened to see him by
accident."

"It was dear to him as his own life," answered the widow.

"There! you see how infatuated the old fellow is!" cried Vautrin.
"The woman yonder can coax the soul out of him"

The student went up to his room. Vautrin went out, and a few
moments later Mme. Couture and Victorine drove away in a cab
which Sylvie had called for them. Poiret gave his arm to Mlle.
Michonneau, and they went together to spend the two sunniest
hours of the day in the Jardin des Plantes.

"Well, those two are as good as married," was the portly Sylvie's
comment. "They are going out together to-day for the first time.
They are such a couple of dry sticks that if they happen to
strike against each other they will draw sparks like flint and
steel."

"Keep clear of Mlle. Michonneau's shawl, then, said Mme. Vauquer,
laughing; "it would flare up like tinder."

At four o'clock that evening, when Goriot came in, he saw, by the
light of two smoky lamps, that Victorine's eyes were red. Mme.
Vauquer was listening to the history of the visit made that
morning to M. Taillefer; it had been made in vain. Taillefer was
tired of the annual application made by his daughter and her
elderly friend; he gave them a personal interview in order to
arrive at an understanding with them.

"My dear lady," said Mme. Couture, addressing Mme. Vauquer, "just
imagine it; he did not even ask Victorine to sit down, she was
standing the whole time. He said to me quite coolly, without
putting himself in a passion, that we might spare ourselves the
trouble of going there; that the young lady (he would not call
her his daughter) was injuring her cause by importuning him
(IMPORTUNING! once a year, the wretch!); that as Victorine's
mother had nothing when he married her, Victorine ought not to
expect anything from him; in fact, he said the most cruel things,
that made the poor child burst out crying. The little thing threw
herself at her father's feet and spoke up bravely; she said that
she only persevered in her visits for her mother's sake; that she
would obey him without a murmur, but that she begged him to read
her poor dead mother's farewell letter. She took it up and gave
it to him, saying the most beautiful things in the world, most
beautifully expressed; I do not know where she learned them; God
must have put them into her head, for the poor child was inspired
to speak so nicely that it made me cry like a fool to hear her
talk. And what do you think the monster was doing all the time?
Cutting his nails! He took the letter that poor Mme. Taillefer
had soaked with tears, and flung it on to the chimney-piece.
'That is all right,' he said. He held out his hands to raise his
daughter, but she covered them with kisses, and he drew them away
again. Scandalous, isn't it? And his great booby of a son came in
and took no notice of his sister."

"What inhuman wretches they must be!" said Father Goriot.

"And then they both went out of the room," Mme. Couture went on,
without heeding the worthy vermicelli maker's exclamation;
"father and son bowed to me, and asked me to excuse them on
account of urgent business! That is the history of our call.
Well, he has seen his daughter at any rate. How he can refuse to
acknowledge her I cannot think, for they are as alike as two
peas."

The boarders dropped in one after another, interchanging
greetings and empty jokes that certain classes of Parisians
regard as humorous and witty. Dulness is their prevailing
ingredient, and the whole point consists in mispronouncing a word
or a gesture. This kind of argot is always changing. The essence
of the jest consists in some catchword suggested by a political
event, an incident in the police courts, a street song, or a bit
of burlesque at some theatre, and forgotten in a month. Anything
and everything serves to keep up a game of battledore and
shuttlecock with words and ideas. The diorama, a recent
invention, which carried an optical illusion a degree further
than panoramas, had given rise to a mania among art students for
ending every word with RAMA. The Maison Vauquer had caught the
infection from a young artist among the boarders.

"Well, Monsieur-r-r Poiret," said the employe from the Museum,
"how is your health-orama?" Then, without waiting for an answer,
he turned to Mme. Couture and Victorine with a "Ladies, you seem
melancholy."

"Is dinner ready?" cried Horace Bianchon, a medical student, and
a friend of Rastignac's; "my stomach is sinking usque ad
talones."

"There is an uncommon frozerama outside," said Vautrin. "Make
room there, Father Goriot! Confound it, your foot covers the
whole front of the stove."

"Illustrious M. Vautrin," put in Bianchon, "why do you say
frozerama? It is incorrect; it should be frozenrama."

"No, it shouldn't," said the official from the Museum; "frozerama
is right by the same rule that you say 'My feet are froze.' "

"Ah! ah!"

"Here is his Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the
Law of Contraries," cried Bianchon, seizing Eugene by the throat,
and almost throttling him.

"Hallo there! hallo!"

Mlle. Michonneau came noiselessly in, bowed to the rest of the
party, and took her place beside the three women without saying a
word.

"That old bat always makes me shudder," said Bianchon in a low
voice, indicating Mlle. Michonneau to Vautrin. "I have studied
Gall's system, and I am sure she has the bump of Judas."

"Then you have seen a case before?" said Vautrin.

"Who has not?" answered Bianchon. "Upon my word, that ghastly old
maid looks just like one of the long worms that will gnaw a beam
through, give them time enough."

"That is the way, young man," returned he of the forty years and
the dyed whiskers:

  "The rose has lived the life of a rose--
  A morning's space."

"Aha! here is a magnificent soupe-au-rama," cried Poiret as
Christophe came in bearing the soup with cautious heed.

"I beg your pardon, sir," said Mme. Vauquer; "it is soupe aux
choux."

All the young men roared with laughter.

"Had you there, Poiret!"

"Poir-r-r-rette! she had you there!"

"Score two points to Mamma Vauquer," said Vautrin.

"Did any of you notice the fog this morning?" asked the official.

"It was a frantic fog," said Bianchon, "a fog unparalleled,
doleful, melancholy, sea-green, asthmatical--a Goriot of a fog!"

"A Goriorama," said the art student, "because you couldn't see a
thing in it."

"Hey! Milord Gaoriotte, they air talking about yoo-o-ou!"

Father Goriot, seated at the lower end of the table, close to the
door through which the servant entered, raised his face; he had
smelt at a scrap of bread that lay under his table napkin, an old
trick acquired in his commercial capacity, that still showed
itself at times.

"Well," Madame Vauquer cried in sharp tones, that rang above the
rattle of spoons and plates and the sound of other voices, "and
is there anything the matter with the bread?"

"Nothing whatever, madame," he answered; "on the contrary, it is
made of the best quality of corn; flour from Etampes."

"How could you tell?" asked Eugene.

"By the color, by the flavor."

"You knew the flavor by the smell, I suppose," said Mme. Vauquer.
"You have grown so economical, you will find out how to live on
the smell of cooking at last."

"Take out a patent for it, then," cried the Museum official; "you
would make a handsome fortune."

"Never mind him," said the artist; "he does that sort of thing to
delude us into thinking that he was a vermicelli maker."

"Your nose is a corn-sampler, it appears?" inquired the official.

"Corn WHAT?" asked Bianchon.

"Corn-el."

"Corn-et."

"Corn-elian."

"Corn-ice."

"Corn-ucopia."

"Corn-crake."

"Corn-cockle."

"Corn-orama."

The eight responses came like a rolling fire from every part of
the room, and the laughter that followed was the more uproarious
because poor Father Goriot stared at the others with a puzzled
look, like a foreigner trying to catch the meaning of words in a
language which he does not understand.

"Corn? . . ." he said, turning to Vautrin, his next neighbor.

"Corn on your foot, old man!" said Vautrin, and he drove Father
Goriot's cap down over his eyes by a blow on the crown.

The poor old man thus suddenly attacked was for a moment too
bewildered to do anything. Christophe carried off his plate,
thinking that he had finished his soup, so that when Goriot had
pushed back his cap from his eyes his spoon encountered the
table. Every one burst out laughing. "You are a disagreeable
joker, sir," said the old man, "and if you take any further
liberties with me----"

"Well, what then, old boy?" Vautrin interrupted.

"Well, then, you shall pay dearly for it some day----"

"Down below, eh?" said the artist, "in the little dark corner
where they put naughty boys."

"Well, mademoiselle," Vautrin said, turning to Victorine, "you
are eating nothing. So papa was refractory, was he?"

"A monster!" said Mme. Couture.

"Mademoiselle might make application for aliment pending her
suit; she is not eating anything. Eh! eh! just see how Father
Goriot is staring at Mlle. Victorine."

The old man had forgotten his dinner, he was so absorbed in
gazing at the poor girl; the sorrow in her face was
unmistakable,--the slighted love of a child whose father would
not recognize her.

"We are mistaken about Father Goriot, my dear boy," said Eugene
in a low voice. "He is not an idiot, nor wanting in energy. Try
your Gall system on him, and let me know what you think. I saw
him crush a silver dish last night as if it had been made of wax;
there seems to be something extra-ordinary going on in his mind
just now, to judge by his face. His life is so mysterious that it
must be worth studying. Oh! you may laugh, Bianchon; I am not
joking."

"The man is a subject, is he?" said Bianchon; "all right! I will
dissect him, if he will give me the chance."

"No; feel his bumps."

"Hm!--his stupidity might perhaps be contagious."



The next day Rastignac dressed himself very elegantly, and about
three o'clock in the afternoon went to call on Mme. de Restaud.
On the way thither he indulged in the wild intoxicating dreams
which fill a young head so full of delicious excitement. Young
men at his age take no account of obstacles nor of dangers; they
see success in every direction; imagination has free play, and
turns their lives into a romance; they are saddened or
discouraged by the collapse of one of the visionary schemes that
have no existence save in their heated fancy. If youth were not
ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

Eugene took unheard-of pains to keep himself in a spotless
condition, but on his way through the streets he began to think
about Mme. de Restaud and what he should say to her. He equipped
himself with wit, rehearsed repartees in the course of an
imaginary conversation, and prepared certain neat speeches a la
Talleyrand, conjuring up a series of small events which should
prepare the way for the declaration on which he had based his
future; and during these musings the law student was bespattered
with mud, and by the time he reached the Palais Royal he was
obliged to have his boots blacked and his trousers brushed.

"If I were rich," he said, as he changed the five-franc piece he
had brought with him in case anything might happen, "I would take
a cab, then I could think at my ease."

At last he reached the Rue du Helder, and asked for the Comtesse
de Restaud. He bore the contemptuous glances of the servants, who
had seen him cross the court on foot, with the cold fury of a man
who knows that he will succeed some day. He understood the
meaning of their glances at once, for he had felt his inferiority
as soon as he entered the court, where a smart cab was waiting.
All the delights of life in Paris seemed to be implied by this
visible and manifest sign of luxury and extravagance. A fine
horse, in magnificent harness, was pawing the ground, and all at
once the law student felt out of humor with himself. Every
compartment in his brain which he had thought to find so full of
wit was bolted fast; he grew positively stupid. He sent up his
name to the Countess, and waited in the ante-chamber, standing on
one foot before a window that looked out upon the court;
mechanically he leaned his elbow against the sash, and stared
before him. The time seemed long; he would have left the house
but for the southern tenacity of purpose which works miracles
when it is single-minded.

"Madame is in her boudoir, and cannot see any one at present,
sir," said the servant. "She gave me no answer; but if you will
go into the dining-room, there is some one already there."

Rastignac was impressed with a sense of the formidable power of
the lackey who can accuse or condemn his masters by a word; he
coolly opened the door by which the man had just entered the
ante-chamber, meaning, no doubt, to show these insolent flunkeys
that he was familiar with the house; but he found that he had
thoughtlessly precipitated himself into a small room full of
dressers, where lamps were standing, and hot-water pipes, on
which towels were being dried; a dark passage and a back
staircase lay beyond it. Stifled laughter from the ante-chamber
added to his confusion.

"This way to the drawing-room, sir," said the servant, with the
exaggerated respect which seemed to be one more jest at his
expense.

Eugene turned so quickly that he stumbled against a bath. By good
luck, he managed to keep his hat on his head, and saved it from
immersion in the water; but just as he turned, a door opened at
the further end of the dark passage, dimly lighted by a small
lamp. Rastignac heard voices and the sound of a kiss; one of the
speakers was Mme. de Restaud, the other was Father Goriot. Eugene
followed the servant through the dining-room into the drawing-
room; he went to a window that looked out into the courtyard, and
stood there for a while. He meant to know whether this Goriot was
really the Goriot that he knew. His heart beat unwontedly fast;
he remembered Vautrin's hideous insinuations. A well-dressed
young man suddenly emerged from the room almost as Eugene entered
it, saying impatiently to the servant who stood at the door: "I
am going, Maurice. Tell Madame la Comtesse that I waited more
than half an hour for her."

Whereupon this insolent being, who, doubtless, had a right to be
insolent, sang an Italian trill, and went towards the window
where Eugene was standing, moved thereto quite as much by a
desire to see the student's face as by a wish to look out into
the courtyard.

"But M. le Comte had better wait a moment longer; madame is
disengaged," said Maurice, as he returned to the ante-chamber.

Just at that moment Father Goriot appeared close to the gate; he
had emerged from a door at the foot of the back staircase. The
worthy soul was preparing to open his umbrella regardless of the
fact that the great gate had opened to admit a tilbury, in which
a young man with a ribbon at his button-hole was seated. Father
Goriot had scarcely time to start back and save himself. The
horse took fright at the umbrella, swerved, and dashed forward
towards the flight of steps. The young man looked round in
annoyance, saw Father Goriot, and greeted him as he went out with
constrained courtesy, such as people usually show to a money-
lender so long as they require his services, or the sort of
respect they feel it necessary to show for some one whose
reputation has been blown upon, so that they blush to acknowledge
his acquaintance. Father Goriot gave him a little friendly nod
and a good-natured smile. All this happened with lightning speed.
Eugene was so deeply interested that he forgot that he was not
alone till he suddenly heard the Countess' voice.

"Oh! Maxime, were you going away?" she said reproachfully, with a
shade of pique in her manner. The Countess had not seen the
incident nor the entrance of the tilbury. Rastignac turned
abruptly and saw her standing before him, coquettishly dressed in
a loose white cashmere gown with knots of rose-colored ribbon
here and there; her hair was carelessly coiled about her head, as
is the wont of Parisian women in the morning; there was a soft
fragrance about her--doubtless she was fresh from a bath;--her
graceful form seemed more flexible, her beauty more luxuriant.
Her eyes glistened. A young man can see everything at a glance;
he feels the radiant influence of woman as a plant discerns and
absorbs its nutriment from the air; he did not need to touch her
hands to feel their cool freshness. He saw faint rose tints
through the cashmere of the dressing gown; it had fallen slightly
open, giving glimpses of a bare throat, on which the student's
eyes rested. The Countess had no need of the adventitious aid of
corsets; her girdle defined the outlines of her slender waist;
her throat was a challenge to love; her feet, thrust into
slippers, were daintily small. As Maxime took her hand and kissed
it, Eugene became aware of Maxime's existence, and the Countess
saw Eugene.

"Oh! is that you M. de Rastignac? I am very glad to see you," she
said, but there was something in her manner that a shrewd
observer would have taken as a hint to depart.

Maxime, as the Countess Anastasie had called the young man with
the haughty insolence of bearing, looked from Eugene to the lady,
and from the lady to Eugene; it was sufficiently evident that he
wished to be rid of the latter. An exact and faithful rendering
of the glance might be given in the words: "Look here, my dear; I
hope you intend to send this little whipper-snapper about his
business."

The Countess consulted the young man's face with an intent
submissiveness that betrays all the secrets of a woman's heart,
and Rastignac all at once began to hate him violently. To begin
with, the sight of the fair carefully arranged curls on the
other's comely head had convinced him that his own crop was
hideous; Maxime's boots, moreover, were elegant and spotless,
while his own, in spite of all his care, bore some traces of his
recent walk; and, finally, Maxime's overcoat fitted the outline
of his figure gracefully, he looked like a pretty woman, while
Eugene was wearing a black coat at half-past two. The quick-
witted child of the Charente felt the disadvantage at which he
was placed beside this tall, slender dandy, with the clear gaze
and the pale face, one of those men who would ruin orphan
children without scruple. Mme. de Restaud fled into the next room
without waiting for Eugene to speak; shaking out the skirts of
her dressing-gown in her flight, so that she looked like a white
butterfly, and Maxime hurried after her. Eugene, in a fury,
followed Maxime and the Countess, and the three stood once more
face to face by the hearth in the large drawing-room. The law
student felt quite sure that the odious Maxime found him in the
way, and even at the risk of displeasing Mme. de Restaud, he
meant to annoy the dandy. It had struck him all at once that he
had seen the young man before at Mme. de Beauseant's ball; he
guessed the relation between Maxime and Mme. de Restaud; and with
the youthful audacity that commits prodigious blunders or
achieves signal success, he said to himself, "This is my rival; I
mean to cut him out."

Rash resolve! He did not know that M. le Comte Maxime de Trailles
would wait till he was insulted, so as to fire first and kill his
man. Eugene was a sportsman and a good shot, but he had not yet
hit the bulls's eye twenty times out of twenty-two. The young
Count dropped into a low chair by the hearth, took up the tongs,
and made up the fire so violently and so sulkily, that
Anastasie's fair face suddenly clouded over. She turned to
Eugene, with a cool, questioning glance that asked plainly, "Why
do you not go?" a glance which well-bred people regard as a cue
to make their exit.

Eugene assumed an amiable expression.

"Madame," he began, "I hastened to call upon you----"

He stopped short. The door opened, and the owner of the tilbury
suddenly appeared. He had left his hat outside, and did not greet
the Countess; he looked meditatively at Rastignac, and held out
his hand to Maxime with a cordial "Good morning," that astonished
Eugene not a little. The young provincial did not understand the
amenities of a triple alliance.

"M. de Restaud," said the Countess, introducing her husband to
the law student.

Eugene bowed profoundly.

"This gentleman," she continued, presenting Eugene to her
husband, "is M. de Rastignac; he is related to Mme. la Vicomtesse
de Beauseant through the Marcillacs; I had the pleasure of
meeting him at her last ball."

Related to Mme. la Vicomtesse de Beauseant through the
Marcillacs! These words, on which the countess threw ever so
slight an emphasis, by reason of the pride that the mistress of a
house takes in showing that she only receives people of
distinction as visitors in her house, produced a magical effect.
The Count's stiff manner relaxed at once as he returned the
student's bow.

"Delighted to have an opportunity of making your acquaintance,"
he said.

Maxime de Trailles himself gave Eugene an uneasy glance, and
suddenly dropped his insolent manner. The mighty name had all the
power of a fairy's wand; those closed compartments in the
southern brain flew open again; Rastignac's carefully drilled
faculties returned. It was as if a sudden light had pierced the
obscurity of this upper world of Paris, and he began to see,
though everything was indistinct as yet. Mme. Vauquer's lodging-
house and Father Goriot were very far remote from his thoughts.

"I thought that the Marcillacs were extinct," the Comte de
Restaud said, addressing Eugene.

"Yes, they are extinct," answered the law student. "My great-
uncle, the Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress of the
Marcillac family. They had only one daughter, who married the
Marechal de Clarimbault, Mme. de Beauseant's grandfather on the
mother's side. We are the younger branch of the family, and the
younger branch is all the poorer because my great-uncle, the
Vice-Admiral, lost all that he had in the King's service. The
Government during the Revolution refused to admit our claims when
the Compagnie des Indes was liquidated."

"Was not your great-uncle in command of the Vengeur before 1789?"

"Yes."

"Then he would be acquainted with my grandfather, who commanded
the Warwick."

Maxime looked at Mme. de Restaud and shrugged his shoulders, as
who should say, "If he is going to discuss nautical matters with
that fellow, it is all over with us." Anastasie understood the
glance that M. de Trailles gave her. With a woman's admirable
tact, she began to smile and said:

"Come with me, Maxime; I have something to say to you. We will
leave you two gentlemen to sail in company on board the Warwick
and the Vengeur."

She rose to her feet and signed to Maxime to follow her, mirth
and mischief in her whole attitude, and the two went in the
direction of the boudoir. The morganatic couple (to use a
convenient German expression which has no exact equivalent) had
reached the door, when the Count interrupted himself in his talk
with Eugene.

"Anastasie!" he cried pettishly, "just stay a moment, dear; you
know very well that----"

"I am coming back in a minute," she interrupted; "I have a
commission for Maxime to execute, and I want to tell him about
it."

She came back almost immediately. She had noticed the inflection
in her husband's voice, and knew that it would not be safe to
retire to the boudoir; like all women who are compelled to study
their husbands' characters in order to have their own way, and
whose business it is to know exactly how far they can go without
endangering a good understanding, she was very careful to avoid
petty collisions in domestic life. It was Eugene who had brought
about this untoward incident; so the Countess looked at Maxime
and indicated the law student with an air of exasperation. M. de
Trailles addressed the Count, the Countess, and Eugene with the
pointed remark, "You are busy, I do not want to interrupt you;
good-day," and he went.

"Just wait a moment, Maxime!" the Count called after him.

"Come and dine with us," said the Countess, leaving Eugene and
her husband together once more. She followed Maxime into the
little drawing-room, where they sat together sufficiently long to
feel sure that Rastignac had taken his leave.

The law student heard their laughter, and their voices, and the
pauses in their talk; he grew malicious, exerted his
conversational powers for M. de Restaud, flattered him, and drew
him into discussions, to the end that he might see the Countess
again and discover the nature of her relations with Father
Goriot. This Countess with a husband and a lover, for Maxime
clearly was her lover, was a mystery. What was the secret tie
that bound her to the old tradesman? This mystery he meant to
penetrate, hoping by its means to gain a sovereign ascendency
over this fair typical Parisian.

"Anastasie!" the Count called again to his wife.

"Poor Maxime!" she said, addressing the young man. "Come, we must
resign ourselves. This evening----"

"I hope, Nasie," he said in her ear, "that you will give orders
not to admit that youngster, whose eyes light up like live coals
when he looks at you. He will make you a declaration, and
compromise you, and then you will compel me to kill him."

"Are you mad, Maxime?" she said. "A young lad of a student is, on
the contrary, a capital lightning-conductor; is not that so? Of
course, I mean to make Restaud furiously jealous of him."

Maxime burst out laughing, and went out, followed by the
Countess, who stood at the window to watch him into his carriage;
he shook his whip, and made his horse prance. She only returned
when the great gate had been closed after him.

"What do you think, dear?" cried the Count, her husband, "this
gentleman's family estate is not far from Verteuil, on the
Charente; his great-uncle and my grandfather were acquainted."

"Delighted to find that we have acquaintances in common," said
the Countess, with a preoccupied manner.

"More than you think," said Eugene, in a low voice.

"What do you mean?" she asked quickly.

"Why, only just now," said the student, "I saw a gentleman go out
at the gate, Father Goriot, my next door neighbor in the house
where I am lodging."

At the sound of this name, and the prefix that embellished it,
the Count, who was stirring the fire, let the tongs fall as
though they had burned his fingers, and rose to his feet.

"Sir," he cried, "you might have called him 'Monsieur Goriot'!"

The Countess turned pale at first at the sight of her husband's
vexation, then she reddened; clearly she was embarrassed, her
answer was made in a tone that she tried to make natural, and
with an air of assumed carelessness:

"You could not know any one who is dearer to us both . . ."

She broke off, glanced at the piano as if some fancy had crossed
her mind, and asked, "Are you fond of music, M. de Rastignac?"

"Exceedingly," answered Eugene, flushing, and disconcerted by a
dim suspicion that he had somehow been guilty of a clumsy piece
of folly.

"Do you sing?" she cried, going to the piano, and, sitting down
before it, she swept her fingers over the keyboard from end to
end. R-r-r-rah!

"No, madame."

The Comte de Restaud walked to and fro.

"That is a pity; you are without one great means of success.--Ca-
ro, ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non du-bi-ta-re," sang the Countess.

Eugene had a second time waved a magic wand when he uttered
Goriot's name, but the effect seemed to be entirely opposite to
that produced by the formula "related to Mme. de Beauseant." His
position was not unlike that of some visitor permitted as a favor
to inspect a private collection of curiosities, when by
inadvertence he comes into collision with a glass case full of
sculptured figures, and three or four heads, imperfectly secured,
fall at the shock. He wished the earth would open and swallow
him. Mme. de Restaud's expression was reserved and chilly, her
eyes had grown indifferent, and sedulously avoided meeting those
of the unlucky student of law.

"Madame," he said, "you wish to talk with M. de Restaud; permit
me to wish you good-day----"

The Countess interrupted him by a gesture, saying hastily,
"Whenever you come to see us, both M. de Restaud and I shall be
delighted to see you."

Eugene made a profound bow and took his leave, followed by M. de
Restaud, who insisted, in spite of his remonstrances, on
accompanying him into the hall.

"Neither your mistress nor I are at home to that gentleman when
he calls," the Count said to Maurice.

As Eugene set foot on the steps, he saw that it was raining.

"Come," said he to himself, "somehow I have just made a mess of
it, I do not know how. And now I am going to spoil my hat and
coat into the bargain. I ought to stop in my corner, grind away
at law, and never look to be anything but a boorish country
magistrate. How can I go into society, when to manage properly
you want a lot of cabs, varnished boots, gold watch chains, and
all sorts of things; you have to wear white doeskin gloves that
cost six francs in the morning, and primrose kid gloves every
evening? A fig for that old humbug of a Goriot!"

When he reached the street door, the driver of a hackney coach,
who had probably just deposited a wedding party at their door,
and asked nothing better than a chance of making a little money
for himself without his employer's knowledge, saw that Eugene had
no umbrella, remarked his black coat, white waistcoat, yellow
gloves, and varnished boots, and stopped and looked at him
inquiringly. Eugene, in the blind desperation that drives a young
man to plunge deeper and deeper into an abyss, as if he might
hope to find a fortunate issue in its lowest depths, nodded in
reply to the driver's signal, and stepped into the cab; a few
stray petals of orange blossom and scraps of wire bore witness to
its recent occupation by a wedding party.

"Where am I to drive, sir?" demanded the man, who, by this time,
had taken off his white gloves.

"Confound it!" Eugene said to himself, "I am in for it now, and
at least I will not spend cab-hire for nothing!--Drive to the
Hotel Beauseant," he said aloud.

"Which?" asked the man, a portentous word that reduced Eugene to
confusion. This young man of fashion, species incerta, did not
know that there were two Hotels Beauseant; he was not aware how
rich he was in relations who did not care about him.

"The Vicomte de Beauseant, Rue----"

"De Grenelle," interrupted the driver, with a jerk of his head.
"You see, there are the hotels of the Marquis and Comte de
Beauseant in the Rue Saint-Dominique," he added, drawing up the
step.

"I know all about that," said Eugene, severely.--"Everybody is
laughing at me to-day, it seems!" he said to himself, as he
deposited his hat on the opposite seat. "This escapade will cost
me a king's ransom, but, at any rate, I shall call on my so-
called cousin in a thoroughly aristocratic fashion. Goriot has
cost me ten francs already, the old scoundrel. My word! I will
tell Mme. de Beauseant about my adventure; perhaps it may amuse
her. Doubtless she will know the secret of the criminal relation
between that handsome woman and the old rat without a tail. It
would be better to find favor in my cousin's eyes than to come in
contact with that shameless woman, who seems to me to have very
expensive tastes. Surely the beautiful Vicomtesse's personal
interest would turn the scale for me, when the mere mention of
her name produces such an effect. Let us look higher. If you set
yourself to carry the heights of heaven, you must face God."

The innumerable thoughts that surged through his brain might be
summed up in these phrases. He grew calmer, and recovered
something of his assurance as he watched the falling rain. He
told himself that though he was about to squander two of the
precious five-franc pieces that remained to him, the money was
well laid out in preserving his coat, boots, and hat; and his
cabman's cry of "Gate, if you please," almost put him in spirits.
A Swiss, in scarlet and gold, appeared, the great door groaned on
its hinges, and Rastignac, with sweet satisfaction, beheld his
equipage pass under the archway and stop before the flight of
steps beneath the awning. The driver, in a blue-and-red
greatcoat, dismounted and let down the step. As Eugene stepped
out of the cab, he heard smothered laughter from the peristyle.
Three or four lackeys were making merry over the festal
appearance of the vehicle. In another moment the law student was
enlightened as to the cause of their hilarity; he felt the full
force of the contrast between his equipage and one of the
smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with powdered hair,
seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited horses,
who stood chafing the bit. In Mme. de Restaud's courtyard, in the
Chaussee d'Antin, he had seen the neat turnout of a young man of
six-and-twenty; in the Faubourg Saint-Germain he found the
luxurious equipage of a man of rank; thirty thousand francs would
not have purchased it.

"Who can be here?" said Eugene to himself. He began to
understand, though somewhat tardily, that he must not expect to
find many women in Paris who were not already appropriated, and
that the capture of one of these queens would be likely to cost
something more than bloodshed. "Confound it all! I expect my
cousin also has her Maxime."

He went up the steps, feeling that he was a blighted being. The
glass door was opened for him; the servants were as solemn as
jackasses under the curry comb. So far, Eugene had only been in
the ballroom on the ground floor of the Hotel Beauseant; the fete
had followed so closely on the invitation, that he had not had
time to call on his cousin, and had therefore never seen Mme. de
Beauseant's apartments; he was about to behold for the first time
a great lady among the wonderful and elegant surroundings that
reveal her character and reflect her daily life. He was the more
curious, because Mme. de Restaud's drawing-room had provided him
with a standard of comparison.

At half-past four the Vicomtesse de Beauseant was visible. Five
minutes earlier she would not have received her cousin, but
Eugene knew nothing of the recognized routine of various houses
in Paris. He was conducted up the wide, white-painted, crimson-
carpeted staircase, between the gilded balusters and masses of
flowering plants, to Mme. de Beauseant's apartments. He did not
know the rumor current about Mme. de Beauseant, one of the
biographies told, with variations, in whispers, every evening in
the salons of Paris.

For three years past her name had been spoken of in connection
with that of one of the most wealthy and distinguished Portuguese
nobles, the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent
liaisons which possess so much charm for the two thus attached to
each other that they find the presence of a third person
intolerable. The Vicomte de Beauseant, therefore, had himself set
an example to the rest of the world by respecting, with as good a
grace as might be, this morganatic union. Any one who came to
call on the Vicomtesse in the early days of this friendship was
sure to find the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto there. As, under the
circumstances, Mme. de Beauseant could not very well shut her
door against these visitors, she gave them such a cold reception,
and showed so much interest in the study of the ceiling, that no
one could fail to understand how much he bored her; and when it
became known in Paris that Mme. de Beauseant was bored by callers
between two and four o'clock, she was left in perfect solitude
during that interval. She went to the Bouffons or to the Opera
with M. de Beauseant and M. d'Ajuda-Pinto; and M. de Beauseant,
like a well-bred man of the world, always left his wife and the
Portuguese as soon as he had installed them. But M. d'Ajuda-Pinto
must marry, and a Mlle. de Rochefide was the young lady. In the
whole fashionable world there was but one person who as yet knew
nothing of the arrangement, and that was Mme. de Beauseant. Some
of her friends had hinted at the possibility, and she had laughed
at them, believing that envy had prompted those ladies to try to
make mischief. And now, though the bans were about to be
published, and although the handsome Portuguese had come that day
to break the news to the Vicomtesse, he had not found courage as
yet to say one word about his treachery. How was it? Nothing is
doubtless more difficult than the notification of an ultimatum of
this kind. There are men who feel more at their ease when they
stand up before another man who threatens their lives with sword
or pistol than in the presence of a woman who, after two hours of
lamentations and reproaches, falls into a dead swoon and requires
salts. At this moment, therefore, M. d'Ajuda-Pinto was on thorns,
and anxious to take his leave. He told himself that in some way
or other the news would reach Mme. de Beauseant; he would write,
it would be much better to do it by letter, and not to utter the
words that should stab her to the heart.

So when the servant announced M. Eugene de Rastignac, the Marquis
d'Ajuda-Pinto trembled with joy. To be sure, a loving woman shows
even more ingenuity in inventing doubts of her lover than in
varying the monotony of his happiness; and when she is about to
be forsaken, she instinctively interprets every gesture as
rapidly as Virgil's courser detected the presence of his
companion by snuffing the breeze. It was impossible, therefore,
that Mme. de Beauseant should not detect that involuntary thrill
of satisfaction; slight though it was, it was appalling in its
artlessness.

Eugene had yet to learn that no one in Paris should present
himself in any house without first making himself acquainted with
the whole history of its owner, and of its owner's wife and
family, so that he may avoid making any of the terrible blunders
which in Poland draw forth the picturesque exclamation, "Harness
five bullocks to your cart!" probably because you will need them
all to pull you out of the quagmire into which a false step has
plunged you. If, down to the present day, our language has no
name for these conversational disasters, it is probably because
they are believed to be impossible, the publicity given in Paris
to every scandal is so prodigious. After the awkward incident at
Mme. de Restaud's, no one but Eugene could have reappeared in his
character of bullock-driver in Mme. de Beauseant's drawing-room.
But if Mme. de Restaud and M. de Trailles had found him horribly
in the way, M. d'Ajuda hailed his coming with relief.

"Good-bye," said the Portuguese, hurrying to the door, as Eugene
made his entrance into a dainty little pink-and-gray drawing-
room, where luxury seemed nothing more than good taste.

"Until this evening," said Mme. de Beauseant, turning her head to
give the Marquis a glance. "We are going to the Bouffons, are we
not?"

"I cannot go," he said, with his fingers on the door handle.

Mme. de Beauseant rose and beckoned to him to return. She did not
pay the slightest attention to Eugene, who stood there dazzled by
the sparkling marvels around him; he began to think that this was
some story out of the Arabian Nights made real, and did not know
where to hide himself, when the woman before him seemed to be
unconscious of his existence. The Vicomtesse had raised the
forefinger of her right hand, and gracefully signed to the
Marquis to seat himself beside her. The Marquis felt the
imperious sway of passion in her gesture; he came back towards
her. Eugene watched him, not without a feeling of envy.

"That is the owner of the brougham!" he said to himself. "But is
it necessary to have a pair of spirited horses, servants in
livery, and torrents of gold to draw a glance from a woman here
in Paris?"

The demon of luxury gnawed at his heart, greed burned in his
veins, his throat was parched with the thirst of gold.

He had a hundred and thirty francs every quarter. His father,
mother, brothers, sisters, and aunt did not spend two hundred
francs a month among them. This swift comparison between his
present condition and the aims he had in view helped to benumb
his faculties.

"Why not?" the Vicomtesse was saying, as she smiled at the
Portuguese. "Why cannot you come to the Italiens?"

"Affairs! I am to dine with the English Ambassador."

"Throw him over."

When a man once enters on a course of deception, he is compelled
to add lie to lie. M. d'Ajuda therefore said, smiling, "Do you
lay your commands on me?"

"Yes, certainly."

"That was what I wanted to have you say to me," he answered,
dissembling his feelings in a glance which would have reassured
any other woman.

He took the Vicomtesse's hand, kissed it, and went.

Eugene ran his fingers through his hair, and constrained himself
to bow. He thought that now Mme. de Beauseant would give him her
attention; but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed to a window in
the gallery, and watched M. d'Ajuda step into his carriage; she
listened to the order that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it
to the coachman:

"To M. de Rochefide's house."

Those words, and the way in which M. d'Ajuda flung himself back
in the carriage, were like a lightning flash and a thunderbolt
for her; she walked back again with a deadly fear gnawing at her
heart. The most terrible catastrophes only happen among the
heights. The Vicomtesse went to her own room, sat down at a
table, and took up a sheet of dainty notepaper.

  "When, instead of dining with the English Ambassador,"
  she wrote, "you go to the Rochefides, you owe me an
  explanation, which I am waiting to hear."

She retraced several of the letters, for her hand was trembling
so that they were indistinct; then she signed the note with an
initial C for "Claire de Bourgogne," and rang the bell.

"Jacques," she said to the servant, who appeared immediately,
"take this note to M. de Rochefide's house at half-past seven and
ask for the Marquis d'Ajuda. If M. d'Ajuda is there, leave the
note without waiting for an answer; if he is not there, bring the
note back to me."

"Madame la Vicomtess, there is a visitor in the drawing-room."

"Ah! yes, of course," she said, opening the door.

Eugene was beginning to feel very uncomfortable, but at last the
Vicomtesse appeared; she spoke to him, and the tremulous tones of
her voice vibrated through his heart.

"Pardon me, monsieur," she said; "I had a letter to write. Now I
am quite at liberty."

She scarcely knew what she was saying, for even as she spoke she
thought, "Ah! he means to marry Mlle. de Rochefide? But is he
still free? This evening the marriage shall be broken off, or
else . . . But before to-morrow I shall know."

"Cousin . . ." the student replied.

"Eh?" said the Countess, with an insolent glance that sent a cold
shudder through Eugene; he understood what that "Eh?" meant; he
had learned a great deal in three hours, and his wits were on the
alert. He reddened:

"Madame . . ." he began; he hesitated a moment, and then went on.
"Pardon me; I am in such need of protection that the nearest
scrap of relationship could do me no harm."

Mme. de Beauseant smiled but there was sadness in her smile; even
now she felt forebodings of the coming pain, the air she breathed
was heavy with the storm that was about to burst.

"If you knew how my family are situated," he went on, "you would
love to play the part of a beneficent fairy godmother who
graciously clears the obstacles from the path of her protege."

"Well, cousin," she said, laughing, "and how can I be of service
to you?"

"But do I know even that? I am distantly related to you, and this
obscure and remote relationship is even now a perfect godsend to
me. You have confused my ideas; I cannot remember the things that
I meant to say to you. I know no one else here in Paris. . . .
Ah! if I could only ask you to counsel me, ask you to look upon
me as a poor child who would fain cling to the hem of your dress,
who would lay down his life for you."

"Would you kill a man for me?"

"Two," said Eugene.

"You, child. Yes, you are a child," she said, keeping back the
tears that came to her eyes; "you would love sincerely."

"Oh!" he cried, flinging up his head.

The audacity of the student's answer interested the Vicomtesse in
him. The southern brain was beginning to scheme for the first
time. Between Mme. de Restaud's blue boudoir and Mme. de
Beauseant's rose-colored drawing-room he had made a three years'
advance in a kind of law which is not a recognized study in
Paris, although it is a sort of higher jurisprudence, and, when
well understood, is a highroad to success of every kind.

"Ah! that is what I meant to say!" said Eugene. "I met Mme. de
Restaud at your ball, and this morning I went to see her.

"You must have been very much in the way," said Mme. de
Beauseant, smiling as she spoke.

"Yes, indeed. I am a novice, and my blunders will set every one
against me, if you do not give me your counsel. I believe that in
Paris it is very difficult to meet with a young, beautiful, and
wealthy woman of fashion who would be willing to teach me, what
you women can explain so well--life. I shall find a M. de
Trailles everywhere. So I have come to you to ask you to give me
a key to a puzzle, to entreat you to tell me what sort of blunder
I made this morning. I mentioned an old man----"

"Madame la Duchess de Langeais," Jacques cut the student short;
Eugene gave expression to his intense annoyance by a gesture.

"If you mean to succeed," said the Vicomtesse in a low voice, "in
the first place you must not be so demonstrative."

"Ah! good morning, dear," she continued, and rising and crossing
the room, she grasped the Duchess' hands as affectionately as if
they had been sisters; the Duchess responded in the prettiest and
most gracious way.

"Two intimate friends!" said Rastignac to himself. "Henceforward
I shall have two protectresses; those two women are great
friends, no doubt, and this newcomer will doubtless interest
herself in her friend's cousin."

"To what happy inspiration do I owe this piece of good fortune,
dear Antoinette?" asked Mme. de Beauseant.

"Well, I saw M. d'Ajuda-Pinto at M. de Rochefide's door, so I
thought that if I came I should find you alone."

Mme. de Beauseant's mouth did not tighten, her color did not
rise, her expression did not alter, or rather, her brow seemed to
clear as the Duchess uttered those deadly words.

"If I had known that you were engaged----" the speaker added,
glancing at Eugene.

"This gentleman is M. Eugene de Rastignac, one of my cousins,"
said the Vicomtesse. "Have you any news of General de
Montriveau?" she continued. "Serizy told me yesterday that he
never goes anywhere now; has he been to see you to-day?"

It was believed that the Duchess was desperately in love with M.
de Montriveau, and that he was a faithless lover; she felt the
question in her very heart, and her face flushed as she answered:

"He was at the Elysee yesterday."

"In attendance?"

"Claire," returned the Duchess, and hatred overflowed in the
glances she threw at Mme. de Beauseant; "of course you know that
M. d'Ajuda-Pinto is going to marry Mlle. de Rochefide; the bans
will be published to-morrow."

This thrust was too cruel; the Vicomtesse's face grew white, but
she answered, laughing, "One of those rumors that fools amuse
themselves with. What should induce M. d'Ajuda to take one of the
noblest names in Portugal to the Rochefides? The Rochefides were
only ennobled yesterday."

"But Bertha will have two hundred thousand livres a year, they
say."

"M. d'Ajuda is too wealthy to marry for money."

"But, my dear, Mlle. de Rochefide is a charming girl."

"Indeed?"

"And, as a matter of fact, he is dining with them to-day; the
thing is settled. It is very surprising to me that you should
know so little about it."

Mme. de Beauseant turned to Rastignac. "What was the blunder that
you made, monsieur?" she asked. "The poor boy is only just
launched into the world, Antoinette, so that he understands
nothing of all this that we are speaking of. Be merciful to him,
and let us finish our talk to-morrow. Everything will be
announced to-morrow, you know, and your kind informal
communication can be accompanied by official confirmation."

The Duchess gave Eugene one of those insolent glances that
measure a man from head to foot, and leave him crushed and
annihilated.

"Madame, I have unwittingly plunged a dagger into Mme. de
Restaud's heart; unwittingly--therein lies my offence," said the
student of law, whose keen brain had served him sufficiently
well, for he had detected the biting epigrams that lurked beneath
this friendly talk. "You continue to receive, possibly you fear,
those who know the amount of pain that they deliberately inflict;
but a clumsy blunderer who has no idea how deeply he wounds is
looked upon as a fool who does not know how to make use of his
opportunities, and every one despise him."

Mme. de Beauseant gave the student a glance, one of those glances
in which a great soul can mingle dignity and gratitude. It was
like balm to the law student, who was still smarting under the
Duchess' insolent scrutiny; she had looked at him as an
auctioneer might look at some article to appraise its value.

"Imagine, too, that I had just made some progress with the Comte
de Restaud; for I should tell you, madame," he went on, turning
to the Duchess with a mixture of humility and malice in his
manner, "that as yet I am only a poor devil of a student, very
much alone in the world, and very poor----"

"You should not tell us that, M. de Rastignac. We women never
care about anything that no one else will take."

"Bah!" said Eugene. "I am only two-and-twenty, and I must make up
my mind to the drawbacks of my time of life. Besides, I am
confessing my sins, and it would be impossible to kneel in a more
charming confessional; you commit your sins in one drawing-room,
and receive absolution for them in another."

The Duchess' expression grew colder, she did not like the
flippant tone of these remarks, and showed that she considered
them to be in bad taste by turning to the Vicomtesse with--"This
gentleman has only just come----"

Mme. de Beauseant began to laugh outright at her cousin and at
the Duchess both.

"He has only just come to Paris, dear, and is in search of some
one who will give him lessons in good taste."

"Mme. la Duchesse," said Eugene, "is it not natural to wish to be
initiated into the mysteries which charm us?" ("Come, now," he
said to himself, "my language is superfinely elegant, I'm sure.")

"But Mme. de Restaud is herself, I believe, M. de Trailles'
pupil," said the Duchess.

"Of that I had no idea, madame," answered the law student, "so I
rashly came between them. In fact, I got on very well with the
lady's husband, and his wife tolerated me for a time until I took
it into my head to tell them that I knew some one of whom I had
just caught a glimpse as he went out by a back staircase, a man
who had given the Countess a kiss at the end of a passage."

"Who was it?" both women asked together.

"An old man who lives at the rate of two louis a month in the
Faubourg Saint-Marceau, where I, a poor student, lodge likewise.
He is a truly unfortunate creature, everybody laughs at him--we
all call him 'Father Goriot.' "

"Why, child that you are," cried the Vicomtesse, "Mme. de Restaud
was a Mlle. Goriot!"

"The daughter of a vermicelli manufacturer," the Duchess added;
"and when the little creature went to Court, the daughter of a
pastry-cook was presented on the same day. Do you remember,
Claire? The King began to laugh, and made some joke in Latin
about flour. People--what was it?--people----"

"Ejusdem farinae," said Eugene.

"Yes, that was it," said the Duchess.

"Oh! is that her father?" the law student continued, aghast.

"Yes, certainly; the old man had two daughters; he dotes on them,
so to speak, though they will scarcely acknowledge him."

"Didn't the second daughter marry a banker with a German name?"
the Vicomtesse asked, turning to Mme. de Langeais, "a Baron de
Nucingen? And her name is Delphine, is it not? Isn't she a fair-
haired woman who has a side-box at the Opera? She comes sometimes
to the Bouffons, and laughs loudly to attract attention."

The Duchess smiled and said:

"I wonder at you, dear. Why do you take so much interest in
people of that kind? One must have been as madly in love as
Restaud was, to be infatuated with Mlle. Anastasie and her flour
sacks. Oh! he will not find her a good bargain! She is in M. de
Trailles' hands, and he will ruin her."

"And they do not acknowledge their father!" Eugene repeated.

"Oh! well, yes, their father, the father, a father," replied the
Vicomtesse, "a kind father who gave them each five or six hundred
thousand francs, it is said, to secure their happiness by
marrying them well; while he only kept eight or ten thousand
livres a year for himself, thinking that his daughters would
always be his daughters, thinking that in them he would live his
life twice over again, that in their houses he should find two
homes, where he would be loved and looked up to, and made much
of. And in two years' time both his sons-in-law had turned him
out of their houses as if he were one of the lowest outcasts."

Tears came into Eugene's eyes. He was still under the spell of
youthful beliefs, he had just left home, pure and sacred feelings
had been stirred within him, and this was his first day on the
battlefield of civilization in Paris. Genuine feeling is so
infectious that for a moment the three looked at each other in
silence.

"Eh, mon Dieu!" said Mme. de Langeais; "yes, it seems very
horrible, and yet we see such things every day. Is there not a
reason for it? Tell me, dear, have you ever really thought what a
son-in-law is? A son-in-law is the man for whom we bring up, you
and I, a dear little one, bound to us very closely in innumerable
ways; for seventeen years she will be the joy of her family, its
'white soul,' as Lamartine says, and suddenly she will become its
scourge. When HE comes and takes her from us, his love from the
very beginning is like an axe laid to the root of all the old
affection in our darling's heart, and all the ties that bound her
to her family are severed. But yesterday our little daughter
thought of no one but her mother and father, as we had no thought
that was not for her; by to-morrow she will have become a hostile
stranger. The tragedy is always going on under our eyes. On the
one hand you see a father who has sacrificed himself to his son,
and his daughter-in-law shows him the last degree of insolence.
On the other hand, it is the son-in-law who turns his wife's
mother out of the house. I sometimes hear it said that there is
nothing dramatic about society in these days; but the Drama of
the Son-in-law is appalling, to say nothing of our marriages,
which have come to be very poor farces. I can explain how it all
came about in the old vermicelli maker's case. I think I
recollect that Foriot----"

"Goriot, madame."

"Yes, that Moriot was once President of his Section during the
Revolution. He was in the secret of the famous scarcity of grain,
and laid the foundation of his fortune in those days by selling
flour for ten times its cost. He had as much flour as he wanted.
My grandmother's steward sold him immense quantities. No doubt
Noriot shared the plunder with the Committee of Public Salvation,
as that sort of person always did. I recollect the steward
telling my grandmother that she might live at Grandvilliers in
complete security, because her corn was as good as a certificate
of civism. Well, then, this Loriot, who sold corn to those
butchers, has never had but one passion, they say--he idolizes
his daughters. He settled one of them under Restaud's roof, and
grafted the other into the Nucingen family tree, the Baron de
Nucingen being a rich banker who had turned Royalist. You can
quite understand that so long as Bonaparte was Emperor, the two
sons-in-law could manage to put up with the old Ninety-three; but
after the restoration of the Bourbons, M. de Restaud felt bored
by the old man's society, and the banker was still more tired of
it. His daughters were still fond of him; they wanted 'to keep
the goat and the cabbage,' so they used to see Joriot whenever
there was no one there, under pretence of affection. 'Come to-
day, papa, we shall have you all to ourselves, and that will be
much nicer!' and all that sort of thing. As for me, dear, I
believe that love has second-sight: poor Ninety-three; his heart
must have bled. He saw that his daughters were ashamed of him,
that if they loved their husbands his visits must make mischief.
So he immolated himself. He made the sacrifice because he was a
father; he went into voluntary exile. His daughters were
satisfied, so he thought that he had done the best thing he
could; but it was a family crime, and father and daughters were
accomplices. You see this sort of thing everywhere. What could
this old Doriot have been but a splash of mud in his daughters'
drawing-rooms? He would only have been in the way, and bored
other people, besides being bored himself. And this that happened
between father and daughters may happen to the prettiest woman in
Paris and the man she loves the best; if her love grows tiresome,
he will go; he will descend to the basest trickery to leave her.
It is the same with all love and friendship. Our heart is a
treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are
bankrupt. We show no more mercy to the affection that reveals its
utmost extent than we do to another kind of prodigal who has not
a penny left. Their father had given them all he had. For twenty
years he had given his whole heart to them; then, one day, he
gave them all his fortune too. The lemon was squeezed; the girls
left the rest in the gutter."

"The world is very base," said the Vicomtesse, plucking at the
threads of her shawl. She did not raise her head as she spoke;
the words that Mme. de Langeais had meant for her in the course
of her story had cut her to the quick.

"Base? Oh, no," answered the Duchess; "the world goes its own
way, that is all. If I speak in this way, it is only to show that
I am not duped by it. I think as you do," she said, pressing the
Vicomtesse's hand. "The world is a slough; let us try to live on
the heights above it."

She rose to her feet and kissed Mme. de Beauseant on the forehead
as she said: "You look very charming to-day, dear. I have never
seen such a lovely color in your cheeks before."

Then she went out with a slight inclination of the head to the
cousin.

"Father Goriot is sublime!" said Eugene to himself, as he
remembered how he had watched his neighbor work the silver vessel
into a shapeless mass that night.

Mme. de Beauseant did not hear him; she was absorbed in her own
thoughts. For several minutes the silence remained unbroken till
the law student became almost paralyzed with embarrassment, and
was equally afraid to go or stay or speak a word.

"The world is basely ungrateful and ill-natured," said the
Vicomtesse at last. "No sooner does a trouble befall you than a
friend is ready to bring the tidings and to probe your heart with
the point of a dagger while calling on you to admire the handle.
Epigrams and sarcasms already! Ah! I will defend myself!"

She raised her head like the great lady that she was, and
lightnings flashed from her proud eyes.

"Ah!" she said, as she saw Eugene, "are you there?"

"Still," he said piteously.

"Well, then, M. de Rastignac, deal with the world as it deserves.
You are determined to succeed? I will help you. You shall sound
the depths of corruption in woman; you shall measure the extent
of man's pitiful vanity. Deeply as I am versed in such learning,
there were pages in the book of life that I had not read. Now I
know all. The more cold-blooded your calculations, the further
you will go. Strike ruthlessly; you will be feared. Men and women
for you must be nothing more than post-horses; take a fresh
relay, and leave the last to drop by the roadside; in this way
you will reach the goal of your ambition. You will be nothing
here, you see, unless a woman interests herself in you; and she
must be young and wealthy, and a woman of the world. Yet, if you
have a heart, lock it carefully away like a treasure; do not let
any one suspect it, or you will be lost; you would cease to be
the executioner, you would take the victim's place. And if ever
you should love, never let your secret escape you! Trust no one
until you are very sure of the heart to which you open your
heart. Learn to mistrust every one; take every precaution for the
sake of the love which does not exist as yet. Listen, Miguel"--
the name slipped from her so naturally that she did not notice
her mistake--"there is something still more appalling than the
ingratitude of daughters who have cast off their old father and
wish that he were dead, and that is a rivalry between two
sisters. Restaud comes of a good family, his wife has been
received into their circle; she has been presented at court; and
her sister, her wealthy sister, Mme. Delphine de Nucingen, the
wife of a great capitalist, is consumed with envy, and ready to
die of spleen. There is gulf set between the sisters--indeed,
they are sisters no longer--the two women who refuse to
acknowledge their father do not acknowledge each other. So Mme.
de Nucingen would lap up all the mud that lies between the Rue
Saint-Lazare and the Rue de Grenelle to gain admittance to my
salon. She fancied that she should gain her end through de
Marsay; she has made herself de Marsay's slave, and she bores
him. De Marsay cares very little about her. If you will introduce
her to me, you will be her darling, her Benjamin; she will
idolize you. If, after that, you can love her, do so; if not,
make her useful. I will ask her to come once or twice to one of
my great crushes, but I will never receive her here in the
morning. I will bow to her when I see her, and that will be quite
sufficient. You have shut the Comtesse de Restaud's door against
you by mentioning Father Goriot's name. Yes, my good friend, you
may call at her house twenty times, and every time out of the
twenty you will find that she is not at home. The servants have
their orders, and will not admit you. Very well, then, now let
Father Goriot gain the right of entry into her sister's house for
you. The beautiful Mme. de Nucingen will give the signal for a
battle. As soon as she singles you out, other women will begin to
lose their heads about you, and her enemies and rivals and
intimate friends will all try to take you from her. There are
women who will fall in love with a man because another woman has
chosen him; like the city madams, poor things, who copy our
millinery, and hope thereby to acquire our manners. You will have
a success, and in Paris success is everything; it is the key of
power. If the women credit you with wit and talent, the men will
follow suit so long as you do not undeceive them yourself. There
will be nothing you may not aspire to; you will go everywhere,
and you will find out what the world is--an assemblage of fools
and knaves. But you must be neither the one nor the other. I am
giving you my name like Ariadne's clue of thread to take with you
into the labyrinth; make no unworthy use of it," she said, with a
queenly glance and curve of her throat; "give it back to me
unsullied. And now, go; leave me. We women also have our battles
to fight."

"And if you should ever need some one who would gladly set a
match to a train for you----"

"Well?" she asked.

He tapped his heart, smiled in answer to his cousin's smile, and
went.

It was five o'clock, and Eugene was hungry; he was afraid lest he
should not be in time for dinner, a misgiving which made him feel
that it was pleasant to be borne so quickly across Paris. This
sensation of physical comfort left his mind free to grapple with
the thoughts that assailed him. A mortification usually sends a
young man of his age into a furious rage; he shakes his fist at
society, and vows vengeance when his belief in himself is shaken.
Just then Rastignac was overwhelmed by the words, "You have shut
the Countess' door against you."

"I shall call!" he said to himself, "and if Mme. de Beauseant is
right, if I never find her at home--I . . . well, Mme. de Restaud
shall meet me in every salon in Paris. I will learn to fence and
have some pistol practice, and kill that Maxime of hers!"

"And money?" cried an inward monitor. "How about money, where is
that to come from?" And all at once the wealth displayed in the
Countess de Restaud's drawing-room rose before his eyes. That was
the luxury which Goriot's daughter had loved too well, the
gilding, the ostentatious splendor, the unintelligent luxury of
the parvenu, the riotous extravagance of a courtesan. Then the
attractive vision suddenly went under an eclipse as he remembered
the stately grandeur of the Hotel de Beauseant. As his fancy
wandered among these lofty regions in the great world of Paris,
innumerable dark thoughts gathered in his heart; his ideas
widened, and his conscience grew more elastic. He saw the world
as it is; saw how the rich lived beyond the jurisdiction of law
and public opinion, and found in success the ultima ratio mundi.

"Vautrin is right, success is virtue!" he said to himself.



Arrived in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he rushed up to his
room for ten francs wherewith to satisfy the demands of the
cabman, and went in to dinner. He glanced round the squalid room,
saw the eighteen poverty-stricken creatures about to feed like
cattle in their stalls, and the sight filled him with loathing.
The transition was too sudden, and the contrast was so violent
that it could not but act as a powerful stimulant; his ambition
developed and grew beyond all social bounds. On the one hand, he
beheld a vision of social life in its most charming and refined
forms, of quick-pulsed youth, of fair, impassioned faces invested
with all the charm of poetry, framed in a marvelous setting of
luxury or art; and, on the other hand, he saw a sombre picture,
the miry verge beyond these faces, in which passion was extinct
and nothing was left of the drama but the cords and pulleys and
bare mechanism. Mme. de Beauseant's counsels, the words uttered
in anger by the forsaken lady, her petulant offer, came to his
mind, and poverty was a ready expositor. Rastignac determined to
open two parallel trenches so as to insure success; he would be a
learned doctor of law and a man of fashion. Clearly he was still
a child! Those two lines are asymptotes, and will never meet.

"You are very dull, my lord Marquis," said Vautrin, with one of
the shrewd glances that seem to read the innermost secrets of
another mind.

"I am not in the humor to stand jokes from people who call me 'my
lord Marquis,' " answered Eugene. "A marquis here in Paris, if he
is not the veriest sham, ought to have a hundred thousand livres
a year at least; and a lodger in the Maison Vauquer is not
exactly Fortune's favorite."

Vautrin's glance at Rastignac was half-paternal, half-
contemptuous. "Puppy!" it seemed to say; "I should make one
mouthful of him!" Then he answered:

"You are in a bad humor; perhaps your visit to the beautiful
Comtesse de Restaud was not a success."

"She has shut her door against me because I told her that her
father dined at our table," cried Rastignac.

Glances were exchanged all round the room; Father Goriot looked
down.

"You have sent some snuff into my eye," he said to his neighbor,
turning a little aside to rub his hand over his face.

"Any one who molests Father Goriot will have henceforward to
reckon with me," said Eugene, looking at the old man's neighbor;
"he is worth all the rest of us put together.--I am not speaking
of the ladies," he added, turning in the direction of Mlle.
Taillefer.

Eugene's remarks produced a sensation, and his tone silenced the
dinner-table. Vautrin alone spoke. "If you are going to champion
Father Goriot, and set up for his responsible editor into the
bargain, you had need be a crack shot and know how to handle the
foils," he said, banteringly.

"So I intend," said Eugene.

"Then you are taking the field today?"

"Perhaps," Rastignac answered. "But I owe no account of myself to
any one, especially as I do not try to find out what other people
do of a night."

Vautrin looked askance at Rastignac.

"If you do not mean to be deceived by the puppets, my boy, you
must go behind and see the whole show, and not peep through holes
in the curtain. That is enough," he added, seeing that Eugene was
about to fly into a passion. "We can have a little talk whenever
you like."

There was a general feeling of gloom and constraint. Father
Goriot was so deeply dejected by the student's remark that he did
not notice the change in the disposition of his fellow-lodgers,
nor know that he had met with a champion capable of putting an
end to the persecution.

"Then, M. Goriot sitting there is the father of a countess," said
Mme. Vauquer in a low voice.

"And of a baroness," answered Rastignac.

"That is about all he is capable of," said Bianchon to Rastignac;
"I have taken a look at his head; there is only one bump--the
bump of Paternity; he must be an ETERNAL FATHER."

Eugene was too intent on his thoughts to laugh at Bianchon's
joke. He determined to profit by Mme. de Beauseant's counsels,
and was asking himself how he could obtain the necessary money.
He grew grave. The wide savannas of the world stretched before
his eyes; all things lay before him, nothing was his. Dinner came
to an end, the others went, and he was left in the dining-room.

"So you have seen my daughter?" Goriot spoke tremulously, and the
sound of his voice broke in upon Eugene's dreams. The young man
took the elder's hand, and looked at him with something like
kindness in his eyes.

"You are a good and noble man," he said. "We will have some talk
about your daughters by and by."

He rose without waiting for Goriot's answer, and went to his
room. There he wrote the following letter to his mother:--

"My Dear Mother,--Can you nourish your child from your breast
again? I am in a position to make a rapid fortune, but I want
twelve hundred francs--I must have them at all costs. Say nothing
about this to my father; perhaps he might make objections, and
unless I have the money, I may be led to put an end to myself,
and so escape the clutches of despair. I will tell you everything
when I see you. I will not begin to try to describe my present
situation; it would take volumes to put the whole story clearly
and fully. I have not been gambling, my kind mother, I owe no one
a penny; but if you would preserve the life that you gave me, you
must send me the sum I mention. As a matter of fact, I go to see
the Vicomtesse de Beauseant; she is using her influence for me; I
am obliged to go into society, and I have not a penny to lay out
on clean gloves. I can manage to exist on bread and water, or go
without food, if need be, but I cannot do without the tools with
which they cultivate the vineyards in this country. I must
resolutely make up my mind at once to make my way, or stick in
the mire for the rest of my days. I know that all your hopes are
set on me, and I want to realize them quickly. Sell some of your
old jewelry, my kind mother; I will give you other jewels very
soon. I know enough of our affairs at home to know all that such
a sacrifice means, and you must not think that I would lightly
ask you to make it; I should be a monster if I could. You must
think of my entreaty as a cry forced from me by imperative
necessity. Our whole future lies in the subsidy with which I must
begin my first campaign, for life in Paris is one continual
battle. If you cannot otherwise procure the whole of the money,
and are forced to sell our aunt's lace, tell her that I will send
her some still handsomer," and so forth.

He wrote to ask each of his sisters for their savings--would they
despoil themselves for him, and keep the sacrifice a secret from
the family? To his request he knew that they would not fail to
respond gladly, and he added to it an appeal to their delicacy by
touching the chord of honor that vibrates so loudly in young and
high-strung natures.

Yet when he had written the letters, he could not help feeling
misgivings in spite of his youthful ambition; his heart beat
fast, and he trembled. He knew the spotless nobleness of the
lives buried away in the lonely manor house; he knew what trouble
and what joy his request would cause his sisters, and how happy
they would be as they talked at the bottom of the orchard of that
dear brother of theirs in Paris. Visions rose before his eyes; a
sudden strong light revealed his sisters secretly counting over
their little store, devising some girlish stratagem by which the
money could be sent to him incognito, essaying, for the first
time in their lives, a piece of deceit that reached the sublime
in its unselfishness.

"A sister's heart is a diamond for purity, a deep sea of
tenderness!" he said to himself. He felt ashamed of those
letters.

What power there must be in the petitions put up by such hearts;
how pure the fervor that bears their souls to Heaven in prayer!
What exquisite joy they would find in self-sacrifice! What a pang
for his mother's heart if she could not send him all that he
asked for! And this noble affection, these sacrifices made at
such terrible cost, were to serve as the ladder by which he meant
to climb to Delphine de Nucingen. A few tears, like the last
grains of incense flung upon the sacred alter fire of the hearth,
fell from his eyes. He walked up and down, and despair mingled
with his emotion. Father Goriot saw him through the half-open
door.

"What is the matter, sir?" he asked from the threshold.

"Ah! my good neighbor, I am as much a son and brother as you are
a father. You do well to fear for the Comtesse Anastasie; there
is one M. Maxime de Trailles, who will be her ruin."

Father Goriot withdrew, stammering some words, but Eugene failed
to catch their meaning.

The next morning Rastignac went out to post his letters. Up to
the last moment he wavered and doubted, but he ended by flinging
them into the box. "I shall succeed!" he said to himself. So says
the gambler; so says the great captain; but the three words that
have been the salvation of some few, have been the ruin of many
more.

A few days after this Eugene called at Mme. de Restaud's house;
she was not at home. Three times he tried the experiment, and
three times he found her doors closed against him, though he was
careful to choose an hour when M. de Trailles was not there. The
Vicomtesse was right.

The student studied no longer. He put in an appearance at
lectures simply to answer to his name, and after thus attesting
his presence, departed forthwith. He had been through a reasoning
process familiar to most students. He had seen the advisability
of deferring his studies to the last moment before going up for
his examinations; he made up his mind to cram his second and
third years' work into the third year, when he meant to begin to
work in earnest, and to complete his studies in law with one
great effort. In the meantime he had fifteen months in which to
navigate the ocean of Paris, to spread the nets and set the lines
that would bring him a protectress and a fortune. Twice during
that week he saw Mme. de Beauseant; he did not go to her house
until he had seen the Marquis d'Ajuda drive away.

Victory for yet a few more days was with the great lady, the most
poetic figure in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; and the marriage of
the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto with Mlle. de Rochefide was postponed.
The dread of losing her happiness filled those days with a fever
of joy unknown before, but the end was only so much the nearer.
The Marquis d'Ajuda and the Rochefides agreed that this quarrel
and reconciliation was a very fortunate thing; Mme. de Beauseant
(so they hoped) would gradually become reconciled to the idea of
the marriage, and in the end would be brought to sacrifice
d'Ajuda's morning visits to the exigencies of a man's career,
exigencies which she must have foreseen. In spite of the most
solemn promises, daily renewed, M. d'Ajuda was playing a part,
and the Vicomtesse was eager to be deceived. "Instead of taking a
leap heroically from the window, she is falling headlong down the
staircase," said her most intimate friend, the Duchesse de
Langeais. Yet this after-glow of happiness lasted long enough for
the Vicomtesse to be of service to her young cousin. She had a
half-superstitious affection for him. Eugene had shown her
sympathy and devotion at a crisis when a woman sees no pity, no
real comfort in any eyes; when if a man is ready with soothing
flatteries, it is because he has an interested motive.

Rastignac made up his mind that he must learn the whole of
Goriot's previous history; he would come to his bearings before
attempting to board the Maison de Nucingen. The results of his
inquiries may be given briefly as follows:--

In the days before the Revolution, Jean-Joachim Goriot was simply
a workman in the employ of a vermicelli maker. He was a skilful,
thrifty workman, sufficiently enterprising to buy his master's
business when the latter fell a chance victim to the disturbances
of 1789. Goriot established himself in the Rue de la Jussienne,
close to the Corn Exchange. His plain good sense led him to
accept the position of President of the Section, so as to secure
for his business the protection of those in power at that
dangerous epoch. This prudent step had led to success; the
foundations of his fortune were laid in the time of the Scarcity
(real or artificial), when the price of grain of all kinds rose
enormously in Paris. People used to fight for bread at the
bakers' doors; while other persons went to the grocers' shops and
bought Italian paste foods without brawling over it. It was
during this year that Goriot made the money, which, at a later
time, was to give him all the advantage of the great capitalist
over the small buyer; he had, moreover, the usual luck of average
ability; his mediocrity was the salvation of him. He excited no
one's envy, it was not even suspected that he was rich till the
peril of being rich was over, and all his intelligence was
concentrated, not on political, but on commercial speculations.
Goriot was an authority second to none on all questions relating
to corn, flour, and "middlings"; and the production, storage, and
quality of grain. He could estimate the yield of the harvest, and
foresee market prices; he bought his cereals in Sicily, and
imported Russian wheat. Any one who had heard him hold forth on
the regulations that control the importation and exportation of
grain, who had seen his grasp of the subject, his clear insight
into the principles involved, his appreciation of weak points in
the way that the system worked, would have thought that here was
the stuff of which a minister is made. Patient, active, and
persevering, energetic and prompt in action, he surveyed his
business horizon with an eagle eye. Nothing there took him by
surprise; he foresaw all things, knew all that was happening, and
kept his own counsel; he was a diplomatist in his quick
comprehension of a situation; and in the routine of business he
was as patient and plodding as a soldier on the march. But beyond
this business horizon he could not see. He used to spend his
hours of leisure on the threshold of his shop, leaning against
the framework of the door. Take him from his dark little
counting-house, and he became once more the rough, slow-witted
workman, a man who cannot understand a piece of reasoning, who is
indifferent to all intellectual pleasures, and falls asleep at
the play, a Parisian Dolibom in short, against whose stupidity
other minds are powerless.

Natures of this kind are nearly all alike; in almost all of them
you will find some hidden depth of sublime affection. Two all-
absorbing affections filled the vermicelli maker's heart to the
exclusion of every other feeling; into them he seemed to put all
the forces of his nature, as he put the whole power of his brain
into the corn trade. He had regarded his wife, the only daughter
of a rich farmer of La Brie, with a devout admiration; his love
for her had been boundless. Goriot had felt the charm of a lovely
and sensitive nature, which, in its delicate strength, was the
very opposite of his own. Is there any instinct more deeply
implanted in the heart of man than the pride of protection, a
protection which is constantly exerted for a fragile and
defenceless creature? Join love thereto, the warmth of gratitude
that all generous souls feel for the source of their pleasures,
and you have the explanation of many strange incongruities in
human nature.

After seven years of unclouded happiness, Goriot lost his wife.
It was very unfortunate for him. She was beginning to gain an
ascendency over him in other ways; possibly she might have
brought that barren soil under cultivation, she might have
widened his ideas and given other directions to his thoughts. But
when she was dead, the instinct of fatherhood developed in him
till it almost became a mania. All the affection balked by death
seemed to turn to his daughters, and he found full satisfaction
for his heart in loving them. More or less brilliant proposals
were made to him from time to time; wealthy merchants or farmers
with daughters vied with each other in offering inducements to
him to marry again; but he determined to remain a widower. His
father-in-law, the only man for whom he felt a decided
friendship, gave out that Goriot had made a vow to be faithful to
his wife's memory. The frequenters of the Corn Exchange, who
could not comprehend this sublime piece of folly, joked about it
among themselves, and found a ridiculous nickname for him. One of
them ventured (after a glass over a bargain) to call him by it,
and a blow from the vermicelli maker's fist sent him headlong
into a gutter in the Rue Oblin. He could think of nothing else
when his children were concerned; his love for them made him
fidgety and anxious; and this was so well known, that one day a
competitor, who wished to get rid of him to secure the field to
himself, told Goriot that Delphine had just been knocked down by
a cab. The vermicelli maker turned ghastly pale, left the
Exchange at once, and did not return for several days afterwards;
he was ill in consequence of the shock and the subsequent relief
on discovering that it was a false alarm. This time, however, the
offender did not escape with a bruised shoulder; at a critical
moment in the man's affairs, Goriot drove him into bankruptcy,
and forced him to disappear from the Corn Exchange.

As might have been expected, the two girls were spoiled. With an
income of sixty thousand francs, Goriot scarcely spent twelve
hundred on himself, and found all his happiness in satisfying the
whims of the two girls. The best masters were engaged, that
Anastasie and Delphine might be endowed with all the
accomplishments which distinguish a good education. They had a
chaperon--luckily for them, she was a woman who had good sense
and good taste;--they learned to ride; they had a carriage for
their use; they lived as the mistress of a rich old lord might
live; they had only to express a wish, their father would hasten
to give them their most extravagant desires, and asked nothing of
them in return but a kiss. Goriot had raised the two girls to the
level of the angels; and, quite naturally, he himself was left
beneath them. Poor man! he loved them even for the pain that they
gave him.

When the girls were old enough to be married, they were left free
to choose for themselves. Each had half her father's fortune as
her dowry; and when the Comte de Restaud came to woo Anastasie
for her beauty, her social aspirations led her to leave her
father's house for a more exalted sphere. Delphine wished for
money; she married Nucingen, a banker of German extraction, who
became a Baron of the Holy Roman Empire. Goriot remained a
vermicelli maker as before. His daughters and his sons-in-law
began to demur; they did not like to see him still engaged in
trade, though his whole life was bound up with his business. For
five years he stood out against their entreaties, then he
yielded, and consented to retire on the amount realized by the
sale of his business and the savings of the last few years. It
was this capital that Mme. Vauquer, in the early days of his
residence with her, had calculated would bring in eight or ten
thousand livres in a year. He had taken refuge in her lodging-
house, driven there by despair when he knew that his daughters
were compelled by their husbands not only to refuse to receive
him as an inmate in their houses, but even to see him no more
except in private.

This was all the information which Rastignac gained from a M.
Muret who had purchased Goriot's business, information which
confirmed the Duchesse de Langeais' suppositions, and herewith
the preliminary explanation of this obscure but terrible Parisian
tragedy comes to an end.

Towards the end of the first week in December Rastignac received
two letters--one from his mother, and one from his eldest sister.
His heart beat fast, half with happiness, half with fear, at the
sight of the familiar handwriting. Those two little scraps of
paper contained life or death for his hopes. But while he felt a
shiver of dread as he remembered their dire poverty at home, he
knew their love for him so well that he could not help fearing
that he was draining their very life-blood. His mother's letter
ran as follows:--

"My Dear Child,--I am sending you the money that you asked for.
Make a good use of it. Even to save your life I could not raise
so large a sum a second time without your father's knowledge, and
there would be trouble about it. We should be obliged to mortgage
the land. It is impossible to judge of the merits of schemes of
which I am ignorant; but what sort of schemes can they be, that
you should fear to tell me about them? Volumes of explanation
would not have been needed; we mothers can understand at a word,
and that word would have spared me the anguish of uncertainty. I
do not know how to hide the painful impression that your letter
has made upon me, my dear son. What can you have felt when you
were moved to send this chill of dread through my heart? It must
have been very painful to you to write the letter that gave me so
much pain as I read it. To what courses are you committed? You
are going to appear to be something that you are not, and your
whole life and success depends upon this? You are about to see a
society into which you cannot enter without rushing into expense
that you cannot afford, without losing precious time that is
needed for your studies. Ah! my dear Eugene, believe your mother,
crooked ways cannot lead to great ends. Patience and endurance
are the two qualities most needed in your position. I am not
scolding you; I do not want any tinge of bitterness to spoil our
offering. I am only talking like a mother whose trust in you is
as great as her foresight for you. You know the steps that you
must take, and I, for my part, know the purity of heart, and how
good your intentions are; so I can say to you without a doubt,
'Go forward, beloved!' If I tremble, it is because I am a mother,
but my prayers and blessings will be with you at every step. Be
very careful, dear boy. You must have a man's prudence, for it
lies with you to shape the destinies of five others who are dear
to you, and must look to you. Yes, our fortunes depend upon you,
and your success is ours. We all pray to God to be with you in
all that you do. Your aunt Marcillac has been most generous
beyond words in this matter; she saw at once how it was, even
down to your gloves. 'But I have a weakness for the eldest!' she
said gaily. You must love your aunt very much, dear Eugene. I
shall wait till you have succeeded before telling you all that
she has done for you, or her money would burn your fingers. You,
who are young, do not know what it is to part with something that
is a piece of your past! But what would we not sacrifice for your
sakes? Your aunt says that I am to send you a kiss on the
forehead from her, and that kiss is to bring you luck again and
again, she says. She would have written you herself, the dear
kind-hearted woman, but she is troubled with the gout in her
fingers just now. Your father is very well. The vintage of 1819
has turned out better than we expected. Good-bye, dear boy; I
will say nothing about your sisters, because Laure is writing to
you, and I must let her have the pleasure of giving you all the
home news. Heaven send that you may succeed! Oh! yes, dear
Eugene, you must succeed. I have come, through you, to a
knowledge of a pain so sharp that I do not think I could endure
it a second time. I have come to know what it is to be poor, and
to long for money for my children's sake. There, good-bye! Do not
leave us for long without news of you; and here, at the last,
take a kiss from your mother."

By the time Eugene had finished the letter he was in tears. He
thought of Father Goriot crushing his silver keepsake into a
shapeless mass before he sold it to meet his daughter's bill of
exchange.

"Your mother has broken up her jewels for you," he said to
himself; "your aunt shed tears over those relics of hers before
she sold them for your sake. What right have you to heap
execrations on Anastasie? You have followed her example; you have
selfishly sacrificed others to your own future, and she
sacrifices her father to her lover; and of you two, which is the
worse?"

He was ready to renounce his attempts; he could not bear to take
that money. The fires of remorse burned in his heart, and gave
him intolerable pain, the generous secret remorse which men
seldom take into account when they sit in judgment upon their
fellow-men; but perhaps the angels in heaven, beholding it,
pardon the criminal whom our justice condemns. Rastignac opened
his sister's letter; its simplicity and kindness revived his
heart.

"Your letter came just at the right time, dear brother. Agathe
and I had thought of so many different ways of spending our
money, that we did not know what to buy with it; and now you have
come in, and, like the servant who upset all the watches that
belonged to the King of Spain, you have restored harmony; for,
really and truly, we did not know which of all the things we
wanted we wanted most, and we were always quarreling about it,
never thinking, dear Eugene, of a way of spending our money which
would satisfy us completely. Agathe jumped for you. Indeed, we
have been like two mad things all day, 'to such a prodigious
degree' (as aunt would say), that mother said, with her severe
expression, 'Whatever can be the matter with you,
mesdemoiselles?' I think if we had been scolded a little, we
should have been still better pleased. A woman ought to be very
glad to suffer for one she loves! I, however, in my inmost soul,
was doleful and cross in the midst of all my joy. I shall make a
bad wife, I am afraid, I am too fond of spending. I had bought
two sashes and a nice little stiletto for piercing eyelet-holes
in my stays, trifles that I really did not want, so that I have
less than that slow-coach Agathe, who is so economical, and
hoards her money like a magpie. She had two hundred francs! And I
have only one hundred and fifty! I am nicely punished; I could
throw my sash down the well; it will be painful to me to wear it
now. Poor dear, I have robbed you. And Agathe was so nice about
it. She said, 'Let us send the three hundred and fifty francs in
our two names!' But I could not help telling you everything just
as it happened.

"Do you know how we managed to keep your commandments? We took
our glittering hoard, we went out for a walk, and when once
fairly on the highway we ran all the way to Ruffec, where we
handed over the coin, without more ado, to M. Grimbert of the
Messageries Royales. We came back again like swallows on the
wing. 'Don't you think that happiness has made us lighter?'
Agathe said. We said all sorts of things, which I shall not tell
you, Monsieur le Parisien, because they were all about you. Oh,
we love you dearly, dear brother; it was all summed up in those
few words. As for keeping the secret, little masqueraders like us
are capable of anything (according to our aunt), even of holding
our tongues. Our mother has been on a mysterious journey to
Angouleme, and the aunt went with her, not without solemn
councils, from which we were shut out, and M. le Baron likewise.
They are silent as to the weighty political considerations that
prompted their mission, and conjectures are rife in the State of
Rastignac. The Infantas are embroidering a muslin robe with open-
work sprigs for her Majesty the Queen; the work progresses in the
most profound secrecy. There be but two more breadths to finish.
A decree has gone forth that no wall shall be built on the side
of Verteuil, but that a hedge shall be planted instead thereof.
Our subjects may sustain some disappointment of fruit and
espaliers, but strangers will enjoy a fair prospect. Should the
heir-presumptive lack pocket-handkerchiefs, be it known unto him
that the dowager Lady of Marcillac, exploring the recesses of her
drawers and boxes (known respectively as Pompeii and
Herculaneum), having brought to light a fair piece of cambric
whereof she wotted not, the Princesses Agathe and Laure place at
their brother's disposal their thread, their needles, and hands
somewhat of the reddest. The two young Princes, Don Henri and Don
Gabriel, retain their fatal habits of stuffing themselves with
grape-jelly, of teasing their sisters, of taking their pleasure
by going a-bird-nesting, and of cutting switches for themselves
from the osier-beds, maugre the laws of the realm. Moreover, they
list not to learn naught, wherefore the Papal Nuncio (called of
the commonalty, M. le Cure) threateneth them with
excommunication, since that they neglect the sacred canons of
grammatical construction for the construction of other canon,
deadly engines made of the stems of elder.

"Farewell, dear brother, never did letter carry so many wishes
for your success, so much love fully satisfied. You will have a
great deal to tell us when you come home! You will tell me
everything, won't you? I am the oldest. From something the aunt
let fall, we think you must have had some success.

"Something was said of a lady, but nothing more was said . . .

"Of course not, in our family! Oh, by-the-by, Eugene, would you
rather that we made that piece of cambric into shirts for you
instead of pocket-handkerchiefs? If you want some really nice
shirts at once, we ought to lose no time in beginning upon them;
and if the fashion is different now in Paris, send us one for a
pattern; we want more particularly to know about the cuffs. Good-
bye! Good-bye! Take my kiss on the left side of your forehead, on
the temple that belongs to me, and to no one else in the world. I
am leaving the other side of the sheet for Agathe, who has
solemnly promised not to read a word that I have written; but,
all the same, I mean to sit by her side while she writes, so as
to be quite sure that she keeps her word.--Your loving sister,
"Laure de Rastignac."

"Yes!" said Eugene to himself. "Yes! Success at all costs now!
Riches could not repay such devotion as this. I wish I could give
them every sort of happiness! Fifteen hundred and fifty francs,"
he went on after a pause. "Every shot must go to the mark! Laure
is right. Trust a woman! I have only calico shirts. Where some
one else's welfare is concerned, a young girl becomes as
ingenious as a thief. Guileless where she herself is in question,
and full of foresight for me,--she is like a heavenly angel
forgiving the strange incomprehensible sins of earth."

The world lay before him. His tailor had been summoned and
sounded, and had finally surrendered. When Rastignac met M. de
Trailles, he had seen at once how great a part the tailor plays
in a young man's career; a tailor is either a deadly enemy or a
staunch friend, with an invoice for a bond of friendship; between
these two extremes there is, alack! no middle term. In this
representative of his craft Eugene discovered a man who
understood that his was a sort of paternal function for young men
at their entrance into life, who regarded himself as a stepping-
stone between a young man's present and future. And Rastignac in
gratitude made the man's fortune by an epigram of a kind in which
he excelled at a later period of his life.

"I have twice known a pair of trousers turned out by him make a
match of twenty thousand livres a year!"

Fifteen hundred francs, and as many suits of clothes as he chose
to order! At that moment the poor child of the South felt no more
doubts of any kind. The young man went down to breakfast with the
indefinable air which the consciousness of the possession of
money gives to youth. No sooner are the coins slipped into a
student's pocket than his wealth, in imagination at least, is
piled into a fantastic column, which affords him a moral support.
He begins to hold up his head as he walks; he is conscious that
he has a means of bringing his powers to bear on a given point;
he looks you straight in the face; his gestures are quick and
decided; only yesterday he was diffident and shy, any one might
have pushed him aside; to-morrow, he will take the wall of a
prime minister. A miracle has been wrought in him. Nothing is
beyond the reach of his ambition, and his ambition soars at
random; he is light-hearted, generous, and enthusiastic; in
short, the fledgling bird has discovered that he has wings. A
poor student snatches at every chance pleasure much as a dog runs
all sorts of risks to steal a bone, cracking it and sucking the
marrow as he flies from pursuit; but a young man who can rattle a
few runaway gold coins in his pocket can take his pleasure
deliberately, can taste the whole of the sweets of secure
possession; he soars far above earth; he has forgotten what the
word POVERTY means; all Paris is his. Those are days when the
whole world shines radiant with light, when everything glows and
sparkles before the eyes of youth, days that bring joyous energy
that is never brought into harness, days of debts and of painful
fears that go hand in hand with every delight. Those who do not
know the left bank of the Seine between the Rue Saint-Jacques and
the Rue des Saints-Peres know nothing of life.

"Ah! if the women of Paris but knew," said Rastignac, as he
devoured Mme. Vauquer's stewed pears (at five for a penny), "they
would come here in search of a lover."

Just then a porter from the Messageries Royales appeared at the
door of the room; they had previously heard the bell ring as the
wicket opened to admit him. The man asked for M. Eugene de
Rastignac, holding out two bags for him to take, and a form of
receipt for his signature. Vautrin's keen glance cut Eugene like
a lash.

"Now you will be able to pay for those fencing lessons and go to
the shooting gallery," he said.

"Your ship has come in," said Mme. Vauquer, eyeing the bags.

Mlle. Michonneau did not dare to look at the money, for fear her
eyes should betray her cupidity.

"You have a kind mother," said Mme. Couture.

"You have a kind mother, sir," echoed Poiret.

"Yes, mamma has been drained dry," said Vautrin, "and now you can
have your fling, go into society, and fish for heiresses, and
dance with countesses who have peach blossom in their hair. But
take my advice, young man, and don't neglect your pistol
practice."

Vautrin struck an attitude, as if he were facing an antagonist.
Rastignac, meaning to give the porter a tip, felt in his pockets
and found nothing. Vautrin flung down a franc piece on the table.

"Your credit is good," he remarked, eyeing the student, and
Rastignac was forced to thank him, though, since the sharp
encounter of wits at dinner that day, after Eugene came in from
calling on Mme. de Beauseant, he had made up his mind that
Vautrin was insufferable. For a week, in fact, they had both kept
silence in each other's presence, and watched each other. The
student tried in vain to account to himself for this attitude.

An idea, of course, gains in force by the energy with which it is
expressed; it strikes where the brain sends it, by a law as
mathematically exact as the law that determines the course of a
shell from a mortar. The amount of impression it makes is not to
be determined so exactly. Sometimes, in an impressible nature,
the idea works havoc, but there are, no less, natures so robustly
protected, that this sort of projectile falls flat and harmless
on skulls of triple brass, as cannon-shot against solid masonry;
then there are flaccid and spongy-fibred natures into which ideas
from without sink like spent bullets into the earthworks of a
redoubt. Rastignac's head was something of the powder-magazine
order; the least shock sufficed to bring about an explosion. He
was too quick, too young, not to be readily accessible to ideas;
and open to that subtle influence of thought and feeling in
others which causes so many strange phenomena that make an
impression upon us of which we are all unconscious at the time.
Nothing escaped his mental vision; he was lynx-eyed; in him the
mental powers of perception, which seem like duplicates of the
senses, had the mysterious power of swift projection that
astonishes us in intellects of a high order--slingers who are
quick to detect the weak spot in any armor.

In the past month Eugene's good qualities and defects had rapidly
developed with his character. Intercourse with the world and the
endeavor to satisfy his growing desires had brought out his
defects. But Rastignac came from the South side of the Loire, and
had the good qualities of his countrymen. He had the impetuous
courage of the South, that rushes to the attack of a difficulty,
as well as the southern impatience of delay or suspense. These
traits are held to be defects in the North; they made the fortune
of Murat, but they likewise cut short his career. The moral would
appear to be that when the dash and boldness of the South side of
the Loire meets, in a southern temperament, with the guile of the
North, the character is complete, and such a man will gain (and
keep) the crown of Sweden.

Rastignac, therefore, could not stand the fire from Vautrin's
batteries for long without discovering whether this was a friend
or a foe. He felt as if this strange being was reading his inmost
soul, and dissecting his feelings, while Vautrin himself was so
close and secretive that he seemed to have something of the
profound and unmoved serenity of a sphinx, seeing and hearing all
things and saying nothing. Eugene, conscious of that money in his
pocket, grew rebellious.

"Be so good as to wait a moment," he said to Vautrin, as the
latter rose, after slowly emptying his coffee-cup, sip by sip.

"What for?" inquired the older man, as he put on his large-
brimmed hat and took up the sword-cane that he was wont to twirl
like a man who will face three or four footpads without
flinching.

"I will repay you in a minute," returned Eugene. He unsealed one
of the bags as he spoke, counted out a hundred and forty francs,
and pushed them towards Mme. Vauquer. "Short reckonings make good
friends" he added, turning to the widow; "that clears our
accounts till the end of the year. Can you give me change for a
five-franc piece?"

"Good friends make short reckonings," echoed Poiret, with a
glance at Vautrin.

"Here is your franc," said Rastignac, holding out the coin to the
sphinx in the black wig.

"Any one might think that you were afraid to owe me a trifle,"
exclaimed this latter, with a searching glance that seemed to
read the young man's inmost thoughts; there was a satirical and
cynical smile on Vautrin's face such as Eugene had seen scores of
times already; every time he saw it, it exasperated him almost
beyond endurance.

"Well . . . so I am," he answered. He held both the bags in his
hand, and had risen to go up to his room.

Vautrin made as if he were going out through the sitting-room,
and the student turned to go through the second door that opened
into the square lobby at the foot of the staircase.

"Do you know, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignacorama, that what
you were saying just now was not exactly polite?" Vautrin
remarked, as he rattled his sword-cane across the panels of the
sitting-room door, and came up to the student.

Rastignac looked coolly at Vautrin, drew him to the foot of the
staircase, and shut the dining-room door. They were standing in
the little square lobby between the kitchen and the dining-room;
the place was lighted by an iron-barred fanlight above a door
that gave access into the garden. Sylvie came out of her kitchen,
and Eugene chose that moment to say:

MONSIEUR Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my name is not
Rastignacorama."

"They will fight," said Mlle. Michonneau, in an indifferent tone.

"Fight!" echoed Poiret.

"Not they," replied Mme. Vauquer, lovingly fingering her pile of
coins.

"But there they are under the lime-trees," cried Mlle. Victorine,
who had risen so that she might see out into the garden. "Poor
young man! he was in the right, after all."

"We must go upstairs, my pet," said Mme. Couture; "it is no
business of ours."

At the door, however, Mme. Couture and Victorine found their
progress barred by the portly form of Sylvie the cook.

"What ever can have happened?" she said. "M. Vautrin said to M.
Eugene, 'Let us have an explanation!' then he took him by the
arm, and there they are, out among the artichokes."

Vautrin came in while she was speaking. "Mamma Vauquer," he said
smiling, "don't frighten yourself at all. I am only going to try
my pistols under the lime-trees."

"Oh! monsieur," cried Victorine, clasping her hands as she spoke,
"why do you want to kill M. Eugene?"

Vautrin stepped back a pace or two, and gazed at Victorine.

"Oh! this is something fresh!" he exclaimed in a bantering tone,
that brought the color into the poor girl's face. "That young
fellow yonder is very nice, isn't he?" he went on. "You have
given me a notion, my pretty child; I will make you both happy."

Mme. Couture laid her hand on the arm of her ward, and drew the
girl away, as she said in her ear:

"Why, Victorine, I cannot imagine what has come over you this
morning."

"I don't want any shots fired in my garden," said Mme. Vauquer.
"You will frighten the neighborhood and bring the police up here
all in a moment."

"Come, keep cool, Mamma Vauquer," answered Vautrin. "There,
there; it's all right; we will go to the shooting-gallery."

He went back to Rastignac, laying his hand familiarly on the
young man's arm.

"When I have given you ocular demonstration of the fact that I
can put a bullet through the ace on a card five times running at
thirty-five paces," he said, "that won't take away your appetite,
I suppose? You look to me to be inclined to be a trifle
quarrelsome this morning, and as if you would rush on your death
like a blockhead."

"Do you draw back?" asked Eugene.

"Don't try to raise my temperature," answered Vautrin, "it is not
cold this morning. Let us go and sit over there," he added,
pointing to the green-painted garden seats; "no one can overhear
us. I want a little talk with you. You are not a bad sort of
youngster, and I have no quarrel with you. I like you, take
Trump--(confound it!)--take Vautrin's word for it. What makes me
like you? I will tell you by-and-by. Meantime, I can tell you
that I know you as well as if I had made you myself, as I will
prove to you in a minute. Put down your bags," he continued,
pointing to the round table.

Rastignac deposited his money on the table, and sat down. He was
consumed with curiosity, which the sudden change in the manner of
the man before him had excited to the highest pitch. Here was a
strange being who, a moment ago, had talked of killing him, and
now posed as his protector.

"You would like to know who I really am, what I was, and what I
do now," Vautrin went on. "You want to know too much, youngster.
Come! come! keep cool! You will hear more astonishing things than
that. I have had my misfortunes. Just hear me out first, and you
shall have your turn afterwards. Here is my past in three words.
Who am I? Vautrin. What do I do? Just what I please. Let us
change the subject. You want to know my character. I am good-
natured to those who do me a good turn, or to those whose hearts
speak to mine. These last may do anything they like with me; they
may bruise my shins, and I shall not tell them to 'mind what they
are about'; but, nom d'une pipe, the devil himself is not an
uglier customer than I can be if people annoy me, or if I don't
happen to take to them; and you may just as well know at once
that I think no more of killing a man than of that," and he spat
before him as he spoke. "Only when it is absolutely necessary to
do so, I do my best to kill him properly. I am what you call an
artist. I have read Benvenuto Cellini's Memoirs, such as you see
me; and, what is more, in Italian: A fine-spirited fellow he was!
From him I learned to follow the example set us by Providence,
who strikes us down at random, and to admire the beautiful
whenever and wherever it is found. And, setting other questions
aside, is it not a glorious part to play, when you pit yourself
against mankind, and the luck is on your side? I have thought a
good deal about the constitution of your present social Dis-
order. A duel is downright childish, my boy! utter nonsense and
folly! When one of two living men must be got out of the way,
none but an idiot would leave chance to decide which it is to be;
and in a duel it is a toss-up--heads or tails--and there you are!
Now I, for instance, can hit the ace in the middle of a card five
times running, send one bullet after another through the same
hole, and at thirty-five paces, moreover! With that little
accomplishment you might think yourself certain of killing your
man, mightn't you. Well, I have fired, at twenty paces, and
missed, and the rogue who had never handled a pistol in his life--
look here!"--(he unbuttoned his waistcoat and exposed his chest,
covered, like a bear's back, with a shaggy fell; the student gave
a startled shudder)--"he was a raw lad, but he made his mark on
me," the extraordinary man went on, drawing Rastignac's fingers
over a deep scar on his breast. But that happened when I myself
was a mere boy; I was one-and-twenty then (your age), and I had
some beliefs left--in a woman's love, and in a pack of rubbish
that you will be over head and ears in directly. You and I were
to have fought just now, weren't we? You might have killed me.
Suppose that I were put under the earth, where would you be? You
would have to clear out of this, go to Switzerland, draw on
papa's purse--and he has none too much in it as it is. I mean to
open your eyes to your real position, that is what I am going to
do: but I shall do it from the point of view of a man who, after
studying the world very closely, sees that there are but two
alternatives--stupid obedience or revolt. I obey nobody; is that
clear? Now, do you know how much you will want at the pace you
are going? A million; and promptly, too, or that little head of
ours will be swaying to and fro in the drag-nets at Saint-Cloud,
while we are gone to find out whether or no there is a Supreme
Being. I will put you in the way of that million."

He stopped for a moment and looked at Eugene.

"Aha! you do not look so sourly at papa Vautrin now! At the
mention of the million you look like a young girl when somebody
has said, 'I will come for you this evening!' and she betakes
herself to her toilette as a cat licks its whiskers over a saucer
of milk. All right. Come, now, let us go into the question, young
man; all between ourselves, you know. We have a papa and mamma
down yonder, a great-aunt, two sisters (aged eighteen and
seventeen), two young brothers (one fifteen, and the other ten),
that is about the roll-call of the crew. The aunt brings up the
two sisters; the cure comes and teaches the boys Latin. Boiled
chestnuts are oftener on the table than white bread. Papa makes a
suit of clothes last a long while; if mamma has a different dress
winter and summer, it is about as much as she has; the sisters
manage as best they can. I know all about it; I have lived in the
south.

"That is how things are at home. They send you twelve hundred
francs a year, and the whole property only brings in three
thousand francs all told. We have a cook and a manservant; papa
is a baron, and we must keep up appearances. Then we have our
ambitions; we are connected with the Beauseants, and we go afoot
through the streets; we want to be rich, and we have not a penny;
we eat Mme. Vauquer's messes, and we like grand dinners in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain; we sleep on a truckle-bed, and dream of a
mansion! I do not blame you for wanting these things. What sort
of men do the women run after? Men of ambition. Men of ambition
have stronger frames, their blood is richer in iron, their hearts
are warmer than those of ordinary men. Women feel that when their
power is greatest, they look their best, and that those are their
happiest hours; they like power in men, and prefer the strongest
even if it is a power that may be their own destruction. I am
going to make an inventory of your desires in order to put the
question at issue before you. Here it is:--

"We are as hungry as a wolf, and those newly-cut teeth of ours
are sharp; what are we to do to keep the pot boiling? In the
first place, we have the Code to browse upon; it is not amusing,
and we are none the wiser for it, but that cannot be helped. So
far so good. We mean to make an advocate of ourselves with a
prospect of one day being made President of a Court of Assize,
when we shall send poor devils, our betters, to the galleys with
a T.F.* [*Travaux forces.] on their shoulders, so that the rich
may be convinced that they can sleep in peace. There is no fun in
that; and you are a long while coming to it; for, to begin with,
there are two years of nauseous drudgery in Paris, we see all the
lollipops that we long for out of our reach. It is tiresome to
want things and never to have them. If you were a pallid creature
of the mollusk order, you would have nothing to fear, but it is
different when you have the hot blood of a lion and are ready to
get into a score of scrapes every day of your life. This is the
ghastliest form of torture known in this inferno of God's making,
and you will give in to it. Or suppose that you are a good boy,
drink nothing stronger than milk, and bemoan your hard lot; you,
with your generous nature, will endure hardships that would drive
a dog mad, and make a start, after long waiting, as deputy to
some rascal or other in a hole of a place where the Government
will fling you a thousand francs a year like the scraps that are
thrown to the butcher's dog. Bark at thieves, plead the cause of
the rich, send men of heart to the guillotine, that is your work!
Many thanks! If you have no influence, you may rot in your
provincial tribunal. At thirty you will be a Justice with twelve
hundred francs a year (if you have not flung off the gown for
good before then). By the time you are forty you may look to
marry a miller's daughter, an heiress with some six thousand
livres a year. Much obliged! If you have influence, you may
possibly be a Public Prosecutor by the time you are thirty; with
a salary of a thousand crowns, you could look to marry the
mayor's daughter. Some petty piece of political trickery, such as
mistaking Villele for Manuel in a bulletin (the names rhyme, and
that quiets your conscience), and you will probably be a
Procureur General by the time you are forty, with a chance of
becoming a deputy. Please to observe, my dear boy, that our
conscience will have been a little damaged in the process, and
that we shall endure twenty years of drudgery and hidden poverty,
and that our sisters are wearing Dian's livery. I have the honor
to call your attention to another fact: to wit, that there are
but twenty Procureurs Generaux at a time in all France, while
there are some twenty thousand of you young men who aspire to
that elevated position; that there are some mountebanks among you
who would sell their family to screw their fortunes a peg higher.
If this sort of thing sickens you, try another course. The Baron
de Rastignac thinks of becoming an advocate, does he? There's a
nice prospect for you! Ten years of drudgery straight away. You
are obliged to live at the rate of a thousand francs a month; you
must have a library of law books, live in chambers, go into
society, go down on your knees to ask a solicitor for briefs,
lick the dust off the floor of the Palais de Justice. If this
kind of business led to anything, I should not say no; but just
give me the names of five advocates here in Paris who by the time
that they are fifty are making fifty thousand francs a year! Bah!
I would sooner turn pirate on the high seas than have my soul
shrivel up inside me like that. How will you find the capital?
There is but one way, marry a woman who has money. There is no
fun in it. Have you a mind to marry? You hang a stone around your
neck; for if you marry for money, what becomes of our exalted
notions of honor and so forth? You might as well fly in the face
of social conventions at once. Is it nothing to crawl like a
serpent before your wife, to lick her mother's feet, to descend
to dirty actions that would sicken swine--faugh!--never mind if
you at least make your fortune. But you will be as doleful as a
dripstone if you marry for money. It is better to wrestle with
men than to wrangle at home with your wife. You are at the
crossway of the roads of life, my boy; choose your way.

"But you have chosen already. You have gone to see your cousin of
Beauseant, and you have had an inkling of luxury; you have been
to Mme. de Restaud's house, and in Father Goriot's daughter you
have seen a glimpse of the Parisienne for the first time. That
day you came back with a word written on your forehead. I knew
it, I could read it--'SUCCESS!' Yes, success at any price.
'Bravo,' said I to myself, 'here is the sort of fellow for me.'
You wanted money. Where was it all to come from? You have drained
your sisters' little hoard (all brothers sponge more or less on
their sisters). Those fifteen hundred francs of yours (got
together, God knows how! in a country where there are more
chestnuts than five-franc pieces) will slip away like soldiers
after pillage. And, then, what will you do? Shall you begin to
work? Work, or what you understand by work at this moment, means,
for a man of Poiret's calibre, an old age in Mamma Vauquer's
lodging-house. There are fifty thousand young men in your
position at this moment, all bent as you are on solving one and
the same problem--how to acquire a fortune rapidly. You are but a
unit in that aggregate. You can guess, therefore, what efforts
you must make, how desperate the struggle is. There are not fifty
thousand good positions for you; you must fight and devour one
another like spiders in a pot. Do you know how a man makes his
way here? By brilliant genius or by skilful corruption. You must
either cut your way through these masses of men like a cannon
ball, or steal among them like a plague. Honesty is nothing to
the purpose. Men bow before the power of genius; they hate it,
and try to slander it, because genius does not divide the spoil;
but if genius persists, they bow before it. To sum it all up in a
phrase, if they fail to smother genius in the mud, they fall on
their knees and worship it. Corruption is a great power in the
world, and talent is scarce. So corruption is the weapon of
superfluous mediocrity; you will be made to feel the point of it
everywhere. You will see women who spend more than ten thousand
francs a year on dress, while their husband's salary (his whole
income) is six thousand francs. You will see officials buying
estates on twelve thousand francs a year. You will see women who
sell themselves body and soul to drive in a carriage belonging to
the son of a peer of France, who has a right to drive in the
middle rank at Longchamp. You have seen that poor simpleton of a
Goriot obliged to meet a bill with his daughter's name at the
back of it, though her husband has fifty thousand francs a year.
I defy you to walk a couple of yards anywhere in Paris without
stumbling on some infernal complication. I'll bet my head to a
head of that salad that you will stir up a hornet's nest by
taking a fancy to the first young, rich, and pretty woman you
meet. They are all dodging the law, all at loggerheads with their
husbands. If I were to begin to tell you all that vanity or
necessity (virtue is not often mixed up in it, you may be sure),
all that vanity and necessity drive them to do for lovers,
finery, housekeeping, or children, I should never come to an end.
So an honest man is the common enemy.

"But do you know what an honest man is? Here, in Paris, an honest
man is the man who keeps his own counsel, and will not divide the
plunder. I am not speaking now of those poor bond-slaves who do
the work of the world without a reward for their toil--God
Almighty's outcasts, I call them. Among them, I grant you, is
virtue in all the flower of its stupidity, but poverty is no less
their portion. At this moment, I think I see the long faces those
good folk would pull if God played a practical joke on them and
stayed away at the Last Judgment.

"Well, then, if you mean to make a fortune quickly, you must
either be rich to begin with, or make people believe that you are
rich. It is no use playing here except for high stakes; once take
to low play, it is all up with you. If in the scores of
professions that are open to you, there are ten men who rise very
rapidly, people are sure to call them thieves. You can draw your
own conclusions. Such is life. It is no cleaner than a kitchen;
it reeks like a kitchen; and if you mean to cook your dinner, you
must expect to soil your hands; the real art is in getting them
clean again, and therein lies the whole morality of our epoch. If
I take this tone in speaking of the world to you, I have the
right to do so; I know it well. Do you think that I am blaming
it? Far from it; the world has always been as it is now.
Moralists' strictures will never change it. Mankind are not
perfect, but one age is more or less hypocritical than another,
and then simpletons say that its morality is high or low. I do
not think that the rich are any worse than the poor; man is much
the same, high or low, or wherever he is. In a million of these
human cattle there may be half a score of bold spirits who rise
above the rest, above the laws; I am one of them. And you, if you
are cleverer than your fellows, make straight to your end, and
hold your head high. But you must lay your account with envy and
slander and mediocrity, and every man's hand will be against you.
Napoleon met with a Minister of War, Aubry by name, who all but
sent him to the colonies.

"Feel your pulse. Think whether you can get up morning after
morning, strengthened in yesterday's purpose. In that case I will
make you an offer that no one would decline. Listen attentively.
You see, I have an idea of my own. My idea is to live a
patriarchal life on a vast estate, say a hundred thousand acres,
somewhere in the Southern States of America. I mean to be a
planter, to have slaves, to make a few snug millions by selling
my cattle, timber, and tobacco; I want to live an absolute
monarch, and to do just as I please; to lead such a life as no
one here in these squalid dens of lath and plaster ever imagines.
I am a great poet; I do not write my poems, I feel them, and act
them. At this moment I have fifty thousand francs, which might
possibly buy forty negroes. I want two hundred thousand francs,
because I want to have two hundred negroes to carry out my
notions of the patriarachal life properly. Negroes, you see, are
like a sort of family ready grown, and there are no inquisitive
public prosecutors out there to interfere with you. That
investment in ebony ought to mean three or four million francs
in ten years' time. If I am successful, no one will ask me who I
am. I shall be Mr. Four Millions, an American citizen. I shall be
fifty years old by then, and sound and hearty still; I shall
enjoy life after my own fashion. In two words, if I find you an
heiress with a million, will you give me two hundred thousand
francs? Twenty per cent commission, eh? Is that too much? Your
little wife will be very much in love with you. Once married, you
will show signs of uneasiness and remorse; for a couple of weeks
you will be depressed. Then, some night after sundry grimacings,
comes the confession, between two kisses, 'Two hundred thousand
francs of debts, my darling!' This sort of farce is played every
day in Paris, and by young men of the highest fashion. When a
young wife has given her heart, she will not refuse her purse.
Perhaps you are thinking that you will lose the money for good?
Not you. You will make two hundred thousand francs again by some
stroke of business. With your capital and your brains you should
be able to accumulate as large a fortune as you could wish. ERGO,
in six months you will have made your own fortune, and our old
friend Vautrin's, and made an amiable woman very happy, to say
nothing of your people at home, who must blow on their fingers to
warm them, in the winter, for lack of firewood. You need not be
surprised at my proposal, nor at the demand I make. Forty-seven
out of every sixty great matches here in Paris are made after
just such a bargain as this. The Chamber of Notaries compels my
gentleman to----"

"What must I do?" said Rastignac, eagerly interrupting Vautrin's
speech.

"Next to nothing," returned the other, with a slight involuntary
movement, the suppressed exultation of the angler when he feels a
bite at the end of his line. "Follow me carefully! The heart of a
girl whose life is wretched and unhappy is a sponge that will
thirstily absorb love; a dry sponge that swells at the first drop
of sentiment. If you pay court to a young girl whose existence is
a compound of loneliness, despair, and poverty, and who has no
suspicion that she will come into a fortune, good Lord! it is
quint and quatorze at piquet; it is knowing the numbers of the
lottery before-hand; it is speculating in the funds when you have
news from a sure source; it is building up a marriage on an
indestructible foundation. The girl may come in for millions, and
she will fling them, as if they were so many pebbles, at your
feet. 'Take it, my beloved! Take it, Alfred, Adolphe, Eugene!' or
whoever it was that showed his sense by sacrificing himself for
her. And as for sacrificing himself, this is how I understand it.
You sell a coat that is getting shabby, so that you can take her
to the Cadran bleu, treat her to mushrooms on toast, and then go
to the Ambigu-Comique in the evening; you pawn your watch to buy
her a shawl. I need not remind you of the fiddle-faddle
sentimentality that goes down so well with all women; you spill a
few drops of water on your stationery, for instance; those are
the tears you shed while far away from her. You look to me as if
you were perfectly acquainted with the argot of the heart. Paris,
you see, is like a forest in the New World, where you have to
deal with a score of varieties of savages--Illinois and Hurons,
who live on the proceed of their social hunting. You are a hunter
of millions; you set your snares; you use lures and nets; there
are many ways of hunting. Some hunt heiresses, others a legacy;
some fish for souls, yet others sell their clients, bound hand
and foot. Every one who comes back from the chase with his game-
bag well filled meets with a warm welcome in good society. In
justice to this hospitable part of the world, it must be said
that you have to do with the most easy and good-natured of great
cities. If the proud aristocracies of the rest of Europe refuse
admittance among their ranks to a disreputable millionaire, Paris
stretches out a hand to him, goes to his banquets, eats his
dinners, and hobnobs with his infamy."

"But where is such a girl to be found?" asked Eugene.

"Under your eyes; she is yours already."

"Mlle. Victorine?"

"Precisely."

"And what was that you said?"

"She is in love with you already, your little Baronne de
Rastignac!"

"She has not a penny," Eugene continued, much mystified.

"Ah! now we are coming to it! Just another word or two, and it
will all be clear enough. Her father, Taillefer, is an old
scoundrel; it is said that he murdered one of his friends at the
time of the Revolution. He is one of your comedians that sets up
to have opinions of his own. He is a banker--senior partner in
the house of Frederic Taillefer and Company. He has one son, and
means to leave all he has to the boy, to the prejudice of
Victorine. For my part, I don't like to see injustice of this
sort. I am like Don Quixote, I have a fancy for defending the
weak against the strong. If it should please God to take that
youth away from him, Taillefer would have only his daughter left;
he would want to leave his money to some one or other; an absurd
notion, but it is only human nature, and he is not likely to have
any more children, as I know. Victorine is gentle and amiable;
she will soon twist her father round her fingers, and set his
head spinning like a German top by plying him with sentiment! She
will be too much touched by your devotion to forget you; you will
marry her. I mean to play Providence for you, and Providence is
to do my will. I have a friend whom I have attached closely to
myself, a colonel in the Army of the Loire, who has just been
transferred into the garde royale. He has taken my advice and
turned ultra-royalist; he is not one of those fools who never
change their opinions. Of all pieces of advice, my cherub, I
would give you this--don't stick to your opinions any more than
to your words. If any one asks you for them, let him have them--
at a price. A man who prides himself on going in a straight line
through life is an idiot who believes in infallibility. There are
no such things as principles; there are only events, and there
are no laws but those of expediency: a man of talent accepts
events and the circumstances in which he finds himself, and turns
everything to his own ends. If laws and principles were fixed and
invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we change
our shirts. The individual is not obliged to be more particular
than the nation. A man whose services to France have been of the
very slightest is a fetich looked on with superstitious awe
because he has always seen everything in red; but he is good, at
the most, to be put into the Museum of Arts and Crafts, among the
automatic machines, and labeled La Fayette; while the prince at
whom everybody flings a stone, the man who despises humanity so
much that he spits as many oaths as he is asked for in the face
of humanity, saved France from being torn in pieces at the
Congress of Vienna; and they who should have given him laurels
fling mud at him. Oh! I know something of affairs, I can tell
you; I have the secrets of many men! Enough. When I find three
minds in agreement as to the application of a principle, I shall
have a fixed and immovable opinion--I shall have to wait a long
while first. In the Tribunals you will not find three judges of
the same opinion on a single point of law. To return to the man I
was telling you of. He would crucify Jesus Christ again, if I
bade him. At a word from his old chum Vautrin he will pick a
quarrel with a scamp that will not send so much as five francs to
his sister, poor girl, and" (here Vautrin rose to his feet and
stood like a fencing-master about to lunge)--"turn him off into
the dark!" he added.

"How frightful!" said Eugene. "You do not really mean it? M.
Vautrin, you are joking!"

"There! there! Keep cool!" said the other. "Don't behave like a
baby. But if you find any amusement in it, be indignant, flare
up! Say that I am a scoundrel, a rascal, a rogue, a bandit; but
do not call me a blackleg nor a spy! There, out with it, fire
away! I forgive you; it is quite natural at your age. I was like
that myself once. Only remember this, you will do worse things
yourself some day. You will flirt with some pretty woman and take
her money. You have thought of that, of course," said Vautrin,
"for how are you to succeed unless love is laid under
contribution? There are no two ways about virtue, my dear
student; it either is, or it is not. Talk of doing penance for
your sins! It is a nice system of business, when you pay for your
crime by an act of contrition! You seduce a woman that you may
set your foot on such and such a rung of the social ladder; you
sow dissension among the children of a family; you descend, in
short, to every base action that can be committed at home or
abroad, to gain your own ends for your own pleasure or your
profit; and can you imagine that these are acts of faith, hope,
or charity? How is it that a dandy, who in a night has robbed a
boy of half his fortune, gets only a couple of months in prison;
while a poor devil who steals a banknote for a thousand francs,
with aggravating circumstances, is condemned to penal servitude?
Those are your laws. Not a single provision but lands you in some
absurdity. That man with yellow gloves and a golden tongue
commits many a murder; he sheds no blood, but he drains his
victim's veins as surely; a desperado forces open a door with a
crowbar, dark deeds both of them! You yourself will do every one
of those things that I suggest to you to-day, bar the bloodshed.
Do you believe that there is any absolute standard in this world?
Despise mankind and find out the meshes that you can slip through
in the net of the Code. The secret of a great success for which
you are at a loss to account is a crime that has never been found
out, because it was properly executed."

"Silence, sir! I will not hear any more; you make me doubt
myself. At this moment my sentiments are all my science."

"Just as you please, my fine fellow; I did think you were so
weak-minded," said Vautrin, "I shall say no more about it. One
last word, however," and he looked hard at the student--"you have
my secret," he said.

"A young man who refuses your offer knows that he must forget
it."

"Quite right, quite right; I am glad to hear you say so. Somebody
else might not be so scrupulous, you see. Keep in mind what I
want to do for you. I will give you a fortnight. The offer is
still open."

"What a head of iron the man has!" said Eugene to himself, as he
watched Vautrin walk unconcernedly away with his cane under his
arm. "Yet Mme. de Beauseant said as much more gracefully; he has
only stated the case in cruder language. He would tear my heart
with claws of steel. What made me think of going to Mme. de
Nucingen? He guessed my motives before I knew them myself. To sum
it up, that outlaw has told me more about virtue than all I have
learned from men and books. If virtue admits of no compromises, I
have certainly robbed my sisters," he said, throwing down the
bags on the table.

He sat down again and fell, unconscious of his surroundings, into
deep thought.

"To be faithful to an ideal of virtue! A heroic martyrdom! Pshaw!
every one believes in virtue, but who is virtuous? Nations have
made an idol of Liberty, but what nation on the face of the earth
is free? My youth is still like a blue and cloudless sky. If I
set myself to obtain wealth or power, does it mean that I must
make up my mind to lie, and fawn, and cringe, and swagger, and
flatter, and dissemble? To consent to be the servant of others
who have likewise fawned, and lied, and flattered? Must I cringe
to them before I can hope to be their accomplice? Well, then, I
decline. I mean to work nobly and with a single heart. I will
work day and night; I will owe my fortune to nothing but my own
exertions. It may be the slowest of all roads to success, but I
shall lay my head on the pillow at night untroubled by evil
thoughts. Is there a greater thing than this--to look back over
your life and know that it is stainless as a lily? I and my life
are like a young man and his betrothed. Vautrin has put before me
all that comes after ten years of marriage. The devil! my head is
swimming. I do not want to think at all; the heart is a sure
guide."

Eugene was roused from his musings by the voice of the stout
Sylvie, who announced that the tailor had come, and Eugene
therefore made his appearance before the man with the two money
bags, and was not ill pleased that it should be so. When he had
tried on his dress suit, he put on his new morning costume, which
completely metamorphosed him.

"I am quite equal to M. de Trailles," he said to himself. "In
short, I look like a gentleman."

"You asked me, sir, if I knew the houses where Mme. de Nucingen
goes," Father Goriot's voice spoke from the doorway of Eugene's
room."

"Yes."

"Very well then, she is going to the Marechale Carigliano's ball
on Monday. If you can manage to be there, I shall hear from you
whether my two girls enjoyed themselves, and how they were
dressed, and all about it in fact."

"How did you find that out, my good Goriot?" said Eugene, putting
a chair by the fire for his visitor.

"Her maid told me. I hear all about their doings from Therese and
Constance," he added gleefully.

The old man looked like a lover who is still young enough to be
made happy by the discovery of some little stratagem which brings
him information of his lady-love without her knowledge.

"YOU will see them both!" he said, giving artless expression to a
pang of jealousy.

"I do not know," answered Eugene. "I will go to Mme. de Beauseant
and ask her for an introduction to the Marechale."

Eugene felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought of appearing
before the Vicomtesse, dressed as henceforward he always meant to
be. The "abysses of the human heart," in the moralists' phrase,
are only insidious thoughts, involuntary promptings of personal
interest. The instinct of enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid
changes of purpose which have furnished the text for so much
rhetoric are calculations prompted by the hope of pleasure.
Rastignac beholding himself well dressed and impeccable as to
gloves and boots, forgot his virtuous resolutions. Youth,
moreover, when bent upon wrongdoing does not dare to behold
himself in the mirror of consciousness; mature age has seen
itself; and therein lies the whole difference between these two
phases of life.

A friendship between Eugene and his neighbor, Father Goriot, had
been growing up for several days past. This secret friendship and
the antipathy that the student had begun to entertain for Vautrin
arose from the same psychological causes. The bold philosopher
who shall investigate the effects of mental action upon the
physical world will doubtless find more than one proof of the
material nature of our sentiments in other animals. What
physiognomist is as quick to discern character as a dog is to
discover from a stranger's face whether this is a friend or no?
Those by-words--"atoms," "affinities"--are facts surviving in
modern languages for the confusion of philosophic wiseacres who
amuse themselves by winnowing the chaff of language to find its
grammatical roots. We FEEL that we are loved. Our sentiments make
themselves felt in everything, even at a great distance. A letter
is a living soul, and so faithful an echo of the voice that
speaks in it, that finer natures look upon a letter as one of
love's most precious treasures. Father Goriot's affection was of
the instinctive order, a canine affection raised to a sublime
pitch; he had scented compassion in the air, and the kindly
respect and youthful sympathy in the student's heart. This
friendship had, however, scarcely reached the stage at which
confidences are made. Though Eugene had spoken of his wish to
meet Mme. de Nucingen, it was not because he counted on the old
man to introduce him to her house, for he hoped that his own
audacity might stand him in good stead. All that Father Goriot
had said as yet about his daughters had referred to the remarks
that the student had made so freely in public on that day of the
two visits.

"How could you think that Mme. de Restaud bore you a grudge for
mentioning my name?" he had said on the day following that scene
at dinner. "My daughters are very fond of me; I am a happy
father; but my sons-in-law have behaved badly to me, and rather
than make trouble between my darlings and their husbands, I
choose to see my daughters secretly. Fathers who can see their
daughters at any time have no idea of all the pleasure that all
this mystery gives me; I cannot always see mine when I wish, do
you understand? So when it is fine I walk out in the Champs-
Elysees, after finding out from their waiting-maids whether my
daughters mean to go out. I wait near the entrance; my heart
beats fast when the carriages begin to come; I admire them in
their dresses, and as they pass they give me a little smile, and
it seems as if everything was lighted up for me by a ray of
bright sunlight. I wait, for they always go back the same way,
and then I see them again; the fresh air has done them good and
brought color into their cheeks; all about me people say, 'What a
beautiful woman that is!' and it does my heart good to hear them.

"Are they not my own flesh and blood? I love the very horses that
draw them; I envy the little lap-dog on their knees. Their
happiness is my life. Every one loves after his own fashion, and
mine does no one any harm; why should people trouble their heads
about me? I am happy in my own way. Is there any law against
going to see my girls in the evening when they are going out to a
ball? And what a disappointment it is when I get there too late,
and am told that 'Madame has gone out!' Once I waited till three
o'clock in the morning for Nasie; I had not seen her for two
whole days. I was so pleased, that it was almost too much for me!
Please do not speak of me unless it is to say how good my
daughters are to me. They are always wanting to heap presents
upon me, but I will not have it. 'Just keep your money,' I tell
them. 'What should I do with it? I want nothing.' And what am I,
sir, after all? An old carcase, whose soul is always where my
daughters are. When you have seen Mme. de Nucingen, tell me which
you like the most," said the old man after a moment's pause,
while Eugene put the last touches to his toilette. The student
was about to go out to walk in the Garden of the Tuileries until
the hour when he could venture to appear in Mme. de Beauseant's
drawing-room.

That walk was a turning-point in Eugene's career. Several women
noticed him; he looked so handsome, so young, and so well
dressed. This almost admiring attention gave a new turn to his
thoughts. He forgot his sisters and the aunt who had robbed
herself for him; he no longer remembered his own virtuous
scruples. He had seen hovering above his head the fiend so easy
to mistake for an angel, the Devil with rainbow wings, who
scatters rubies, and aims his golden shafts at palace fronts, who
invests women with purple, and thrones with a glory that dazzles
the eyes of fools till they forget the simple origins of royal
dominion; he had heard the rustle of that Vanity whose tinsel
seems to us to be the symbol of power. However cynical Vautrin's
words had been, they had made an impression on his mind, as the
sordid features of the old crone who whispers, "A lover, and gold
in torrents," remain engraven on a young girl's memory.

Eugene lounged about the walks till it was nearly five o'clock,
then he went to Mme. de Beauseant, and received one of the
terrible blows against which young hearts are defenceless.
Hitherto the Vicomtesse had received him with the kindly
urbanity, the bland grace of manner that is the result of fine
breeding, but is only complete when it comes from the heart.

Today Mme. de Beauseant bowed constrainedly, and spoke curtly:

"M. de Rastignac, I cannot possibly see you, at least not at this
moment. I am engaged . . ."

An observer, and Rastignac instantly became an observer, could
read the whole history, the character and customs of caste, in
the phrase, in the tones of her voice, in her glance and bearing.
He caught a glimpse of the iron hand beneath the velvet glove--
the personality, the egoism beneath the manner, the wood beneath
the varnish. In short, he heard that unmistakable I THE KING that
issues from the plumed canopy of the throne, and finds its last
echo under the crest of the simplest gentleman.

Eugene had trusted too implicitly to the generosity of a woman;
he could not believe in her haughtiness. Like all the
unfortunate, he had subscribed, in all good faith, the generous
compact which should bind the benefactor to the recipient, and
the first article in that bond, between two large-hearted
natures, is a perfect equality. The kindness which knits two
souls together is as rare, as divine, and as little understood as
the passion of love, for both love and kindness are the lavish
generosity of noble natures. Rastignac was set upon going to the
Duchesse de Carigliano's ball, so he swallowed down this rebuff.

"Madame," he faltered out, "I would not have come to trouble you
about a trifling matter; be so kind as to permit me to see you
later, I can wait."

"Very well, come and dine with me," she said, a little confused
by the harsh way in which she had spoken, for this lady was as
genuinely kind-hearted as she was high-born.

Eugene was touched by this sudden relenting, but none the less he
said to himself as he went away, "Crawl in the dust, put up with
every kind of treatment. What must the rest of the world be like
when one of the kindest of women forgets all her promises of
befriending me in a moment, and tosses me aside like an old shoe?
So it is every one for himself? It is true that her house is not
a shop, and I have put myself in the wrong by needing her help.
You should cut your way through the world like a cannon ball, as
Vautrin said."

But the student's bitter thoughts were soon dissipated by the
pleasure which he promised himself in this dinner with the
Vicomtesse. Fate seemed to determine that the smallest accidents
in his life should combine to urge him into a career, which the
terrible sphinx of the Maison Vauquer had described as a field of
battle where you must either slay or be slain, and cheat to avoid
being cheated. You leave your conscience and your heart at the
barriers, and wear a mask on entering into this game of grim
earnest, where, as in ancient Sparta, you must snatch your prize
without being detected if you would deserve the crown.

On his return he found the Vicomtesse gracious and kindly, as she
had always been to him. They went together to the dining-room,
where the Vicomte was waiting for his wife. In the time of the
Restoration the luxury of the table was carried, as is well
known, to the highest degree, and M. de Beauseant, like many
jaded men of the world, had few pleasures left but those of good
cheer; in this matter, in fact, he was a gourmand of the schools
of Louis XVIII. and of the Duc d'Escars, and luxury was
supplemented by splendor. Eugene, dining for the first time in a
house where the traditions of grandeur had descended through many
generations, had never seen any spectacle like this that now met
his eyes. In the time of the Empire, balls had always ended with
a supper, because the officers who took part in them must be
fortified for immediate service, and even in Paris might be
called upon to leave the ballroom for the battlefield. This
arrangement had gone out of fashion under the Monarchy, and
Eugene had so far only been asked to dances. The self-possession
which pre-eminently distinguished him in later life already stood
him in good stead, and he did not betray his amazement. Yet as he
saw for the first time the finely wrought silver plate, the
completeness of every detail, the sumptuous dinner, noiselessly
served, it was difficult for such an ardent imagination not to
prefer this life of studied and refined luxury to the hardships
of the life which he had chosen only that morning.

His thoughts went back for a moment to the lodging-house, and
with a feeling of profound loathing, he vowed to himself that at
New Year he would go; prompted at least as much by a desire to
live among cleaner surroundings as by a wish to shake off
Vautrin, whose huge hand he seemed to feel on his shoulder at
that moment. When you consider the numberless forms, clamorous or
mute, that corruption takes in Paris, common-sense begins to
wonder what mental aberration prompted the State to establish
great colleges and schools there, and assemble young men in the
capital; how it is that pretty women are respected, or that the
gold coin displayed in the money-changer's wooden saucers does
not take to itself wings in the twinkling of an eye; and when you
come to think further, how comparatively few cases of crime there
are, and to count up the misdemeanors committed by youth, is
there not a certain amount of respect due to these patient
Tantaluses who wrestle with themselves and nearly always come off
victorious? The struggles of the poor student in Paris, if
skilfully drawn, would furnish a most dramatic picture of modern
civilization.

In vain Mme. de Beauseant looked at Eugene as if asking him to
speak; the student was tongue-tied in the Vicomte's presence.

"Are you going to take me to the Italiens this evening?" the
Vicomtesse asked her husband.

"You cannot doubt that I should obey you with pleasure," he
answered, and there was a sarcastic tinge in his politeness which
Eugene did not detect, "but I ought to go to meet some one at the
Varietes."

"His mistress," said she to herself.

"Then, is not Ajuda coming for you this evening?" inquired the
Vicomte.

"No," she answered, petulantly.

"Very well, then, if you really must have an arm, take that of M.
de Rastignac."

The Vicomtess turned to Eugene with a smile.

"That would be a very compromising step for you," she said.

" 'A Frenchman loves danger, because in danger there is glory,'
to quote M. de Chateaubriand," said Rastignac, with a bow.

A few moments later he was sitting beside Mme. de Beauseant in a
brougham, that whirled them through the streets of Paris to a
fashionable theatre. It seemed to him that some fairy magic had
suddenly transported him into a box facing the stage. All the
lorgnettes of the house were pointed at him as he entered, and at
the Vicomtesse in her charming toilette. He went from enchantment
to enchantment.

"You must talk to me, you know," said Mme. de Beauseant. "Ah!
look! There is Mme. de Nucingen in the third box from ours. Her
sister and M. de Trailles are on the other side."

The Vicomtesse glanced as she spoke at the box where Mlle. de
Rochefide should have been; M. d'Ajuda was not there, and Mme. de
Beauseant's face lighted up in a marvelous way.

"She is charming," said Eugene, after looking at Mme. de
Nucingen.

"She has white eyelashes."

"Yes, but she has such a pretty slender figure!"

"Her hands are large."

"Such beautiful eyes!"

"Her face is long."

"Yes, but length gives distinction."

"It is lucky for her that she has some distinction in her face.
Just see how she fidgets with her opera-glass! The Goriot blood
shows itself in every movement," said the Vicomtesse, much to
Eugene's astonishment.

Indeed, Mme. de Beauseant seemed to be engaged in making a survey
of the house, and to be unconscious of Mme. Nucingen's existence;
but no movement made by the latter was lost upon the Vicomtesse.
The house was full of the loveliest women in Paris, so that
Delphine de Nucingen was not a little flattered to receive the
undivided attention of Mme. de Beauseant's young, handsome, and
well-dressed cousin, who seemed to have no eyes for any one else.

"If you look at her so persistently, you will make people talk,
M. de Rastignac. You will never succeed if you fling yourself at
any one's head like that."

"My dear cousin," said Eugene, "you have protected me indeed so
far, and now if you would complete your work, I only ask of you a
favor which will cost you but little, and be of very great
service to me. I have lost my heart."

"Already!"

"Yes."

"And to that woman!"

"How could I aspire to find any one else to listen to me?" he
asked, with a keen glance at his cousin. "Her Grace the Duchesse
de Carigliano is a friend of the Duchesse de Berri," he went on,
after a pause; "you are sure to see her, will you be so kind as
to present me to her, and to take me to her ball on Monday? I
shall meet Mme. de Nucingen there, and enter into my first
skirmish."

"Willingly," she said. "If you have a liking for her already,
your affairs of the heart are like to prosper. That is de Marsay
over there in the Princesse Galathionne's box. Mme. de Nucingen
is racked with jealousy. There is no better time for approaching
a woman, especially if she happens to be a banker's wife. All
those ladies of the Chaussee-d'Antin love revenge."

"Then, what would you do yourself in such a case?"

"I should suffer in silence."

At this point the Marquis d'Ajuda appeared in Mme. de Beauseant's
box.

"I have made a muddle of my affairs to come to you," he said,
"and I am telling you about it, so that it may not be a
sacrifice."

Eugene saw the glow of joy on the Vicomtesse's face, and knew
that this was love, and learned the difference between love and
the affectations of Parisian coquetry. He admired his cousin,
grew mute, and yielded his place to M. d'Ajuda with a sigh.

"How noble, how sublime a woman is when she loves like that!" he
said to himself. "And HE could forsake her for a doll! Oh! how
could any one forsake her?"

There was a boy's passionate indignation in his heart. He could
have flung himself at Mme. de Beauseant's feet; he longed for the
power of the devil if he could snatch her away and hide her in
his heart, as an eagle snatches up some white yeanling from the
plains and bears it to its eyrie. It was humiliating to him to
think that in all this gallery of fair pictures he had not one
picture of his own. "To have a mistress and an almost royal
position is a sign of power," he said to himself. And he looked
at Mme. de Nucingen as a man measures another who has insulted
him.

The Vicomtesse turned to him, and the expression of her eyes
thanked him a thousand times for his discretion. The first act
came to an end just then.

"Do you know Mme. de Nucingen well enough to present M. de
Rastignac to her?" she asked of the Marquis d'Ajuda.

"She will be delighted," said the Marquis. The handsome
Portuguese rose as he spoke and took the student's arm, and in
another moment Eugene found himself in Mme. de Nucingen's box.

"Madame," said the Marquis, "I have the honor of presenting to
you the Chevalier Eugene de Rastignac; he is a cousin of Mme. de
Beauseant's. You have made so deep an impression upon him, that I
thought I would fill up the measure of his happiness by bringing
him nearer to his divinity."

Words spoken half jestingly to cover their somewhat disrespectful
import; but such an implication, if carefully disguised, never
gives offence to a woman. Mme. de Nucingen smiled, and offered
Eugene the place which her husband had just left.

"I do not venture to suggest that you should stay with me,
monsieur," she said. "Those who are so fortunate as to be in Mme.
de Beauseant's company do not desire to leave it."

"Madame," Eugene said, lowering his voice, "I think that to
please my cousin I should remain with you. Before my lord Marquis
came we were speaking of you and of your exceedingly
distinguished appearance," he added aloud.

M. d'Ajuda turned and left them.

"Are you really going to stay with me, monsieur?" asked the
Baroness. "Then we shall make each other's acquaintance. Mme. de
Restaud told me about you, and has made me anxious to meet you."

"She must be very insincere, then, for she has shut her door on
me."

"What?"

"Madame, I will tell you honestly the reason why; but I must
crave your indulgence before confiding such a secret to you. I am
your father's neighbor; I had no idea that Mme. de Restaud was
his daughter. I was rash enough to mention his name; I meant no
harm, but I annoyed your sister and her husband very much. You
cannot think how severely the Duchesse de Langeais and my cousin
blamed this apostasy on a daughter's part, as a piece of bad
taste. I told them all about it, and they both burst out
laughing. Then Mme. de Beauseant made some comparison between you
and your sister, speaking in high terms of you, and saying how
very fond you were of my neighbor, M. Goriot. And, indeed, how
could you help loving him? He adores you so passionately that I
am jealous already. We talked about you this morning for two
hours. So this evening I was quite full of all that your father
had told me, and while I was dining with my cousin I said that
you could not be as beautiful as affectionate. Mme. de Beauseant
meant to gratify such warm admiration, I think, when she brought
me here, telling me, in her gracious way, that I should see you."

"Then, even now, I owe you a debt of gratitude, monsieur," said
the banker's wife. "We shall be quite old friends in a little
while."

"Although a friendship with you could not be like an ordinary
friendship," said Rastignac; "I should never wish to be your
friend."

Such stereotyped phrases as these, in the mouths of beginners,
possess an unfailing charm for women, and are insipid only when
read coldly; for a young man's tone, glance and attitude give a
surpassing eloquence to the banal phrases. Mme. de Nucingen
thought that Rastignac was adorable. Then, woman-like, being at a
loss how to reply to the student's outspoken admiration, she
answered a previous remark.

"Yes, it is very wrong of my sister to treat our poor father as
she does," she said; "he has been a Providence to us. It was not
until M. de Nucingen positively ordered me only to receive him in
the mornings that I yielded the point. But I have been unhappy
about it for a long while; I have shed many tears over it. This
violence to my feelings, with my husband's brutal treatment, have
been two causes of my unhappy married life. There is certainly no
woman in Paris whose lot seems more enviable than mine, and yet,
in reality, there is not one so much to be pitied. You will think
I must be out of my senses to talk to you like this; but you know
my father, and I cannot regard you as a stranger."

"You will find no one," said Eugene, "who longs as eagerly as I
do to be yours. What do all women seek? Happiness." (He answered
his own question in low, vibrating tones.) "And if happiness for
a woman means that she is to be loved and adored, to have a
friend to whom she can pour out her wishes, her fancies, her
sorrows and joys; to whom she can lay bare her heart and soul,
and all her fair defects and her gracious virtues, without fear
of a betrayal; believe me, the devotion and the warmth that never
fails can only be found in the heart of a young man who, at a
bare sign from you, would go to his death, who neither knows nor
cares to know anything as yet of the world, because you will be
all the world to him. I myself, you see (you will laugh at my
simplicity), have just come from a remote country district; I am
quite new to this world of Paris; I have only known true and
loving hearts; and I made up my mind that here I should find no
love. Then I chanced to meet my cousin, and to see my cousin's
heart from very near; I have divined the inexhaustible treasures
of passion, and, like Cherubino, I am the lover of all women,
until the day comes when I find THE woman to whom I may devote
myself. As soon as I saw you, as soon as I came into the theatre
this evening, I felt myself borne towards you as if by the
current of a stream. I had so often thought of you already, but I
had never dreamed that you would be so beautiful! Mme. de
Beauseant told me that I must not look so much at you. She does
not know the charm of your red lips, your fair face, nor see how
soft your eyes are. . . . I also am beginning to talk nonsense;
but let me talk."

Nothing pleases a woman better than to listen to such whispered
words as these; the most puritanical among them listens even when
she ought not to reply to them; and Rastignac, having once begun,
continued to pour out his story, dropping his voice, that she
might lean and listen; and Mme. de Nucingen, smiling, glanced
from time to time at de Marsay, who still sat in the Princesse
Galathionne's box.

Rastignac did not leave Mme. de Nucingen till her husband came to
take her home.

"Madame," Eugene said, "I shall have the pleasure of calling upon
you before the Duchesse de Carigliano's ball."

"If Matame infites you to come," said the Baron, a thickset
Alsatian, with indications of a sinister cunning in his full-moon
countenance, "you are quide sure of being well receifed."

"My affairs seem to be in a promising way," said Eugene to
himself.--" 'Can you love me?' I asked her, and she did not
resent it. The bit is in the horse's mouth, and I have only to
mount and ride;" and with that he went to pay his respects to
Mme. de Beauseant, who was leaving the theatre on d'Ajuda's arm.

The student did not know that the Baroness' thoughts had been
wandering; that she was even then expecting a letter from de
Marsay, one of those letters that bring about a rupture that
rends the soul; so, happy in his delusion, Eugene went with the
Vicomtesse to the peristyle, where people were waiting till their
carriages were announced.

"That cousin of yours is hardly recognizable for the same man,"
said the Portuguese laughingly to the Vicomtesse, when Eugene had
taken leave of them. "He will break the bank. He is as supple as
an eel; he will go a long way, of that I am sure. Who else could
have picked out a woman for him, as you did, just when she needed
consolation?"

"But it is not certain that she does not still love the faithless
lover," said Mme. de Beauseant.

The student meanwhile walked back from the Theatre-Italien to the
Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, making the most delightful plans as
he went. He had noticed how closely Mme. de Restaud had
scrutinized him when he sat beside Mme. de Nucingen, and inferred
that the Countess' doors would not be closed in the future. Four
important houses were now open to him--for he meant to stand well
with the Marechale; he had four supporters in the inmost circle
of society in Paris. Even now it was clear to him that, once
involved in this intricate social machinery, he must attach
himself to a spoke of the wheel that was to turn and raise his
fortunes; he would not examine himself too curiously as to the
methods, but he was certain of the end, and conscious of the
power to gain and keep his hold.

"If Mme. de Nucingen takes an interest in me, I will teach her
how to manage her husband. That husband of hers is a great
speculator; he might put me in the way of making a fortune by a
single stroke."

He did not say this bluntly in so many words; as yet, indeed, he
was not sufficient of a diplomatist to sum up a situation, to see
its possibilities at a glance, and calculate the chances in his
favor. These were nothing but hazy ideas that floated over his
mental horizon; they were less cynical than Vautrin's notions;
but if they had been tried in the crucible of conscience, no very
pure result would have issued from the test. It is by a
succession of such like transactions that men sink at last to the
level of the relaxed morality of this epoch, when there have
never been so few of those who square their courses with their
theories, so few of those noble characters who do not yield to
temptation, for whom the slightest deviation from the line of
rectitude is a crime. To these magnificent types of
uncompromising Right we owe two masterpieces--the Alceste of
Moliere, and, in our own day, the characters of Jeanie Deans and
her father in Sir Walter Scott's novel. Perhaps a work which
should chronicle the opposite course, which should trace out all
the devious courses through which a man of the world, a man of
ambitions, drags his conscience, just steering clear of crime
that he may gain his end and yet save appearances, such a
chronicle would be no less edifying and no less dramatic.

Rastignac went home. He was fascinated by Mme. de Nucingen; he
seemed to see her before him, slender and graceful as a swallow.
He recalled the intoxicating sweetness of her eyes, her fair
hair, the delicate silken tissue of the skin, beneath which it
almost seemed to him that he could see the blood coursing; the
tones of her voice still exerted a spell over him; he had
forgotten nothing; his walk perhaps heated his imagination by
sending a glow of warmth through his veins. He knocked
unceremoniously at Goriot's door.

"I have seen Mme. Delphine, neighbor," said he.

"Where?"

"At the Italiens."

"Did she enjoy it?. . . . Just come inside," and the old man left
his bed, unlocked the door, and promptly returned again.

It was the first time that Eugene had been in Father Goriot's
room, and he could not control his feeling of amazement at the
contrast between the den in which the father lived and the
costume of the daughter whom he had just beheld. The window was
curtainless, the walls were damp, in places the varnished wall-
paper had come away and gave glimpses of the grimy yellow plaster
beneath. The wretched bed on which the old man lay boasted but
one thin blanket, and a wadded quilt made out of large pieces of
Mme. Vauquer's old dresses. The floor was damp and gritty.
Opposite the window stood a chest of drawers made of rosewood,
one of the old-fashioned kind with a curving front and brass
handles, shaped like rings of twisted vine stems covered with
flowers and leaves. On a venerable piece of furniture with a
wooden shelf stood a ewer and basin and shaving apparatus. A pair
of shoes stood in one corner; a night-table by the bed had
neither a door nor marble slab. There was not a trace of a fire
in the empty grate; the square walnut table with the crossbar
against which Father Goriot had crushed and twisted his posset-
dish stood near the hearth. The old man's hat was lying on a
broken-down bureau. An armchair stuffed with straw and a couple
of chairs completed the list of ramshackle furniture. From the
tester of the bed, tied to the ceiling by a piece of rag, hung a
strip of some cheap material in large red and black checks. No
poor drudge in a garret could be worse lodged than Father Goriot
in Mme. Vauquer's lodging-house. The mere sight of the room sent
a chill through you and a sense of oppression; it was like the
worst cell in a prison. Luckily, Goriot could not see the effect
that his surroundings produced on Eugene as the latter deposited
his candle on the night-table. The old man turned round, keeping
the bedclothes huddled up to his chin.

"Well," he said, "and which do you like the best, Mme. de Restaud
or Mme. de Nucingen?"

"I like Mme. Delphine the best," said the law student, "because
she loves you the best."

At the words so heartily spoken the old man's hand slipped out
from under the bedclothes and grasped Eugene's.

"Thank you, thank you," he said, gratefully. "Then what did she
say about me?"

The student repeated the Baroness' remarks with some
embellishments of his own, the old man listening the while as
though he heard a voice from Heaven.

"Dear child!" he said. "Yes, yes, she is very fond of me. But you
must not believe all that she tells you about Anastasie. The two
sisters are jealous of each other, you see, another proof of
their affection. Mme. de Restaud is very fond of me too. I know
she is. A father sees his children as God sees all of us; he
looks into the very depths of their hearts; he knows their
intentions; and both of them are so loving. Oh! if I only had
good sons-in-law, I should be too happy, and I dare say there is
no perfect happiness here below. If I might live with them--
simply hear their voices, know that they are there, see them go
and come as I used to do at home when they were still with me;
why, my heart bounds at the thought. . . . Were they nicely
dressed?"

"Yes," said Eugene. "But, M. Goriot, how is it that your
daughters have such fine houses, while you live in such a den as
this?"

"Dear me, why should I want anything better?" he replied, with
seeming carelessness. "I can't quite explain to you how it is; I
am not used to stringing words together properly, but it all lies
there----" he said, tapping his heart. "My real life is in my two
girls, you see; and so long as they are happy, and smartly
dressed, and have soft carpets under their feet, what does it
matter what clothes I wear or where I lie down of a night? I
shall never feel cold so long as they are warm; I shall never
feel dull if they are laughing. I have no troubles but theirs.
When you, too, are a father, and you hear your children's little
voices, you will say to yourself, 'That has all come from me.'
You will feel that those little ones are akin to every drop in
your veins, that they are the very flower of your life (and what
else are they?); you will cleave so closely to them that you seem
to feel every movement that they make. Everywhere I hear their
voices sounding in my ears. If they are sad, the look in their
eyes freezes my blood. Some day you will find out that there is
far more happiness in another's happiness than in your own. It is
something that I cannot explain, something within that sends a
glow of warmth all through you. In short, I live my life three
times over. Shall I tell you something funny? Well, then, since I
have been a father, I have come to understand God. He is
everywhere in the world, because the whole world comes from Him.
And it is just the same with my children, monsieur. Only, I love
my daughters better than God loves the world, for the world is
not so beautiful as God Himself is, but my children are more
beautiful than I am. Their lives are so bound up with mine that I
felt somehow that you would see them this evening. Great Heaven!
If any man would make my little Delphine as happy as a wife is
when she is loved, I would black his boots and run on his
errands. That miserable M. de Marsay is a cur; I know all about
him from her maid. A longing to wring his neck comes over me now
and then. He does not love her! does not love a pearl of a woman,
with a voice like a nightingale and shaped like a model. Where
can her eyes have been when she married that great lump of an
Alsatian? They ought both of them to have married young men,
good-looking and good-tempered--but, after all, they had their
own way."

Father Goriot was sublime. Eugene had never yet seen his face
light up as it did now with the passionate fervor of a father's
love. It is worthy of remark that strong feeling has a very
subtle and pervasive power; the roughest nature, in the endeavor
to express a deep and sincere affection, communicates to others
the influence that has put resonance into the voice, and
eloquence into every gesture, wrought a change in the very
features of the speaker; for under the inspiration of passion the
stupidest human being attains to the highest eloquence of ideas,
if not of language, and seems to move in some sphere of light. In
the old man's tones and gesture there was something just then of
the same spell that a great actor exerts over his audience. But
does not the poet in us find expression in our affections?

"Well," said Eugene, "perhaps you will not be sorry to hear that
she is pretty sure to break with de Marsay before long. That
sprig of fashion has left her for the Princesse Galathionne. For
my part, I fell in love with Mme. Delphine this evening."

"Stuff!" said Father Goriot.

"I did indeed, and she did not regard me with aversion. For a
whole hour we talked of love, and I am to go to call on her on
Saturday, the day after to-morrow."

"Oh! how I should love you, if she should like you. You are kind-
hearted; you would never make her miserable. If you were to
forsake her, I would cut your throat at once. A woman does not
love twice, you see! Good heavens! what nonsense I am talking, M.
Eugene! It is cold; you ought not to stay here. MON DIEU! so you
have heard her speak? What message did she give you for me?"

"None at all," said Eugene to himself; aloud he answered, "She
told me to tell you that your daughter sends you a good kiss."

"Good-night, neighbor! Sleep well, and pleasant dreams to you! I
have mine already made for me by that message from her. May God
grant you all your desires! You have come in like a good angel on
me to-night, and brought with you the air that my daughter
breathes."

"Poor old fellow!" said Eugene as he lay down. "It is enough to
melt a heart of stone. His daughter no more thought of him than
of the Grand Turk."



Ever after this conference Goriot looked upon his neighbor as a
friend, a confidant such as he had never hoped to find; and there
was established between the two the only relationship that could
attach this old man to another man. The passions never
miscalculate. Father Goriot felt that this friendship brought him
closer to his daughter Delphine; he thought that he should find a
warmer welcome for himself if the Baroness should care for
Eugene. Moreover, he had confided one of his troubles to the
younger man. Mme. de Nucingen, for whose happiness he prayed a
thousand times daily, had never known the joys of love. Eugene
was certainly (to make use of his own expression) one of the
nicest young men that he had ever seen, and some prophetic
instinct seemed to tell him that Eugene was to give her the
happiness which had not been hers. These were the beginnings of a
friendship that grew up between the old man and his neighbor; but
for this friendship the catastrophe of the drama must have
remained a mystery.

The affection with which Father Goriot regarded Eugene, by whom
he seated himself at breakfast, the change in Goriot's face,
which as a rule, looked as expressionless as a plaster cast, and
a few words that passed between the two, surprised the other
lodgers. Vautrin, who saw Eugene for the first time since their
interview, seemed as if he would fain read the student's very
soul. During the night Eugene had had some time in which to scan
the vast field which lay before him; and now, as he remembered
yesterday's proposal, the thought of Mlle. Taillefer's dowry
came, of course, to his mind, and he could not help thinking of
Victorine as the most exemplary youth may think of an heiress. It
chanced that their eyes met. The poor girl did not fail to see
that Eugene looked very handsome in his new clothes. So much was
said in the glance, thus exchanged, that Eugene could not doubt
but that he was associated in her mind with the vague hopes that
lie dormant in a girl's heart and gather round the first
attractive newcomer. "Eight hundred thousand francs!" a voice
cried in his ears, but suddenly he took refuge in the memories of
yesterday evening, thinking that his extemporized passion for
Mme. de Nucingen was a talisman that would preserve him from this
temptation.

"They gave Rossini's Barber of Seville at the Italiens yesterday
evening," he remarked. "I never heard such delicious music. Good
gracious! how lucky people are to have a box at the Italiens!"

Father Goriot drank in every word that Eugene let fall, and
watched him as a dog watches his master's slightest movement.

"You men are like fighting cocks," said Mme. Vauquer; "you do
what you like."

"How did you get back?" inquired Vautrin.

"I walked," answered Eugene.

"For my own part," remarked the tempter, "I do not care about
doing things by halves. If I want to enjoy myself that way, I
should prefer to go in my carriage, sit in my own box, and do the
thing comfortably. Everything or nothing; that is my motto."

"And a good one, too," commented Mme. Vauquer.

"Perhaps you will see Mme. de Nucingen to-day," said Eugene,
addressing Goriot in an undertone. "She will welcome you with
open arms, I am sure; she would want to ask you for all sorts of
little details about me. I have found out that she will do
anything in the world to be known by my cousin Mme. de Beauseant;
don't forget to tell her that I love her too well not to think of
trying to arrange this."

Rastignac went at once to the Ecole de Droit. He had no mind to
stay a moment longer than was necessary in that odious house. He
wasted his time that day; he had fallen a victim to that fever of
the brain that accompanies the too vivid hopes of youth.
Vautrin's arguments had set him meditating on social life, and he
was deep in these reflections when he happened on his friend
Bianchon in the Jardin du Luxembourg.

"What makes you look so solemn?" said the medical student,
putting an arm through Eugene's as they went towards the Palais.

"I am tormented by temptations."

"What kind? There is a cure for temptation."

"What?"

"Yielding to it."

"You laugh, but you don't know what it is all about. Have you
read Rousseau?"

"Yes."

"Do you remember that he asks the reader somewhere what he would
do if he could make a fortune by killing an old mandarin
somewhere in China by mere force of wishing it, and without
stirring from Paris?"

"Yes."

"Well, then?"

"Pshaw! I am at my thirty-third mandarin."

"Seriously, though. Look here, suppose you were sure that you
could do it, and had only to give a nod. Would you do it?"

"Is he well stricken in years, this mandarin of yours? Pshaw!
after all, young or old, paralytic, or well and sound, my word
for it. . . . Well, then. Hang it, no!"

"You are a good fellow, Bianchon. But suppose you loved a woman
well enough to lose your soul in hell for her, and that she
wanted money for dresses and a carriage, and all her whims, in
fact?"

"Why, here you are taking away my reason, and want me to reason!"

"Well, then, Bianchon, I am mad; bring me to my senses. I have
two sisters as beautiful and innocent as angels, and I want them
to be happy. How am I to find two hundred thousand francs apiece
for them in the next five years? Now and then in life, you see,
you must play for heavy stakes, and it is no use wasting your
luck on low play."

"But you are only stating the problem that lies before every one
at the outset of his life, and you want to cut the Gordian knot
with a sword. If that is the way of it, dear boy, you must be an
Alexander, or to the hulks you go. For my own part, I am quite
contented with the little lot I mean to make for myself somewhere
in the country, when I mean to step into my father's shoes and
plod along. A man's affections are just as fully satisfied by the
smallest circle as they can be by a vast circumference. Napoleon
himself could only dine once, and he could not have more
mistresses than a house student at the Capuchins. Happiness, old
man, depends on what lies between the sole of your foot and the
crown of your head; and whether it costs a million or a hundred
louis, the actual amount of pleasure that you receive rests
entirely with you, and is just exactly the same in any case. I am
for letting that Chinaman live."

"Thank you, Bianchon; you have done me good. We will always be
friends."

"I say," remarked the medical student, as they came to the end of
a broad walk in the Jardin des Plantes, "I saw the Michonneau and
Poiret a few minutes ago on a bench chatting with a gentleman
whom I used to see in last year's troubles hanging about the
Chamber of Deputies; he seems to me, in fact, to be a detective
dressed up like a decent retired tradesman. Let us keep an eye on
that couple; I will tell you why some time. Good-bye; it is
nearly four o'clock, and I must be in to answer to my name."

When Eugene reached the lodging-house, he found Father Goriot
waiting for him.

"Here," cried the old man, "here is a letter from her. Pretty
handwriting, eh?"

Eugene broke the seal and read:--

"Sir,--I have heard from my father that you are fond of Italian
music. I shall be delighted if you will do me the pleasure of
accepting a seat in my box. La Fodor and Pellegrini will sing on
Saturday, so I am sure that you will not refuse me. M. de
Nucingen and I shall be pleased if you will dine with us; we
shall be quite by ourselves. If you will come and be my escort,
my husband will be glad to be relieved from his conjugal duties.
Do not answer, but simply come.--Yours sincerely,
D. DE N."

"Let me see it," said Father Goriot, when Eugene had read the
letter. "You are going, aren't you?" he added, when he had
smelled the writing-paper. "How nice it smells! Her fingers have
touched it, that is certain."

"A woman does not fling herself at a man's head in this way," the
student was thinking. "She wants to use me to bring back de
Marsay; nothing but pique makes a woman do a thing like this."

"Well," said Father Goriot, "what are you thinking about?"

Eugene did not know the fever or vanity that possessed some women
in those days; how should he imagine that to open a door in the
Faubourg Saint-Germain a banker's wife would go to almost any
length. For the coterie of the Faubourg Saint-Germain was a
charmed circle, and the women who moved in it were at that time
the queens of society; and among the greatest of these Dames du
Petit-Chateau, as they were called, were Mme. de Beauseant and
her friends the Duchesse de Langeais and the Duchesse de
Maufrigneause. Rastignac was alone in his ignorance of the
frantic efforts made by women who lived in the Chausee-d'Antin to
enter this seventh heaven and shine among the brightest
constellations of their sex. But his cautious disposition stood
him in good stead, and kept his judgment cool, and the not
altogether enviable power of imposing instead of accepting
conditions.

"Yes, I am going," he replied.

So it was curiosity that drew him to Mme. de Nucingen; while, if
she had treated him disdainfully, passion perhaps might have
brought him to her feet. Still he waited almost impatiently for
to-morrow, and the hour when he could go to her. There is almost
as much charm for a young man in a first flirtation as there is
in first love. The certainty of success is a source of happiness
to which men do not confess, and all the charm of certain women
lies in this. The desire of conquest springs no less from the
easiness than from the difficulty of triumph, and every passion
is excited or sustained by one or the other of these two motives
which divide the empire of love. Perhaps this division is one
result of the great question of temperaments; which, after all,
dominates social life. The melancholic temperament may stand in
need of the tonic of coquetry, while those of nervous or sanguine
complexion withdraw if they meet with a too stubborn resistance.
In other words, the lymphatic temperament is essentially
despondent, and the rhapsodic is bilious.

Eugene lingered over his toilette with an enjoyment of all its
little details that is grateful to a young man's self-love,
though he will not own to it for fear of being laughed at. He
thought, as he arranged his hair, that a pretty woman's glances
would wander through the dark curls. He indulged in childish
tricks like any young girl dressing for a dance, and gazed
complacently at his graceful figure while he smoothed out the
creases of his coat.

"There are worse figures, that is certain," he said to himself.

Then he went downstairs, just as the rest of the household were
sitting down to dinner, and took with good humor the boisterous
applause excited by his elegant appearance. The amazement with
which any attention to dress is regarded in a lodging-house is a
very characteristic trait. No one can put on a new coat but every
one else must say his say about it.

"Clk! clk! clk!" cried Bianchon, making the sound with his tongue
against the roof of his mouth, like a driver urging on a horse.

"He holds himself like a duke and a peer of France," said Mme.
Vauquer.

"Are you going a-courting?" inquired Mlle. Michonneau.

"Cock-a-doodle-doo!" cried the artist.

"My compliments to my lady your wife," from the employe at the
Museum.

"Your wife; have you a wife?" asked Poiret.

"Yes, in compartments, water-tight and floats, guaranteed fast
color, all prices from twenty-five to forty sous, neat check
patterns in the latest fashion and best taste, will wash, half-
linen, half-cotton, half-wool; a certain cure for toothache and
other complaints under the patronage of the Royal College of
Physicians! children like it! a remedy for headache, indigestion,
and all other diseases affecting the throat, eyes, and ears!"
cried Vautrin, with a comical imitation of the volubility of a
quack at a fair. "And how much shall we say for this marvel,
gentlemen? Twopence? No. Nothing of the sort. All that is left in
stock after supplying the Great Mogul. All the crowned heads of
Europe, including the Gr-r-rand Duke of Baden, have been anxious
to get a sight of it. Walk up! walk up! gentlemen! Pay at the
desk as you go in! Strike up the music there! Brooum, la, la,
trinn! la, la, boum! boum! Mister Clarinette, there you are out
of tune!" he added gruffly; "I will rap your knuckles for you!"

"Goodness! what an amusing man!" said Mme. Vauquer to Mme.
Couture; "I should never feel dull with him in the house."

This burlesque of Vautrin's was the signal for an outburst of
merriment, and under cover of jokes and laughter Eugene caught a
glance from Mlle. Taillefer; she had leaned over to say a few
words in Mme. Couture's ear.

"The cab is at the door," announced Sylvie.

"But where is he going to dine?" asked Bianchon.

"With Madame la Baronne de Nucingen."

"M. Goriot's daughter," said the law student.

At this, all eyes turned to the old vermicelli maker; he was
gazing at Eugene with something like envy in his eyes.

Rastignac reached the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare, one of those
many-windowed houses with a mean-looking portico and slender
columns, which are considered the thing in Paris, a typical
banker's house, decorated in the most ostentatious fashion; the
walls lined with stucco, the landings of marble mosaic. Mme. de
Nucingen was sitting in a little drawing-room; the room was
painted in the Italian fashion, and decorated like a restaurant.
The Baroness seemed depressed. The effort that she made to hide
her feelings aroused Eugene's interest; it was plain that she was
not playing a part. He had expected a little flutter of
excitement at his coming, and he found her dispirited and sad.
The disappointment piqued his vanity.

"My claim to your confidence is very small, madame," he said,
after rallying her on her abstracted mood; "but if I am in the
way, please tell me so frankly; I count on your good faith."

"No, stay with me," she said; "I shall be all alone if you go.
Nucingen is dining in town, and I do not want to be alone; I want
to be taken out of myself."

"But what is the matter?"

"You are the very last person whom I should tell," she exclaimed.

"Then I am connected in some way in this secret. I wonder what it
is?"

"Perhaps. Yet, no," she went on; "it is a domestic quarrel, which
ought to be buried in the depths of the heart. I am very unhappy;
did I not tell you so the day before yesterday? Golden chains are
the heaviest of all fetters."

When a woman tells a young man that she is very unhappy, and when
the young man is clever, and well dressed, and has fifteen
hundred francs lying idle in his pocket, he is sure to think as
Eugene said, and he becomes a coxcomb.

"What can you have left to wish for?" he answered. "You are
young, beautiful, beloved, and rich."

"Do not let us talk of my affairs," she said shaking her head
mournfully. "We will dine together tete-a-tete, and afterwards we
will go to hear the most exquisite music. Am I to your taste?"
she went on, rising and displaying her gown of white cashmere,
covered with Persian designs in the most superb taste.

"I wish that you were altogether mine," said Eugene; "you are
charming."

"You would have a forlorn piece of property," she said, smiling
bitterly. "There is nothing about me that betrays my
wretchedness; and yet, in spite of appearances, I am in despair.
I cannot sleep; my troubles have broken my night's rest; I shall
grow ugly."

"Oh! that is impossible," cried the law student; "but I am
curious to know what these troubles can be that a devoted love
cannot efface."

"Ah! if I were to tell you about them, you would shun me," she
said. "Your love for me is as yet only the conventional gallantry
that men use to masquerade in; and, if you really loved me, you
would be driven to despair. I must keep silence, you see. Let us
talk of something else, for pity's sake," she added. "Let me show
you my rooms."

"No; let us stay here," answered Eugene; he sat down on the sofa
before the fire, and boldly took Mme. de Nucingen's hand in his.
She surrendered it to him; he even felt the pressure of her
fingers in one of the spasmodic clutches that betray terrible
agitation.

"Listen," said Rastignac; "if you are in trouble, you ought to
tell me about it. I want to prove to you that I love you for
yourself alone. You must speak to me frankly about your troubles,
so that I can put an end to them, even if I have to kill half-a-
dozen men; or I shall go, never to return."

"Very well," she cried, putting her hand to her forehead in an
agony of despair, "I will put you to the proof, and this very
moment. Yes," she said to herself, "I have no other resource
left."

She rang the bell.

"Are the horses put in for the master?" she asked of the servant.

"Yes, madame."

"I shall take his carriage myself. He can have mine and my
horses. Serve dinner at seven o'clock."

"Now, come with me," she said to Eugene, who thought as he sat in
the banker's carriage beside Mme. de Nucingen that he must surely
be dreaming.

"To the Palais-Royal," she said to the coachman; "stop near the
Theatre-Francais."

She seemed to be too troubled and excited to answer the
innumerable questions that Eugene put to her. He was at a loss
what to think of her mute resistance, her obstinate silence.

"Another moment and she will escape me," he said to himself.

When the carriage stopped at last, the Baroness gave the law
student a glance that silenced his wild words, for he was almost
beside himself.

"Is it true that you love me?" she asked.

"Yes," he answered, and in his manner and tone there was no trace
of the uneasiness that he felt.

"You will not think ill of me, will you, whatever I may ask of
you?"

"No."

"Are you ready to do my bidding?"

"Blindly."

"Have you ever been to a gaming-house?" she asked in a tremulous
voice.

"Never."

"Ah! now I can breathe. You will have luck. Here is my purse,"
she said. "Take it! there are a hundred francs in it, all that
such a fortunate woman as I can call her own. Go up into one of
the gaming-houses--I do not know where they are, but there are
some near the Palais-Royal. Try your luck with the hundred francs
at a game they call roulette; lose it all or bring me back six
thousand francs. I will tell you about my troubles when you come
back."

"Devil take me, I'm sure, if I have a glimmer of a notion of what
I am about, but I will obey you," he added, with inward
exultation, as he thought, "She has gone too far to draw back--
she can refuse me nothing now!"

Eugene took the dainty little purse, inquired the way of a
second-hand clothes-dealer, and hurried to number 9, which
happened to be the nearest gaming-house. He mounted the
staircase, surrendered his hat, and asked the way to the
roulette-table, whither the attendant took him, not a little to
the astonishment of the regular comers. All eyes were fixed on
Eugene as he asked, without bashfulness, where he was to deposit
his stakes.

"If you put a louis on one only of those thirty-six numbers, and
it turns up, you will win thirty-six louis," said a respectable-
looking, white-haired old man in answer to his inquiry.

Eugene staked the whole of his money on the number 21 (his own
age). There was a cry of surprise; before he knew what he had
done, he had won.

"Take your money off, sir," said the old gentleman; "you don't
often win twice running by that system."

Eugene took the rake that the old man handed to him, and drew in
his three thousand six hundred francs, and, still perfectly
ignorant of what he was about, staked again on the red. The
bystanders watched him enviously as they saw him continue to
play. The disc turned, and again he won; the banker threw him
three thousand six hundred francs once more.

"You have seven thousand, two hundred francs of your own," the
old gentleman said in his ear. "Take my advice and go away with
your winnings; red has turned up eight times already. If you are
charitable, you will show your gratitude for sound counsel by
giving a trifle to an old prefect of Napoleon who is down on his
luck."

Rastignac's head was swimming; he saw ten of his louis pass into
the white-haired man's possession, and went down-stairs with his
seven thousand francs; he was still ignorant of the game, and
stupefied by his luck.

"So, that is over; and now where will you take me?" he asked, as
soon as the door was closed, and he showed the seven thousand
francs to Mme. de Nucingen.

Delphine flung her arms about him, but there was no passion in
that wild embrace.

"You have saved me!" she cried, and tears of joy flowed fast.

"I will tell you everything, my friend. For you will be my
friend, will you not? I am rich, you think, very rich; I have
everything I want, or I seem as if I had everything. Very well,
you must know that M. de Nucingen does not allow me the control
of a single penny; he pays all the bills for the house expenses;
he pays for my carriages and opera box; he does not give me
enough to pay for my dress, and he reduces me to poverty in
secret on purpose. I am too proud to beg from him. I should be
the vilest of women if I could take his money at the price at
which he offers it. Do you ask how I, with seven hundred thousand
francs of my own, could let myself be robbed? It is because I was
proud, and scorned to speak. We are so young, so artless when our
married life begins! I never could bring myself to ask my husband
for money; the words would have made my lips bleed, I did not
dare to ask; I spent my savings first, and then the money that my
poor father gave me, then I ran into debt. Marriage for me is a
hideous farce; I cannot talk about it, let it suffice to say that
Nucingen and I have separate rooms, and that I would fling myself
out of the window sooner than consent to any other manner of
life. I suffered agonies when I had to confess to my girlish
extravagance, my debts for jewelry and trifles (for our poor
father had never refused us anything, and spoiled us), but at
last I found courage to tell him about them. After all, I had a
fortune of my own. Nucingen flew into a rage; he said that I
should be the ruin of him, and used frightful language! I wished
myself a hundred feet down in the earth. He had my dowry, so he
paid my debts, but he stipulated at the same time that my
expenses in future must not exceed a certain fixed sum, and I
gave way for the sake of peace. And then," she went on, "I wanted
to gratify the self-love of some one whom you know. He may have
deceived me, but I should do him the justice to say that there
was nothing petty in his character. But, after all, he threw me
over disgracefully. If, at a woman's utmost need, SOMEBODY heaps
gold upon her, he ought never to forsake her; that love should
last for ever! But you, at one-and-twenty, you, the soul of
honor, with the unsullied conscience of youth, will ask me how a
woman can bring herself to accept money in such a way? MON DIEU!
is it not natural to share everything with the one to whom we owe
our happiness? When all has been given, why should we pause and
hesitate over a part? Money is as nothing between us until the
moment when the sentiment that bound us together ceases to exist.
Were we not bound to each other for life? Who that believes in
love foresees such an end to love? You swear to love us
eternally; how, then, can our interests be separate?

"You do not know how I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to
give me six thousand francs; he spends as much as that every
month on his mistress, an opera dancer! I thought of killing
myself. The wildest thoughts came into my head. There have been
moments in my life when I have envied my servants, and would have
changed places with my maid. It was madness to think of going to
our father, Anastasie and I have bled him dry; our poor father
would have sold himself if he could have raised six thousand
francs that way. I should have driven him frantic to no purpose.
You have saved me from shame and death; I was beside myself with
anguish. Ah! monsieur, I owed you this explanation after my mad
ravings. When you left me just now, as soon as you were out of
sight, I longed to escape, to run away . . . where, I did not
know. Half the women in Paris lead such lives as mine; they live
in apparent luxury, and in their souls are tormented by anxiety.
I know of poor creatures even more miserable than I; there are
women who are driven to ask their tradespeople to make out false
bills, women who rob their husbands. Some men believe that an
Indian shawl worth a thousand louis only cost five hundred
francs, others that a shawl costing five hundred francs is worth
a hundred louis. There are women, too, with narrow incomes, who
scrape and save and starve their children to pay for a dress. I
am innocent of these base meannesses. But this is the last
extremity of my torture. Some women will sell themselves to their
husbands, and so obtain their way, but I, at any rate, am free.
If I chose, Nucingen would cover me with gold, but I would rather
weep on the breast of a man whom I can respect. Ah! tonight, M.
de Marsay will no longer have a right to think of me as a woman
whom he has paid." She tried to conceal her tears from him,
hiding her face in her hands; Eugene drew them away and looked at
her; she seemed to him sublime at that moment.

"It is hideous, is it not," she cried, "to speak in a breath of
money and affection. You cannot love me after this," she added.

The incongruity between the ideas of honor which make women so
great, and the errors in conduct which are forced upon them by
the constitution of society, had thrown Eugene's thoughts into
confusion; he uttered soothing and consoling words, and wondered
at the beautiful woman before him, and at the artless imprudence
of her cry of pain.

"You will not remember this against me?" she asked; "promise me
that you will not."

"Ah! madame, I am incapable of doing so," he said. She took his
hand and held it to her heart, a movement full of grace that
expressed her deep gratitude.

"I am free and happy once more, thanks to you," she said. "Oh! I
have felt lately as if I were in the grasp of an iron hand. But
after this I mean to live simply and to spend nothing. You will
think me just as pretty, will you not, my friend? Keep this," she
went on, as she took only six of the banknotes. "In conscience I
owe you a thousand crowns, for I really ought to go halves with
you."

Eugene's maiden conscience resisted; but when the Baroness said,
"I am bound to look on you as an accomplice or as an enemy," he
took the money.

"It shall be a last stake in reserve," he said, "in case of
misfortune."

"That was what I was dreading to hear," she cried, turning pale.
"Oh, if you would that I should be anything to you, swear to me
that you will never re-enter a gaming-house. Great Heaven! that I
should corrupt you! I should die of sorrow!"

They had reached the Rue Saint-Lazare by this time. The contrast
between the ostentation of wealth in the house, and the wretched
condition of its mistress, dazed the student; and Vautrin's
cynical words began to ring in his ears.

"Seat yourself there," said the Baroness, pointing to a low chair
beside the fire. "I have a difficult letter to write," she added.
"Tell me what to say."

"Say nothing," Eugene answered her. "Put the bills in an
envelope, direct it, and send it by your maid."

"Why, you are a love of a man," she said. "Ah! see what it is to
have been well brought up. That is the Beauseant through and
through," she went on, smiling at him.

"She is charming," thought Eugene, more and more in love. He
looked round him at the room; there was an ostentatious character
about the luxury, a meretricious taste in the splendor.

"Do you like it?" she asked, as she rang for the maid.

"Therese, take this to M. de Marsay, and give it into his hands
yourself. If he is not at home, bring the letter back to me."

Therese went, but not before she had given Eugene a spiteful
glance.

Dinner was announced. Rastignac gave his arm to Mme. de Nucingen,
she led the way into a pretty dining-room, and again he saw the
luxury of the table which he had admired in his cousin's house.

"Come and dine with me on opera evenings, and we will go to the
Italiens afterwards," she said.

"I should soon grow used to the pleasant life if it could last,
but I am a poor student, and I have my way to make."

"Oh! you will succeed," she said laughing. "You will see. All
that you wish will come to pass. _I_ did not expect to be so
happy."

It is the wont of women to prove the impossible by the possible,
and to annihilate facts by presentiments. When Mme. de Nucingen
and Rastignac took their places in her box at the Bouffons, her
face wore a look of happiness that made her so lovely that every
one indulged in those small slanders against which women are
defenceless; for the scandal that is uttered lightly is often
seriously believed. Those who know Paris, believe nothing that is
said, and say nothing of what is done there.

Eugene took the Baroness' hand in his, and by some light pressure
of the fingers, or a closer grasp of the hand, they found a
language in which to express the sensations which the music gave
them. It was an evening of intoxicating delight for both; and
when it ended, and they went out together, Mme. de Nucingen
insisted on taking Eugene with her as far as the Pont Neuf, he
disputing with her the whole of the way for a single kiss after
all those that she had showered upon him so passionately at the
Palais-Royal; Eugene reproached her with inconsistency.

"That was gratitude," she said, "for devotion that I did not dare
to hope for, but now it would be a promise."

"And will you give me no promise, ingrate?"

He grew vexed. Then, with one of those impatient gestures that
fill a lover with ecstasy, she gave him her hand to kiss, and he
took it with a discontented air that delighted her.

"I shall see you at the ball on Monday," she said.

As Eugene went home in the moonlight, he fell to serious
reflections. He was satisfied, and yet dissatisfied. He was
pleased with an adventure which would probably give him his
desire, for in the end one of the prettiest and best-dressed
women in Paris would be his; but, as a set-off, he saw his hopes
of fortune brought to nothing; and as soon as he realized this
fact, the vague thoughts of yesterday evening began to take a
more decided shape in his mind. A check is sure to reveal to us
the strength of our hopes. The more Eugene learned of the
pleasures of life in Paris, the more impatient he felt of poverty
and obscurity. He crumpled the banknote in his pocket, and found
any quantity of plausible excuses for appropriating it.

He reached the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve at last, and from the
stairhead he saw a light in Goriot's room; the old man had
lighted a candle, and set the door ajar, lest the student should
pass him by, and go to his room without "telling him all about
his daughter," to use his own expression. Eugene, accordingly,
told him everything without reserve.

"Then they think that I am ruined!" cried Father Goriot, in an
agony of jealousy and desperation. "Why, I have still thirteen
hundred livres a year! MON DIEU! Poor little girl! why did she
not come to me? I would have sold my rentes; she should have had
some of the principal, and I would have bought a life-annuity
with the rest. My good neighbor, why did not YOU come to tell me
of her difficulty? How had you the heart to go and risk her poor
little hundred francs at play? This is heart-breaking work. You
see what it is to have sons-in-law. Oh! if I had hold of them, I
would wring their necks. MON DIEU! CRYING! Did you say she was
crying?"

"With her head on my waistcoat," said Eugene.

"Oh! give it to me," said Father Goriot. "What! my daughter's
tears have fallen there--my darling Delphine, who never used to
cry when she was a little girl! Oh! I will buy you another; do
not wear it again; let me have it. By the terms of her marriage-
contract, she ought to have the use of her property. To-morrow
morning I will go and see Derville; he is an attorney. I will
demand that her money should be invested in her own name. I know
the law. I am an old wolf, I will show my teeth."

"Here, father; this is a banknote for a thousand francs that she
wanted me to keep out of our winnings. Keep them for her, in the
pocket of the waistcoat."

Goriot looked hard at Eugene, reached out and took the law
student's hand, and Eugene felt a tear fall on it.

"You will succeed," the old man said. "God is just, you see. I
know an honest man when I see him, and I can tell you, there are
not many men like you. I am to have another dear child in you, am
I? There, go to sleep; you can sleep; you are not yet a father.
She was crying! and I have to be told about it!--and I was
quietly eating my dinner, like an idiot, all the time--I, who
would sell the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to save one tear to
either of them."



"An honest man!" said Eugene to himself as he lay down. "Upon my
word, I think I will be an honest man all my life; it is so
pleasant to obey the voice of conscience." Perhaps none but
believers in God do good in secret; and Eugene believed in a God.

The next day Rastignac went at the appointed time to Mme. de
Beauseant, who took him with her to the Duchesse de Carigliano's
ball. The Marechale received Eugene most graciously. Mme. de
Nucingen was there. Delphine's dress seemed to suggest that she
wished for the admiration of others, so that she might shine the
more in Eugene's eyes; she was eagerly expecting a glance from
him, hiding, as she thought, this eagerness from all beholders.
This moment is full of charm for one who can guess all that
passes in a woman's mind. Who has not refrained from giving his
opinion, to prolong her suspense, concealing his pleasure from a
desire to tantalize, seeking a confession of love in her
uneasiness, enjoying the fears that he can dissipate by a smile?
In the course of the evening the law student suddenly
comprehended his position; he saw that, as the cousin of Mme. de
Beauseant, he was a personage in this world. He was already
credited with the conquest of Mme. de Nucingen, and for this
reason was a conspicuous figure; he caught the envious glances of
other young men, and experienced the earliest pleasures of
coxcombry. People wondered at his luck, and scraps of these
conversations came to his ears as he went from room to room; all
the women prophesied his success; and Delphine, in her dread of
losing him, promised that this evening she would not refuse the
kiss that all his entreaties could scarcely win yesterday.

Rastignac received several invitations. His cousin presented him
to other women who were present; women who could claim to be of
the highest fashion; whose houses were looked upon as pleasant;
and this was the loftiest and most fashionable society in Paris
into which he was launched. So this evening had all the charm of
a brilliant debut; it was an evening that he was to remember even
in old age, as a woman looks back upon her first ball and the
memories of her girlish triumphs.

The next morning, at breakfast, he related the story of his
success for the benefit of Father Goriot and the lodgers. Vautrin
began to smile in a diabolical fashion.

"And do you suppose," cried that cold-blooded logician, "that a
young man of fashion can live here in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-
Genevieve, in the Maison Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable
boarding-house in every way, I grant you, but an establishment
that, none the less, falls short of being fashionable? The house
is comfortable, it is lordly in its abundance; it is proud to be
the temporary abode of a Rastignac; but, after all, it is in the
Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be out of place
here, where we only aim at the purely patriarchalorama. If you
mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend," Vautrin
continued, with half-paternal jocularity, "you must have three
horses, a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the
evening; you should spend altogether about nine thousand francs
on your stables. You would show yourself unworthy of your destiny
if you spent no more than three thousand francs with your tailor,
six hundred in perfumery, a hundred crowns to your shoemaker, and
a hundred more to your hatter. As for your laundress, there goes
another thousand francs; a young man of fashion must of necessity
make a great point of his linen; if your linen comes up to the
required standard, people often do not look any further. Love and
the Church demand a fair altar-cloth. That is fourteen thousand
francs. I am saying nothing of losses at play, bets, and
presents; it is impossible to allow less than two thousand francs
for pocket money. I have led that sort of life, and I know all
about these expenses. Add the cost of necessaries next; three
hundred louis for provender, a thousand francs for a place to
roost in. Well, my boy, for all these little wants of ours we had
need to have twenty-five thousand francs every year in our purse,
or we shall find ourselves in the kennel, and people laughing at
us, and our career is cut short, good-bye to success, and good-
bye to your mistress! I am forgetting your valet and your groom!
Is Christophe going to carry your billets-doux for you? Do you
mean to employ the stationery you use at present? Suicidal
policy! Hearken to the wisdom of your elders!" he went on, his
bass voice growing louder at each syllable. "Either take up your
quarters in a garret, live virtuously, and wed your work, or set
about the thing in a different way."

Vautrin winked and leered in the direction of Mlle. Taillefer to
enforce his remarks by a look which recalled the late tempting
proposals by which he had sought to corrupt the student's mind.

Several days went by, and Rastignac lived in a whirl of gaiety.
He dined almost every day with Mme. de Nucingen, and went
wherever she went, only returning to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-
Genevieve in the small hours. He rose at mid-day, and dressed to
go into the Bois with Delphine if the day was fine, squandering
in this way time that was worth far more than he knew. He turned
as eagerly to learn the lessons of luxury, and was as quick to
feel its fascination, as the flowers of the date palm to receive
the fertilizing pollen. He played high, lost and won large sums
of money, and at last became accustomed to the extravagant life
that young men lead in Paris. He sent fifteen hundred francs out
of his first winnings to his mother and sisters, sending handsome
presents as well as the money. He had given out that he meant to
leave the Maison Vauquer; but January came and went, and he was
still there, still unprepared to go.

One rule holds good of most young men--whether rich or poor. They
never have money for the necessaries of life, but they have
always money to spare for their caprices--an anomaly which finds
its explanation in their youth and in the almost frantic
eagerness with which youth grasps at pleasure. They are reckless
with anything obtained on credit, while everything for which they
must pay in ready money is made to last as long as possible; if
they cannot have all that they want, they make up for it, it
would seem, by squandering what they have. To state the matter
simply--a student is far more careful of his hat than of his
coat, because the latter being a comparatively costly article of
dress, it is in the nature of things that a tailor should be a
creditor; but it is otherwise with the hatter; the sums of money
spent with him are so modest, that he is the most independent and
unmanageable of his tribe, and it is almost impossible to bring
him to terms. The young man in the balcony of a theatre who
displays a gorgeous waistcoat for the benefit of the fair owners
of opera glasses, has very probably no socks in his wardrobe, for
the hosier is another of the genus of weevils that nibble at the
purse. This was Rastignac's condition. His purse was always empty
for Mme. Vauquer, always full at the demand of vanity; there was
a periodical ebb and flow in his fortunes, which was seldom
favorable to the payment of just debts. If he was to leave that
unsavory and mean abode, where from time to time his pretensions
met with humiliation, the first step was to pay his hostess for a
month's board and lodging, and the second to purchase furniture
worthy of the new lodgings he must take in his quality of dandy,
a course that remained impossible. Rastignac, out of his winnings
at cards, would pay his jeweler exorbitant prices for gold
watches and chains, and then, to meet the exigencies of play,
would carry them to the pawnbroker, that discreet and forbidding-
looking friend of youth; but when it was a question of paying for
board or lodging, or for the necessary implements for the
cultivation of his Elysian fields, his imagination and pluck
alike deserted him. There was no inspiration to be found in
vulgar necessity, in debts contracted for past requirements. Like
most of those who trust to their luck, he put off till the last
moment the payment of debts that among the bourgeoisie are
regarded as sacred engagements, acting on the plan of Mirabeau,
who never settled his baker's bill until it underwent a
formidable transformation into a bill of exchange.

It was about this time when Rastignac was down on his luck and
fell into debt, that it became clear to the law student's mind
that he must have some more certain source of income if he meant
to live as he had been doing. But while he groaned over the
thorny problems of his precarious situation, he felt that he
could not bring himself to renounce the pleasures of this
extravagant life, and decided that he must continue it at all
costs. His dreams of obtaining a fortune appeared more and more
chimerical, and the real obstacles grew more formidable. His
initiation into the secrets of the Nucingen household had
revealed to him that if he were to attempt to use this love
affair as a means of mending his fortunes, he must swallow down
all sense of decency, and renounce all the generous ideas which
redeem the sins of youth. He had chosen this life of apparent
splendor, but secretly gnawed by the canker worm of remorse, a
life of fleeting pleasure dearly paid for by persistent pain;
like Le Distrait of La Bruyere, he had descended so far as to
make his bed in a ditch; but (also like Le Distrait) he himself
was uncontaminated as yet by the mire that stained his garments.

"So we have killed our mandarin, have we?" said Bianchon one day
as they left the dinner table.

"Not yet," he answered, "but he is at his last gasp."

The medical student took this for a joke, but it was not a jest.
Eugene had dined in the house that night for the first time for a
long while, and had looked thoughtful during the meal. He had
taken his place beside Mlle. Taillefer, and stayed through the
dessert, giving his neighbor an expressive glance from time to
time. A few of the boarders discussed the walnuts at the table,
and others walked about the room, still taking part in the
conversation which had begun among them. People usually went when
they chose; the amount of time that they lingered being
determined by the amount of interest that the conversation
possessed for them, or by the difficulty of the process of
digestion. In winter-time the room was seldom empty before eight
o'clock, when the four women had it all to themselves, and made
up for the silence previously imposed upon them by the
preponderating masculine element. This evening Vautrin had
noticed Eugene's abstractedness, and stayed in the room, though
he had seemed to be in a hurry to finish his dinner and go. All
through the talk afterwards he had kept out of the sight of the
law student, who quite believed that Vautrin had left the room.
He now took up his position cunningly in the sitting-room instead
of going when the last boarders went. He had fathomed the young
man's thoughts, and felt that a crisis was at hand. Rastignac
was, in fact, in a dilemma, which many another young man must
have known.

Mme. de Nucingen might love him, or might merely be playing with
him, but in either case Rastignac had been made to experience all
the alternations of hope and despair of genuine passion, and all
the diplomatic arts of a Parisienne had been employed on him.
After compromising herself by continually appearing in public
with Mme. de Beauseant's cousin she still hesitated, and would
not give him the lover's privileges which he appeared to enjoy.
For a whole month she had so wrought on his senses, that at last
she had made an impression on his heart. If in the earliest days
the student had fancied himself to be master, Mme. de Nucingen
had since become the stronger of the two, for she had skilfully
roused and played upon every instinct, good or bad, in the two or
three men comprised in a young student in Paris. This was not the
result of deep design on her part, nor was she playing a part,
for women are in a manner true to themselves even through their
grossest deceit, because their actions are prompted by a natural
impulse. It may have been that Delphine, who had allowed this
young man to gain such an ascendency over her, conscious that she
had been too demonstrative, was obeying a sentiment of dignity,
and either repented of her concessions, or it pleased her to
suspend them. It is so natural to a Parisienne, even when passion
has almost mastered her, to hesitate and pause before taking the
plunge; to probe the heart of him to whom she intrusts her
future. And once already Mme. de Nucingen's hopes had been
betrayed, and her loyalty to a selfish young lover had been
despised. She had good reason to be suspicious. Or it may have
been that something in Eugene's manner (for his rapid success was
making a coxcomb of him) had warned her that the grotesque nature
of their position had lowered her somewhat in his eyes. She
doubtless wished to assert her dignity; he was young, and she
would be great in his eyes; for the lover who had forsaken her
had held her so cheap that she was determined that Eugene should
not think her an easy conquest, and for this very reason--he knew
that de Marsay had been his predecessor. Finally, after the
degradation of submission to the pleasure of a heartless young
rake, it was so sweet to her to wander in the flower-strewn
realms of love, that it was not wonderful that she should wish to
dwell a while on the prospect, to tremble with the vibrations of
love, to feel the freshness of the breath of its dawn. The true
lover was suffering for the sins of the false. This inconsistency
is unfortunately only to be expected so long as men do not know
how many flowers are mown down in a young woman's soul by the
first stroke of treachery.

Whatever her reasons may have been, Delphine was playing with
Rastignac, and took pleasure in playing with him, doubtless
because she felt sure of his love, and confident that she could
put an end to the torture as soon as it was her royal pleasure to
do so. Eugene's self-love was engaged; he could not suffer his
first passage of love to end in a defeat, and persisted in his
suit like a sportsman determined to bring down at least one
partridge to celebrate his first Feast of Saint-Hubert. The
pressure of anxiety, his wounded self-love, his despair, real or
feigned, drew him nearer and nearer to this woman. All Paris
credited him with this conquest, and yet he was conscious that he
had made no progress since the day when he saw Mme. de Nucingen
for the first time. He did not know as yet that a woman's
coquetry is sometimes more delightful than the pleasure of secure
possession of her love, and was possessed with helpless rage. If,
at this time, while she denied herself to love, Eugene gathered
the springtide spoils of his life, the fruit, somewhat sharp and
green, and dearly bought, was no less delicious to the taste.
There were moments when he had not a sou in his pockets, and at
such times he thought in spite of his conscience of Vautrin's
offer and the possibility of fortune by a marriage with Mlle.
Taillefer. Poverty would clamor so loudly that more than once he
was on the point of yielding to the cunning temptations of the
terrible sphinx, whose glance had so often exerted a strange
spell over him.

Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau went up to their rooms; and
Rastignac, thinking that he was alone with the women in the
dining-room, sat between Mme. Vauquer and Mme. Couture, who was
nodding over the woolen cuffs that she was knitting by the stove,
and looked at Mlle. Taillefer so tenderly that she lowered her
eyes.

"Can you be in trouble, M. Eugene?" Victorine said after a pause.

"Who has not his troubles?" answered Rastignac. "If we men were
sure of being loved, sure of a devotion which would be our reward
for the sacrifices which we are always ready to make, then
perhaps we should have no troubles."

For answer Mlle. Taillefer only gave him a glance but it was
impossible to mistake its meaning.

"You, for instance, mademoiselle; you feel sure of your heart to-
day, but are you sure that it will never change?"

A smile flitted over the poor girl's lips; it seemed as if a ray
of light from her soul had lighted up her face. Eugene was
dismayed at the sudden explosion of feeling caused by his words.

"Ah! but suppose," he said, "that you should be rich and happy
to-morrow, suppose that a vast fortune dropped down from the
clouds for you, would you still love the man whom you loved in
your days of poverty?"

A charming movement of the head was her only answer.

"Even if he were very poor?"

Again the same mute answer.

"What nonsense are you talking, you two?" exclaimed Mme. Vauquer.

"Never mind," answered Eugene; "we understand each other."

"So there is to be an engagement of marriage between M. le
Chevalier Eugene de Rastignac and Mlle. Victorine Taillefer, is
there?" The words were uttered in Vautrin's deep voice, and
Vautrin appeared at the door as he spoke.

"Oh! how you startled me!" Mme. Couture and Mme. Vauquer
exclaimed together.

"I might make a worse choice," said Rastignac, laughing.
Vautrin's voice had thrown him into the most painful agitation
that he had yet known.

"No bad jokes, gentlemen!" said Mme. Couture. "My dear, let us go
upstairs."

Mme. Vauquer followed the two ladies, meaning to pass the evening
in their room, an arrangement that economized fire and
candlelight. Eugene and Vautrin were left alone.

"I felt sure you would come round to it," said the elder man with
the coolness that nothing seemed to shake. "But stay a moment! I
have as much delicacy as anybody else. Don't make up your mind on
the spur of the moment; you are a little thrown off your balance
just now. You are in debt, and I want you to come over to my way
of thinking after sober reflection, and not in a fit of passion
or desperation. Perhaps you want a thousand crowns. There, you
can have them if you like."

The tempter took out a pocketbook, and drew thence three
banknotes, which he fluttered before the student's eyes. Eugene
was in a most painful dilemma. He had debts, debts of honor. He
owed a hundred louis to the Marquis d'Ajuda and to the Count de
Trailles; he had not the money, and for this reason had not dared
to go to Mme. de Restaud's house, where he was expected that
evening. It was one of those informal gatherings where tea and
little cakes are handed round, but where it is possible to lose
six thousand francs at whist in the course of a night.

"You must see," said Eugene, struggling to hide a convulsive
tremor, "that after what has passed between us, I cannot possibly
lay myself under any obligation to you."

"Quite right; I should be sorry to hear you speak otherwise,"
answered the tempter. "You are a fine young fellow, honorable,
brave as a lion, and as gentle as a young girl. You would be a
fine haul for the devil! I like youngsters of your sort. Get rid
of one or two more prejudices, and you will see the world as it
is. Make a little scene now and then, and act a virtuous part in
it, and a man with a head on his shoulders can do exactly as he
likes amid deafening applause from the fools in the gallery. Ah!
a few days yet, and you will be with us; and if you would only be
tutored by me, I would put you in the way of achieving all your
ambitions. You should no sooner form a wish than it should be
realized to the full; you should have all your desires--honors,
wealth, or women. Civilization should flow with milk and honey
for you. You should be our pet and favorite, our Benjamin. We
would all work ourselves to death for you with pleasure; every
obstacle should be removed from your path. You have a few
prejudices left; so you think that I am a scoundrel, do you?
Well, M. de Turenne, quite as honorable a man as you take
yourself to be, had some little private transactions with
bandits, and did not feel that his honor was tarnished. You would
rather not lie under any obligation to me, eh? You need not draw
back on that account," Vautrin went on, and a smile stole over
his lips. "Take these bits of paper and write across this," he
added, producing a piece of stamped paper, "Accepted the sum of
three thousand five hundred francs due this day twelvemonth, and
fill in the date. The rate of interest is stiff enough to silence
any scruples on your part; it gives you the right to call me a
Jew. You can call quits with me on the score of gratitude. I am
quite willing that you should despise me to-day, because I am
sure that you will have a kindlier feeling towards me later on.
You will find out fathomless depths in my nature, enormous and
concentrated forces that weaklings call vices, but you will never
find me base or ungrateful. In short, I am neither a pawn nor a
bishop, but a castle, a tower of strength, my boy."

"What manner of man are you?" cried Eugene. "Were you created to
torment me?"

"Why no; I am a good-natured fellow, who is willing to do a dirty
piece of work to put you high and dry above the mire for the rest
of your days. Do you ask the reason of this devotion? All right;
I will tell you that some of these days. A word or two in your
ear will explain it. I have begun by shocking you, by showing you
the way to ring the changes, and giving you a sight of the
mechanism of the social machine; but your first fright will go
off like a conscript's terror on the battlefield. You will grow
used to regarding men as common soldiers who have made up their
minds to lose their lives for some self-constituted king. Times
have altered strangely. Once you could say to a bravo, 'Here are
a hundred crowns; go and kill Monsieur So-and-so for me,' and you
could sup quietly after turning some one off into the dark for
the least thing in the world. But nowadays I propose to put you
in the way of a handsome fortune; you have only to nod your head,
it won't compromise you in any way, and you hesitate. 'Tis an
effeminate age."

Eugene accepted the draft, and received the banknotes in exchange
for it.

"Well, well. Come, now, let us talk rationally," Vautrin
continued. "I mean to leave this country in a few months' time
for America, and set about planting tobacco. I will send you the
cigars of friendship. If I make money at it, I will help you in
your career. If I have no children--which will probably be the
case, for I have no anxiety to raise slips of myself here--you
shall inherit my fortune. That is what you may call standing by a
man; but I myself have a liking for you. I have a mania, too, for
devoting myself to some one else. I have done it before. You see,
my boy, I live in a loftier sphere than other men do; I look on
all actions as means to an end, and the end is all that I look
at. What is a man's life to me? Not THAT," he said, and he
snapped his thumb-nail against his teeth. "A man, in short, is
everything to me, or just nothing at all. Less than nothing if
his name happens to be Poiret; you can crush him like a bug, he
is flat and he is offensive. But a man is a god when he is like
you; he is not a machine covered with a skin, but a theatre in
which the greatest sentiments are displayed--great thoughts and
feelings--and for these, and these only, I live. A sentiment--
what is that but the whole world in a thought? Look at Father
Goriot. For him, his two girls are the whole universe; they are
the clue by which he finds his way through creation. Well, for my
own part, I have fathomed the depths of life, there is only one
real sentiment--comradeship between man and man. Pierre and
Jaffier, that is my passion. I knew Venice Preserved by heart.
Have you met many men plucky enough when a comrade says, 'Let us
bury a dead body!' to go and do it without a word or plaguing him
by taking a high moral tone? I have done it myself. I should not
talk like this to just everybody, but you are not like an
ordinary man; one can talk to you, you can understand things. You
will not dabble about much longer among the tadpoles in these
swamps. Well, then, it is all settled. You will marry. Both of us
carry our point. Mine is made of iron, and will never soften, he!
he!"

Vautrin went out. He would not wait to hear the student's
repudiation, he wished to put Eugene at his ease. He seemed to
understand the secret springs of the faint resistance still made
by the younger man; the struggles in which men seek to preserve
their self-respect by justifying their blameworthy actions to
themselves.

"He may do as he likes; I shall not marry Mlle. Taillefer, that
is certain," said Eugene to himself.

He regarded this man with abhorrence, and yet the very cynicism
of Vautrin's ideas, and the audacious way in which he used other
men for his own ends, raised him in the student's eyes; but the
thought of a compact threw Eugene into a fever of apprehension,
and not until he had recovered somewhat did he dress, call for a
cab, and go to Mme. de Restaud's.

For some days the Countess had paid more and more attention to a
young man whose every step seemed a triumphal progress in the
great world; it seemed to her that he might be a formidable power
before long. He paid Messieurs de Trailles and d'Ajuda, played at
whist for part of the evening, and made good his losses. Most men
who have their way to make are more or less of fatalists, and
Eugene was superstitious; he chose to consider that his luck was
heaven's reward for his perseverance in the right way. As soon as
possible on the following morning he asked Vautrin whether the
bill he had given was still in the other's possession; and on
receiving a reply in the affirmative, he repaid the three
thousand francs with a not unnatural relief.

"Everything is going on well," said Vautrin.

"But I am not your accomplice," said Eugene.

"I know, I know," Vautrin broke in. "You are still acting like a
child. You are making mountains out of molehills at the outset."

Two days later, Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau were sitting together
on a bench in the sun. They had chosen a little frequented alley
in the Jardin des Plantes, and a gentleman was chatting with
them, the same person, as a matter of fact, about whom the
medical student had, not without good reason, his own suspicions.

"Mademoiselle," this M. Gondureau was saying, "I do not see any
cause for your scruples. His Excellency, Monseigneur the Minister
of Police----"

"Yes, his Excellency is taking a personal interest in the
matter," said Gondureau.

Who would think it probable that Poiret, a retired clerk,
doubtless possessed of some notions of civic virtue, though there
might be nothing else in his head--who would think it likely that
such a man would continue to lend an ear to this supposed
independent gentleman of the Rue de Buffon, when the latter
dropped the mask of a decent citizen by that word "police," and
gave a glimpse of the features of a detective from the Rue de
Jerusalem? And yet nothing was more natural. Perhaps the
following remarks from the hitherto unpublished records made by
certain observers will throw a light on the particular species to
which Poiret belonged in the great family of fools. There is a
race of quill-drivers, confined in the columns of the budget
between the first degree of latitude (a kind of administrative
Greenland where the salaries begin at twelve hundred francs) to
the third degree, a more temperate zone, where incomes grow from
three to six thousand francs, a climate where the BONUS
flourishes like a half-hardy annual in spite of some difficulties
of culture. A characteristic trait that best reveals the feeble
narrow-mindedness of these inhabitants of petty officialdom is a
kind of involuntary, mechanical, and instinctive reverence for
the Grand Lama of every Ministry, known to the rank and file only
by his signature (an illegible scrawl) and by his title--"His
Excellency Monseigneur le Ministre," five words which produce as
much effect as the il Bondo Cani of the Calife de Bagdad, five
words which in the eyes of this low order of intelligence
represent a sacred power from which there is no appeal. The
Minister is administratively infallible for the clerks in the
employ of the Government, as the Pope is infallible for good
Catholics. Something of this peculiar radiance invests everything
he does or says, or that is said or done in his name; the robe of
office covers everything and legalizes everything done by his
orders; does not his very title--His Excellency--vouch for the
purity of his intentions and the righteousness of his will, and
serve as a sort of passport and introduction to ideas that
otherwise would not be entertained for a moment? Pronounce the
words "His Excellency," and these poor folk will forthwith
proceed to do what they would not do for their own interests.
Passive obedience is as well known in a Government department as
in the army itself; and the administrative system silences
consciences, annihilates the individual, and ends (give it time
enough) by fashioning a man into a vise or a thumbscrew, and he
becomes part of the machinery of Government. Wherefore, M.
Gondureau, who seemed to know something of human nature,
recognized Poiret at once as one of those dupes of officialdom,
and brought out for his benefit, at the proper moment, the deus
ex machina, the magical words "His Excellency," so as to dazzle
Poiret just as he himself unmasked his batteries, for he took
Poiret and the Michonneau for the male and female of the same
species.

"If his Excellency himself, his Excellency the Minister . . . Ah!
that is quite another thing," said Poiret.

"You seem to be guided by this gentleman's opinion, and you hear
what he says," said the man of independent means, addressing
Mlle. Michonneau. "Very well, his Excellency is at this moment
absolutely certain that the so-called Vautrin, who lodges at the
Maison Vauquer, is a convict who escaped from penal servitude at
Toulon, where he is known by the nickname Trompe-la-Mort."

"Trompe-la-Mort?" said Pioret. "Dear me, he is very lucky if he
deserves that nickname."

"Well, yes," said the detective. "They call him so because he has
been so lucky as not to lose his life in the very risky
businesses that he has carried through. He is a dangerous man,
you see! He has qualities that are out of the common; the thing
he is wanted for, in fact, was a matter which gained him no end
of credit with his own set----"

"Then is he a man of honor?" asked Poiret.

"Yes, according to his notions. He agreed to take another man's
crime upon himself--a forgery committed by a very handsome young
fellow that he had taken a great fancy to, a young Italian, a bit
of a gambler, who has since gone into the army, where his conduct
has been unexceptionable."

"But if his Excellency the Minister of Police is certain that M.
Vautrin is this Trompe-la-Mort, why should he want me?" asked
Mlle. Michonneau.

"Oh yes," said Poiret, "if the Minister, as you have been so
obliging as to tell us, really knows for a certainty----"

"Certainty is not the word; he only suspects. You will soon
understand how things are. Jacques Collin, nicknamed Trompe-la-
Mort, is in the confidence of every convict in the three prisons;
he is their man of business and their banker. He makes a very
good thing out of managing their affairs, which want a MAN OF
MARK to see about them."

"Ha! ha! do you see the pun, mademoiselle?" asked Poiret. "This
gentleman calls himself a MAN OF MARK because he is a MARKED MAN--
branded, you know."

"This so-called Vautrin," said the detective, "receives the money
belonging to my lords the convicts, invests it for them, and
holds it at the disposal of those who escape, or hands it over to
their families if they leave a will, or to their mistresses when
they draw upon him for their benefit."

"Their mistresses! You mean their wives," remarked Poiret.

"No, sir. A convict's wife is usually an illegitimate connection.
We call them concubines."

"Then they all live in a state of concubinage?"

"Naturally."

"Why, these are abominations that his Excellency ought not to
allow. Since you have the honor of seeing his Excellency, you,
who seem to have philanthropic ideas, ought really to enlighten
him as to their immoral conduct--they are setting a shocking
example to the rest of society."

"But the Government does not hold them up as models of all the
virtues, my dear sir----"

"Of course not, sir; but still----"

"Just let the gentleman say what he has to say, dearie," said
Mlle. Michonneau.

"You see how it is, mademoiselle," Gondureau continued. "The
Government may have the strongest reasons for getting this
illicit hoard into its hands; it mounts up to something
considerable, by all that we can make out. Trompe-la-Mort not
only holds large sums for his friends the convicts, but he has
other amounts which are paid over to him by the Society of the
Ten Thousand----"

"Ten Thousand Thieves!" cried Pioret in alarm.

"No. The Society of the Ten Thousand is not an association of
petty offenders, but of people who set about their work on a
large scale--they won't touch a matter unless there are ten
thousand francs in it. It is composed of the most distinguished
of the men who are sent straight to the Assize Courts when they
come up for trial. They know the Code too well to risk their
necks when they are nabbed. Collin is their confidential agent
and legal adviser. By means of the large sums of money at his
disposal he has established a sort of detective system of his
own; it is widespread and mysterious in its workings. We have had
spies all about him for a twelvemonth, and yet we could not
manage to fathom his games. His capital and his cleverness are at
the service of vice and crime; this money furnishes the necessary
funds for a regular army of blackguards in his pay who wage
incessant war against society. If we can catch Trompe-la-Mort,
and take possession of his funds, we should strike at the root of
this evil. So this job is a kind of Government affair--a State
secret--and likely to redound to the honor of those who bring the
thing to a successful conclusion. You, sir, for instance, might
very well be taken into a Government department again; they might
make you secretary to a Commissary of Police; you could accept
that post without prejudice to your retiring pension."

Mlle. Michonneau interposed at this point with, "What is there to
hinder Trompe-la-Mort from making off with the money?"

"Oh!" said the detective, "a man is told off to follow him
everywhere he goes, with orders to kill him if he were to rob the
convicts. Then it is not quite as easy to make off with a lot of
money as it is to run away with a young lady of family. Besides,
Collin is not the sort of fellow to play such a trick; he would
be disgraced, according to his notions."

"You are quite right, sir," said Poiret, "utterly disgraced he
would be."

"But none of all this explains why you do not come and take him
without more ado," remarked Mlle. Michonneau.

"Very well, mademoiselle, I will explain--but," he added in her
ear, "keep your companion quiet, or I shall never have done. The
old boy ought to pay people handsomely for listening to him.--
Trompe-la-Mort, when he came back here," he went on aloud
"slipped into the skin of an honest man; he turned up disguised
as a decent Parisian citizen, and took up his quarters in an
unpretending lodging-house. He is cunning, that he is! You don't
catch him napping. Then M. Vautrin is a man of consequence, who
transacts a good deal of business."

"Naturally," said Poiret to himself.

"And suppose that the Minister were to make a mistake and get
hold of the real Vautrin, he would put every one's back up among
the business men in Paris, and public opinion would be against
him. M. le Prefet de Police is on slippery ground; he has
enemies. They would take advantage of any mistake. There would be
a fine outcry and fuss made by the Opposition, and he would be
sent packing. We must set about this just as we did about the
Coignard affair, the sham Comte de Sainte-Helene; if he had been
the real Comte de Sainte-Helene, we should have been in the wrong
box. We want to be quite sure what we are about."

"Yes, but what you want is a pretty woman," said Mlle. Michonneau
briskly.

"Trompe-la-Mort would not let a woman come near him," said the
detective. "I will tell you a secret--he does not like them."

"Still, I do not see what I can do, supposing that I did agree to
identify him for two thousand francs."

"Nothing simpler," said the stranger. "I will send you a little
bottle containing a dose that will send a rush of blood to the
head; it will do him no harm whatever, but he will fall down as
if he were in a fit. The drug can be put into wine or coffee;
either will do equally well. You carry your man to bed at once,
and undress him to see that he is not dying. As soon as you are
alone, you give him a slap on the shoulder, and PRESTO! the
letters will appear."

"Why, that is just nothing at all," said Poiret.

"Well, do you agree?" said Gondureau, addressing the old maid.

"But, my dear sir, suppose there are no letters at all," said
Mlle. Michonneau; "am I to have the two thousand francs all the
same?"

"No."

"What will you give me then?"

"Five hundred francs."

"It is such a thing to do for so little! It lies on your
conscience just the same, and I must quiet my conscience, sir."

"I assure you," said Poiret, "that mademoiselle has a great deal
of conscience, and not only so, she is a very amiable person, and
very intelligent."

"Well, now," Mlle. Michonneau went on, "make it three thousand
francs if he is Trompe-la-Mort, and nothing at all if he is an
ordinary man."

"Done!" said Gondureau, "but on the condition that the thing is
settled to-morrow."

"Not quite so soon, my dear sir; I must consult my confessor
first."

"You are a sly one," said the detective as he rose to his feet.
"Good-bye till to-morrow, then. And if you should want to see me
in a hurry, go to the Petite Rue Saint-Anne at the bottom of the
Cour de la Sainte-Chapelle. There is one door under the archway.
Ask there for M. Gondureau."

Bianchon, on his way back from Cuvier's lecture, overheard the
sufficiently striking nickname of Trompe-la-Mort, and caught the
celebrated chief detective's "Done!"

"Why didn't you close with him? It would be three hundred francs
a year," said Poiret to Mlle. Michonneau.

"Why didn't I?" she asked. "Why, it wants thinking over. Suppose
that M. Vautrin is this Trompe-la-Mort, perhaps we might do
better for ourselves with him. Still, on the other hand, if you
ask him for money, it would put him on his guard, and he is just
the man to clear out without paying, and that would be an
abominable sell."

"And suppose you did warn him," Poiret went on, "didn't that
gentleman say that he was closely watched? You would spoil
everything."

"Anyhow," thought Mlle. Michonneau, "I can't abide him. He says
nothing but disagreeable things to me."

"But you can do better than that," Poiret resumed. "As that
gentleman said (and he seemed to me to be a very good sort of
man, besides being very well got up), it is an act of obedience
to the laws to rid society of a criminal, however virtuous he may
be. Once a thief, always a thief. Suppose he were to take it into
his head to murder us all? The deuce! We should be guilty of
manslaughter, and be the first to fall victims into the bargain!"

Mlle. Michonneau's musings did not permit her to listen very
closely to the remarks that fell one by one from Poiret's lips
like water dripping from a leaky tap. When once this elderly
babbler began to talk, he would go on like clockwork unless Mlle.
Michonneau stopped him. He started on some subject or other, and
wandered on through parenthesis after parenthesis, till he came
to regions as remote as possible from his premises without coming
to any conclusions by the way.

By the time they reached the Maison Vauquer he had tacked
together a whole string of examples and quotations more or less
irrelevant to the subject in hand, which led him to give a full
account of his own deposition in the case of the Sieur Ragoulleau
versus Dame Morin, when he had been summoned as a witness for the
defence.

As they entered the dining-room, Eugene de Rastignac was talking
apart with Mlle. Taillefer; the conversation appeared to be of
such thrilling interest that the pair never noticed the two older
lodgers as they passed through the room. None of this was thrown
away on Mlle. Michonneau.

"I knew how it would end," remarked that lady, addressing Poiret.
"They have been making eyes at each other in a heartrending way
for a week past."

"Yes," he answered. "So she was found guilty."

"Who?"

"Mme. Morin."

"I am talking about Mlle. Victorine," said Mlle, Michonneau, as
she entered Poiret's room with an absent air, "and you answer,
'Mme. Morin.' Who may Mme. Morin be?"

"What can Mlle. Victorine be guilty of?" demanded Poiret.

"Guilty of falling in love with M. Eugene de Rastignac and going
further and further without knowing exactly where she is going,
poor innocent!"



That morning Mme. de Nucingen had driven Eugene to despair. In
his own mind he had completely surrendered himself to Vautrin,
and deliberately shut his eyes to the motive for the friendship
which that extraordinary man professed for him, nor would he look
to the consequences of such an alliance. Nothing short of a
miracle could extricate him now out of the gulf into which he had
walked an hour ago, when he exchanged vows in the softest
whispers with Mlle. Taillefer. To Victorine it seemed as if she
heard an angel's voice, that heaven was opening above her; the
Maison Vauquer took strange and wonderful hues, like a stage
fairy-palace. She loved and she was loved; at any rate, she
believed that she was loved; and what woman would not likewise
have believed after seeing Rastignac's face and listening to the
tones of his voice during that hour snatched under the Argus eyes
of the Maison Vauquer? He had trampled on his conscience; he knew
that he was doing wrong, and did it deliberately; he had said to
himself that a woman's happiness should atone for this venial
sin. The energy of desperation had lent new beauty to his face;
the lurid fire that burned in his heart shone from his eyes.
Luckily for him, the miracle took place. Vautrin came in in high
spirits, and at once read the hearts of these two young creatures
whom he had brought together by the combinations of his infernal
genius, but his deep voice broke in upon their bliss.

  "A charming girl is my Fanchette
  In her simplicity,"

he sang mockingly.

Victorine fled. Her heart was more full than it had ever been,
but it was full of joy, and not of sorrow. Poor child! A pressure
of the hand, the light touch of Rastignac's hair against her
cheek, a word whispered in her ear so closely that she felt the
student's warm breath on her, the pressure of a trembling arm
about her waist, a kiss upon her throat--such had been her
betrothal. The near neighborhood of the stout Sylvie, who might
invade that glorified room at any moment, only made these first
tokens of love more ardent, more eloquent, more entrancing than
the noblest deeds done for love's sake in the most famous
romances. This plain-song of love, to use the pretty expression
of our forefathers, seemed almost criminal to the devout young
girl who went to confession every fortnight. In that one hour she
had poured out more of the treasures of her soul than she could
give in later days of wealth and happiness, when her whole self
followed the gift.

"The thing is arranged," Vautrin said to Eugene, who remained.
"Our two dandies have fallen out. Everything was done in proper
form. It is a matter of opinion. Our pigeon has insulted my hawk.
They will meet to-morrow in the redoubt at Clignancourt. By half-
past eight in the morning Mlle. Taillefer, calmly dipping her
bread and butter in her coffee cup, will be sole heiress of her
father's fortune and affections. A funny way of putting it, isn't
it? Taillefer's youngster is an expert swordsman, and quite
cocksure about it, but he will be bled; I have just invented a
thrust for his benefit, a way of raising your sword point and
driving it at the forehead. I must show you that thrust; it is an
uncommonly handy thing to know."

Rastignac heard him in dazed bewilderment; he could not find a
word in reply. Just then Goriot came in, and Bianchon and a few
of the boarders likewise appeared.

"That is just as I intended." Vautrin said. "You know quite well
what you are about. Good, my little eaglet! You are born to
command, you are strong, you stand firm on your feet, you are
game! I respect you."

He made as though he would take Eugene's hand, but Rastignac
hastily withdrew it, sank into a chair, and turned ghastly pale;
it seemed to him that there was a sea of blood before his eyes.

"Oh! so we still have a few dubious tatters of the swaddling
clothes of virtue about us!" murmured Vautrin. "But Papa Doliban
has three millions; I know the amount of his fortune. Once have
her dowry in your hands, and your character will be as white as
the bride's white dress, even in your own eyes."

Rastignac hesitated no longer. He made up his mind that he would
go that evening to warn the Taillefers, father and son. But just
as Vautrin left him, Father Goriot came up and said in his ear,
"You look melancholy, my boy; I will cheer you up. Come with me."

The old vermicelli dealer lighted his dip at one of the lamps as
he spoke. Eugene went with him, his curiosity had been aroused.

"Let us go up to your room," the worthy soul remarked, when he
had asked Sylvie for the law student's key. "This morning," he
resumed, "you thought that SHE did not care about you, did you
not? Eh? She would have nothing to say to you, and you went away
out of humor and out of heart. Stuff and rubbish! She wanted you
to go because she was expecting ME! Now do you understand? We
were to complete the arrangements for taking some chambers for
you, a jewel of a place, you are to move into it in three days'
time. Don't split upon me. She wants it to be a surprise; but I
couldn't bear to keep the secret from you. You will be in the Rue
d'Artois, only a step or two from the Rue Saint-Lazare, and you
are to be housed like a prince! Any one might have thought we
were furnishing the house for a bride. Oh! we have done a lot of
things in the last month, and you knew nothing about it. My
attorney has appeared on the scene, and my daughter is to have
thirty-six thousand francs a year, the interest on her money, and
I shall insist on having her eight hundred thousand invested in
sound securities, landed property that won't run away."

Eugene was dumb. He folded his arms and paced up and down in his
cheerless, untidy room. Father Goriot waited till the student's
back was turned, and seized the opportunity to go to the chimney-
piece and set upon it a little red morocco case with Rastignac's
arms stamped in gold on the leather.

"My dear boy," said the kind soul, "I have been up to the eyes in
this business. You see, there was plenty of selfishness on my
part; I have an interested motive in helping you to change
lodgings. You will not refuse me if I ask you something; will
you, eh?"

"What is it?"

"There is a room on the fifth floor, up above your rooms, that is
to let along with them; that is where I am going to live, isn't
that so? I am getting old: I am too far from my girls. I shall
not be in the way, but I shall be there, that is all. You will
come and talk to me about her every evening. It will not put you
about, will it? I shall have gone to bed before you come in, but
I shall hear you come up, and I shall say to myself, 'He has just
seen my little Delphine. He has been to a dance with her, and she
is happy, thanks to him.' If I were ill, it would do my heart
good to hear you moving about below, to know when you leave the
house and when you come in. It is only a step to the Champs-
Elysees, where they go every day, so I shall be sure of seeing
them, whereas now I am sometimes too late. And then--perhaps she
may come to see you! I shall hear her, I shall see her in her
soft quilted pelisse tripping about as daintily as a kitten. In
this one month she has become my little girl again, so light-
hearted and gay. Her soul is recovering, and her happiness is
owing to you! Oh! I would do impossibilities for you. Only just
now she said to me, 'I am very happy, papa!' When they say
'father' stiffly, it sends a chill through me; but when they call
me 'papa,' it brings all the old memories back. I feel most their
father then; I even believe that they belong to me, and to no one
else."

The good man wiped his eyes, he was crying.

"It is a long while since I have heard them talk like that, a
long, long time since she took my arm as she did to-day. Yes,
indeed, it must be quite ten years since I walked side by side
with one of my girls. How pleasant it was to keep step with her,
to feel the touch of her gown, the warmth of her arm! Well, I
took Delphine everywhere this morning; I went shopping with her,
and I brought her home again. Oh! you must let me live near you.
You may want some one to do you a service some of these days, and
I shall be on the spot to do it. Oh! if only that great dolt of
an Alsatian would die, if his gout would have the sense to attack
his stomach, how happy my poor child would be! You would be my
son-in-law; you would be her husband in the eyes of the world.
Bah! she has known no happiness, that excuses everything. Our
Father in heaven is surely on the side of fathers on earth who
love their children. How fond of you she is!" he said, raising
his head after a pause. "All the time we were going about
together she chatted away about you. 'He is so nice-looking,
papa; isn't he? He is kind-hearted! Does he talk to you about
me?' Pshaw! she said enough about you to fill whole volumes;
between the Rue d'Artois and the Passage des Panoramas she poured
her heart out into mine. I did not feel old once during that
delightful morning; I felt as light as a feather. I told her how
you had given the banknote to me; it moved my darling to tears.
But what can this be on your chimney-piece?" said Father Goriot
at last. Rastignac had showed no sign, and he was dying of
impatience.

Eugene stared at his neighbor in dumb and dazed bewilderment. He
thought of Vautrin, of that duel to be fought to-morrow morning,
and of this realization of his dearest hopes, and the violent
contrast between the two sets of ideas gave him all the sensations
of nightmare. He went to the chimney-piece, saw the little square
case, opened it, and found a watch of Breguet's make wrapped in
paper, on which these words were written:

  "I want you to think of me every hour, BECAUSE . . .
  "DELPHINE."

That last word doubtless contained an allusion to some scene that
had taken place between them. Eugene felt touched. Inside the
gold watch-case his arms had been wrought in enamel. The chain,
the key, the workmanship and design of the trinket were all such
as he had imagined, for he had long coveted such a possession.
Father Goriot was radiant. Of course he had promised to tell his
daughter every little detail of the scene and of the effect
produced upon Eugene by her present; he shared in the pleasure
and excitement of the young people, and seemed to be not the
least happy of the three. He loved Rastignac already for his own
as well as for his daughter's sake.

"You must go and see her; she is expecting you this evening. That
great lout of an Alsatian is going to have supper with his opera-
dancer. Aha! he looked very foolish when my attorney let him know
where he was. He says he idolizes my daughter, does he? He had
better let her alone, or I will kill him. To think that my
Delphine is his"--he heaved a sigh--"it is enough to make me
murder him, but it would not be manslaughter to kill that animal;
he is a pig with a calf's brains.--You will take me with you,
will you not?"

"Yes, dear Father Goriot; you know very well how fond I am of
you----"

"Yes, I do know very well. You are not ashamed of me, are you?
Not you! Let me embrace you," and he flung his arms around the
student's neck.

"You will make her very happy; promise me that you will! You will
go to her this evening, will you not?"

"Oh! yes. I must go out; I have some urgent business on hand."

"Can I be of any use?"

"My word, yes! Will you go to old Taillefer's while I go to Mme.
de Nucingen? Ask him to make an appointment with me some time
this evening; it is a matter of life and death."

"Really, young man!" cried Father Goriot, with a change of
countenance; "are you really paying court to his daughter, as
those simpletons were saying down below? . . . TONNERRE DE DIEU!
you have no notion what a tap A LA GORIOT is like, and if you are
playing a double game, I shall put a stop to it by one blow of
the fist. . . Oh! the thing is impossible!"

"I swear to you that I love but one woman in the world," said the
student. "I only knew it a moment ago."

"Oh! what happiness!" cried Goriot.

"But young Taillefer has been called out; the duel comes off to-
morrow morning, and I have heard it said that he may lose his
life in it."

"But what business is it of yours?" said Goriot.

"Why, I ought to tell him so, that he may prevent his son from
putting in an appearance----"

Just at that moment Vautrin's voice broke in upon them; he was
standing at the threshold of his door and singing:

  "Oh! Richard, oh my king!
  All the world abandons thee!
  Broum! broum! broum! broum! broum!

  The same old story everywhere,
  A roving heart and a . . . tra la la."

"Gentlemen!" shouted Christophe, "the soup is ready, and every
one is waiting for you."

"Here," Vautrin called down to him, "come and take a bottle of my
Bordeaux."

"Do you think your watch is pretty?" asked Goriot. "She has good
taste, hasn't she? Eh?"

Vautrin, Father Goriot, and Rastignac came downstairs in company,
and, all three of them being late, were obliged to sit together.

Eugene was as distant as possible in his manner to Vautrin during
dinner; but the other, so charming in Mme. Vauquer's opinion, had
never been so witty. His lively sallies and sparkling talk put
the whole table in good humor. His assurance and coolness filled
Eugene with consternation.

"Why, what has come to you to-day?" inquired Mme. Vauquer. "You
are as merry as a skylark."

"I am always in spirits after I have made a good bargain."

"Bargain?" said Eugene.

"Well, yes, bargain. I have just delivered a lot of goods, and I
shall be paid a handsome commission on them--Mlle. Michonneau,"
he went on, seeing that the elderly spinster was scrutinizing him
intently, "have you any objection to some feature in my face,
that you are making those lynx eyes at me? Just let me know, and
I will have it changed to oblige you . . . We shall not fall out
about it, Poiret, I dare say?" he added, winking at the
superannuated clerk.

"Bless my soul, you ought to stand as model for a burlesque
Hercules," said the young painter.

"I will, upon my word! if Mlle. Michonneau will consent to sit as
the Venus of Pere-Lachaise," replied Vautrin.

"There's Poiret," suggested Bianchon.

"Oh! Poiret shall pose as Poiret. He can be a garden god!" cried
Vautrin; "his name means a pear----"

"A sleepy pear!" Bianchon put in. "You will come in between the
pear and the cheese."

"What stuff are you all talking!" said Mme. Vauquer; "you would
do better to treat us to your Bordeaux; I see a glimpse of a
bottle there. It would keep us all in a good humor, and it is
good for the stomach besides."

"Gentlemen," said Vautrin, "the Lady President calls us to order.
Mme. Couture and Mlle. Victorine will take your jokes in good
part, but respect the innocence of the aged Goriot. I propose a
glass or two of Bordeauxrama, rendered twice illustrious by the
name of Laffite, no political allusions intended.--Come, you
Turk!" he added, looking at Christophe, who did not offer to
stir. "Christophe! Here! What, you don't answer to your own name?
Bring us some liquor, Turk!"

"Here it is, sir," said Christophe, holding out the bottle.

Vautrin filled Eugene's glass and Goriot's likewise, then he
deliberately poured out a few drops into his own glass, and
sipped it while his two neighbors drank their wine. All at once
he made a grimace.

"Corked!" he cried. "The devil! You can drink the rest of this,
Christophe, and go and find another bottle; take from the right-
hand side, you know. There are sixteen of us; take down eight
bottles."

"If you are going to stand treat," said the painter, "I will pay
for a hundred chestnuts."

"Oh! oh!"

"Booououh!"

"Prrr!"

These exclamations came from all parts of the table like squibs
from a set firework.

"Come, now, Mama Vauquer, a couple of bottles of champagne,"
called Vautrin.

"Quien! just like you! Why not ask for the whole house at once. A
couple of bottles of champagne; that means twelve francs! I shall
never see the money back again, I know! But if M. Eugene has a
mind to pay for it, I have some currant cordial."

"That currant cordial of hers is as bad as a black draught,"
muttered the medical student.

"Shut up, Bianchon," exclaimed Rastignac; "the very mention of
black draught makes me feel----. Yes, champagne, by all means; I
will pay for it," he added.

"Sylvie," called Mme. Vauquer, "bring in some biscuits, and the
little cakes."

"Those little cakes are mouldy graybeards," said Vautrin. "But
trot out the biscuits."

The Bordeaux wine circulated; the dinner table became a livelier
scene than ever, and the fun grew fast and furious. Imitations of
the cries of various animals mingled with the loud laughter; the
Museum official having taken it into his head to mimic a cat-call
rather like the caterwauling of the animal in question, eight
voices simultaneously struck up with the following variations:

"Scissors to grind!"

"Chick-weeds for singing bir-ds!"

"Brandy-snaps, ladies!"

"China to mend!"

"Boat ahoy!"

"Sticks to beat your wives or your clothes!"

"Old clo'!"

"Cherries all ripe!"

But the palm was awarded to Bianchon for the nasal accent with
which he rendered the cry of "Umbrellas to me-end!"

A few seconds later, and there was a head-splitting racket in the
room, a storm of tomfoolery, a sort of cats' concert, with
Vautrin as conductor of the orchestra, the latter keeping an eye
the while on Eugene and Father Goriot. The wine seemed to have
gone to their heads already. They leaned back in their chairs,
looking at the general confusion with an air of gravity, and
drank but little; both of them were absorbed in the thought of
what lay before them to do that evening, and yet neither of them
felt able to rise and go. Vautrin gave a side glance at them from
time to time, and watched the change that came over their faces,
choosing the moment when their eyes drooped and seemed about to
close, to bend over Rastignac and to say in his ear:--

"My little lad, you are not quite shrewd enough to outwit Papa
Vautrin yet, and he is too fond of you to let you make a mess of
your affairs. When I have made up my mind to do a thing, no one
short of Providence can put me off. Aha! we were for going round
to warn old Taillefer, telling tales out of school! The oven is
hot, the dough is kneaded, the bread is ready for the oven; to-
morrow we will eat it up and whisk away the crumbs; and we are
not going to spoil the baking? . . . No, no, it is all as good as
done! We may suffer from a few conscientious scruples, but they
will be digested along with the bread. While we are having our
forty winks, Colonel Count Franchessini will clear the way to
Michel Taillefer's inheritance with the point of his sword.
Victorine will come in for her brother's money, a snug fifteen
thousand francs a year. I have made inquiries already, and I know
that her late mother's property amounts to more than three
hundred thousand----"

Eugene heard all this, and could not answer a word; his tongue
seemed to be glued to the roof of his mouth, an irresistible
drowsiness was creeping over him. He still saw the table and the
faces round it, but it was through a bright mist. Soon the noise
began to subside, one by one the boarders went. At last, when
their numbers had so dwindled that the party consisted of Mme.
Vauquer, Mme. Couture, Mlle. Victorine, Vautrin, and Father
Goriot, Rastignac watched as though in a dream how Mme. Vauquer
busied herself by collecting the bottles, and drained the
remainder of the wine out of each to fill others.

"Oh! how uproarious they are! what a thing it is to be young!"
said the widow.

These were the last words that Eugene heard and understood.

"There is no one like M. Vautrin for a bit of fun like this,"
said Sylvie. "There, just hark at Christophe, he is snoring like
a top."

"Good-bye, mamma," said Vautrin; "I am going to a theatre on the
boulevard to see M. Marty in Le Mont Sauvage, a fine play taken
from Le Solitaire. . . . If you like, I will take you and these
two ladies----"

"Thank you; I must decline," said Mme. Couture.

"What! my good lady!" cried Mme. Vauquer, "decline to see a play
founded on the Le Solitaire, a work by Atala de Chateaubriand? We
were so fond of that book that we cried over it like Magdalens
under the line-trees last summer, and then it is an improving
work that might edify your young lady."

"We are forbidden to go to the play," answered Victorine.

"Just look, those two yonder have dropped off where they sit,"
said Vautrin, shaking the heads of the two sleepers in a comical
way.

He altered the sleeping student's position, settled his head more
comfortably on the back of his chair, kissed him warmly on the
forehead, and began to sing:

  "Sleep, little darlings;
  I watch while you slumber."

"I am afraid he may be ill," said Victorine.

"Then stop and take care of him," returned Vautrin. " 'Tis your
duty as a meek and obedient wife," he whispered in her ear. "the
young fellow worships you, and you will be his little wife--
there's your fortune for you. In short," he added aloud, "they
lived happily ever afterwards, were much looked up to in all the
countryside, and had a numerous family. That is how all the
romances end.--Now, mamma," he went on, as he turned to Madame
Vauquer and put his arm round her waist, "put on your bonnet,
your best flowered silk, and the countess' scarf, while I go out
and call a cab--all my own self."

And he started out, singing as he went:

  "Oh! sun! divine sun!
  Ripening the pumpkins every one."

"My goodness! Well, I'm sure! Mme. Couture, I could live happily
in a garret with a man like that.--There, now!" she added,
looking round for the old vermicelli maker, "there is that Father
Goriot half seas over. HE never thought of taking me anywhere,
the old skinflint. But he will measure his length somewhere. My
word! it is disgraceful to lose his senses like that, at his age!
You will be telling me that he couldn't lose what he hadn't got--
Sylvie, just take him up to his room!"

Sylvie took him by the arm, supported him upstairs, and flung him
just as he was, like a package, across the bed.

"Poor young fellow!" said Mme. Couture, putting back Eugene's
hair that had fallen over his eyes; "he is like a young girl, he
does not know what dissipation is."

"Well, I can tell you this, I know," said Mme. Vauquer, "I have
taken lodgers these thirty years, and a good many have passed
through my hands, as the saying is, but I have never seen a nicer
nor a more aristocratic looking young man than M. Eugene. How
handsome he looks sleeping! Just let his head rest on your
shoulder, Mme. Couture. Pshaw! he falls over towards Mlle.
Victorine. There's a special providence for young things. A
little more, and he would have broken his head against the knob
of the chair. They'd make a pretty pair those two would!"

"Hush, my good neighbor," cried Mme. Couture, "you are saying
such things----"

"Pooh!" put in Mme. Vauquer, "he does not hear.--Here, Sylvie!
come and help me to dress. I shall put on my best stays."

"What! your best stays just after dinner, madame?" said Sylvie.
"No, you can get some one else to lace you. I am not going to be
your murderer. It's a rash thing to do, and might cost you your
life."

"I don't care, I must do honor to M. Vautrin."

"Are you so fond of your heirs as all that?"

"Come, Sylvie, don't argue," said the widow, as she left the
room.

"At her age, too!" said the cook to Victorine, pointing to her
mistress as she spoke.

Mme. Couture and her ward were left in the dining-room, and
Eugene slept on Victorine's shoulder. The sound of Christophe's
snoring echoed through the silent house; Eugene's quiet breathing
seemed all the quieter by force of contrast, he was sleeping as
peacefully as a child. Victorine was very happy; she was free to
perform one of those acts of charity which form an innocent
outlet for all the overflowing sentiments of a woman's nature; he
was so close to her that she could feel the throbbing of his
heart; there was a look of almost maternal protection and
conscious pride in Victorine's face. Among the countless thoughts
that crowded up in her young innocent heart, there was a wild
flutter of joy at this close contact.

"Poor, dear child!" said Mme. Couture, squeezing her hand.

The old lady looked at the girl. Victorine's innocent, pathetic
face, so radiant with the new happiness that had befallen her,
called to mind some naive work of mediaeval art, when the painter
neglected the accessories, reserving all the magic of his brush
for the quiet, austere outlines and ivory tints of the face,
which seems to have caught something of the golden glory of
heaven.

"After all, he only took two glasses, mamma," said Victorine,
passing her fingers through Eugene's hair.

"Indeed, if he had been a dissipated young man, child, he would
have carried his wine like the rest of them. His drowsiness does
him credit."

There was a sound of wheels outside in the street.

"There is M. Vautrin, mamma," said the girl. "Just take M.
Eugene. I would rather not have that man see me like this; there
are some ways of looking at you that seem to sully your soul and
make you feel as though you had nothing on."

"Oh, no, you are wrong!" said Mme. Couture. "M. Vautrin is a
worthy man; he reminds me a little of my late husband, poor dear
M. Couture, rough but kind-hearted; his bark is worse than his
bite."

Vautrin came in while she was speaking; he did not make a sound,
but looked for a while at the picture of the two young faces--the
lamplight falling full upon them seemed to caress them.

"Well," he remarked, folding his arms, "here is a picture! It
would have suggested some pleasing pages to Bernardin de Saint-
Pierre (good soul), who wrote Paul et Virginie. Youth is very
charming, Mme. Couture!--Sleep on, poor boy," he added, looking
at Eugene, "luck sometimes comes while you are sleeping.--There
is something touching and attractive to me about this young man,
madame," he continued; "I know that his nature is in harmony with
his face. Just look, the head of a cherub on an angel's shoulder!
He deserves to be loved. If I were a woman, I would die (no--not
such a fool), I would live for him." He bent lower and spoke in
the widow's ear. "When I see those two together, madame, I cannot
help thinking that Providence meant them for each other; He works
by secret ways, and tries the reins and the heart," he said in a
loud voice. "And when I see you, my children, thus united by a
like purity and by all human affections, I say to myself that it
is quite impossible that the future should separate you. God is
just."--He turned to Victorine. "It seems to me," he said, "that
I have seen the line of success in your hand. Let me look at it,
Mlle. Victorine; I am well up in palmistry, and I have told
fortunes many a time. Come, now, don't be frightened. Ah! what do
I see? Upon my word, you will be one of the richest heiresses in
Paris before very long. You will heap riches on the man who loves
you. Your father will want you to go and live with him. You will
marry a young and handsome man with a title, and he will idolize
you."

The heavy footsteps of the coquettish widow, who was coming down
the stairs, interrupted Vautrin's fortune-telling. "Here is Mamma
Vauquerre, fair as a starr-r-r, dressed within an inch of her
life.--Aren't we a trifle pinched for room?" he inquired, with
his arm round the lady; "we are screwed up very tightly about the
bust, mamma! If we are much agitated, there may be an explosion;
but I will pick up the fragments with all the care of an
antiquary."

"There is a man who can talk the language of French gallantry!"
said the widow, bending to speak in Mme. Couture's ear.

"Good-bye, little ones!" said Vautrin, turning to Eugene and
Victorine. "Bless you both!" and he laid a hand on either head.
"Take my word for it, young lady, an honest man's prayers are
worth something; they should bring you happiness, for God hears
them."

"Good-bye, dear," said Mme. Vauquer to her lodger. "Do you think
that M. Vautrin means to run away with me?" she added, lowering
her voice.

"Lack-a-day!" said the widow.

"Oh! mamma dear, suppose it should really happen as that kind M.
Vautrin said!" said Victorine with a sigh as she looked at her
hands. The two women were alone together.

"Why, it wouldn't take much to bring it to pass," said the
elderly lady; "just a fall from his horse, and your monster of a
brother----"

"Oh! mamma."

"Good Lord! Well, perhaps it is a sin to wish bad luck to an
enemy," the widow remarked. "I will do penance for it. Still, I
would strew flowers on his grave with the greatest pleasure, and
that is the truth. Black-hearted, that he is! The coward couldn't
speak up for his own mother, and cheats you out of your share by
deceit and trickery. My cousin had a pretty fortune of her own,
but unluckily for you, nothing was said in the marriage-contract
about anything that she might come in for."

"It would be very hard if my fortune is to cost some one else his
life," said Victorine. "If I cannot be happy unless my brother is
to be taken out of the world, I would rather stay here all my
life."

"MON DIEU! it is just as that good M. Vautrin says, and he is
full of piety, you see," Mme. Couture remarked. "I am very glad
to find that he is not an unbeliever like the rest of them that
talk of the Almighty with less respect than they do of the Devil.
Well, as he was saying, who can know the ways by which it may
please Providence to lead us?"

With Sylvie's help the two women at last succeeded in getting
Eugene up to his room; they laid him on the bed, and the cook
unfastened his clothes to make him more comfortable. Before they
left the room, Victorine snatched an opportunity when her
guardian's back was turned, and pressed a kiss on Eugene's
forehead, feeling all the joy that this stolen pleasure could
give her. Then she looked round the room, and gathering up, as it
were, into one single thought all the untold bliss of that day,
she made a picture of her memories, and dwelt upon it until she
slept, the happiest creature in Paris.

That evening's merry-making, in the course of which Vautrin had
given the drugged wine to 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 today? Did not a lady in olden times arm her knight with sword
and helmet and coat of mail, and find him a charger, so that he
might fight for her in the tournament? Well, then, 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.

"Ah! well, yes, I ought not to have touched you," said the poor
father, wiping his hands on his trousers, "but I have been
packing up my things; I did not know that you were coming to see
me."

He was glad that he had drawn down her wrath upon himself.

"Ah!" he sighed, as he sat down, "you children have broken my
heart between you. This is killing me. My head feels as if it
were on fire. Be good to each other and love each other! This
will be the death of me! Delphine! Nasie! come, be sensible; you
are both in the wrong. Come, Dedel," he added, looking through
his tears at the Baroness, "she must have twelve thousand francs,
you see; let us see if we can find them for her. Oh, my girls, do
not look at each other like that!" and he sank on his knees
beside Delphine. "Ask her to forgive you--just to please me," he
said in her ear. "She is more miserable than you are. Come now,
Dedel."

"Poor Nasie!" said Delphine, alarmed at the wild extravagant
grief in her father's face, "I was in the wrong, kiss me----"

"Ah! that is like balm to my heart," cried Father Goriot. "But
how are we to find twelve thousand francs? I might offer myself
as a substitute in the army----"

"Oh! father dear!" they both cried, flinging their arms about
him. "No, no!"

"God reward you for the thought. We are not worth it, are we,
Nasie?" asked Delphine.

"And besides, father dear, it would only be a drop in the
bucket," observed the Countess.

"But is flesh and blood worth nothing?" cried the old man in his
despair. "I would give body and soul to save you, Nasie. I would
do a murder for the man who would rescue you. I would do, as
Vautrin did, go to the hulks, go----" he stopped as if struck by
a thunderbolt, and put both hands to his head. "Nothing left!" he
cried, tearing his hair. "If I only knew of a way to steal money,
but it is so hard to do it, and then you can't set to work by
yourself, and it takes time to rob a bank. Yes, it is time I was
dead; there is nothing left me to do but to die. I am no good in
the world; I am no longer a father! No. She has come to me in her
extremity, and, wretch that I am, I have nothing to give her. Ah!
you put your money into a life annuity, old scoundrel; and had
you not daughters? You did not love them. Die, die in a ditch,
like the dog that you are! Yes, I am worse than a dog; a beast
would not have done as I have done! Oh! my head . . . it throbs
as if it would burst."

"Papa!" cried both the young women at once, "do, pray, be
reasonable!" and they clung to him to prevent him from dashing
his head against the wall. There was a sound of sobbing.

Eugene, greatly alarmed, took the bill that bore Vautrin's
signature, saw that the stamp would suffice for a larger sum,
altered the figures, made it into a regular bill for twelve
thousand francs, payable to Goriot's order, and went to his
neighbor's room.

"Here is the money, madame," he said, handing the piece of paper
to her. "I was asleep; your conversation awoke me, and by this
means I learned all that I owed to M. Goriot. This bill can be
discounted, and I shall meet it punctually at the due date."

The Countess stood motionless and speechless, but she held the
bill in her fingers.

"Delphine," she said, with a white face, and her whole frame
quivering with indignation, anger, and rage, "I forgave you
everything; God is my witness that I forgave you, but I cannot
forgive this! So this gentleman was there all the time, and you
knew it! Your petty spite has let you to wreak your vengeance on
me by betraying my secrets, my life, my children's lives, my
shame, my honor! There, you are nothing to me any longer. I hate
you. I will do all that I can to injure you. I will . . ."

Anger paralyzed her; the words died in her dry parched throat.

"Why, he is my son, my child; he is your brother, your
preserver!" cried Goriot. "Kiss his hand, Nasie! Stay, I will
embrace him myself," he said, straining Eugene to his breast in a
frenzied clasp. "Oh my boy! I will be more than a father to you;
if I had God's power, I would fling worlds at your feet. Why
don't you kiss him, Nasie? He is not a man, but an angel, a angel
out of heaven."

"Never mind her, father; she is mad just now."

"Mad! am I? And what are you?" cried Mme. de Restaud.

"Children, children, I shall die if you go on like this," cried
the old man, and he staggered and fell on the bed as if a bullet
had struck him.--"They are killing me between them," he said to
himself.

The Countess fixed her eyes on Eugene, who stood stock still; all
his faculties were numbed by this violent scene.

"Sir? . . ." she said, doubt and inquiry in her face, tone, and
bearing; she took no notice now of her father nor of Delphine,
who was hastily unfastening his waistcoat.

"Madame," said Eugene, answering the question before it was
asked, "I will meet the bill, and keep silence about it."

"You have killed our father, Nasie!" said Delphine, pointing to
Goriot, who lay unconscious on the bed. The Countess fled.

"I freely forgive her," said the old man, opening his eyes; "her
position is horrible; it would turn an older head than hers.
Comfort Nasie, and be nice to her, Delphine; promise it to your
poor father before he dies," he asked, holding Delphine's hand in
a convulsive clasp.

"Oh! what ails you, father?" she cried in real alarm.

"Nothing, nothing," said Goriot; "it will go off. There is
something heavy pressing on my forehead, a little headache. . . .
Ah! poor Nasie, what a life lies before her!"

Just as he spoke, the Countess came back again and flung herself
on her knees before him. "Forgive me!" she cried.

"Come," said her father, "you are hurting me still more."

"Monsieur," the Countess said, turning to Rastignac, "misery made
me unjust to you. You will be a brother to me, will you not?" and
she held out her hand. Her eyes were full of tears as she spoke.

"Nasie," cried Delphine, flinging her arms round her sister, "my
little Nasie, let us forget and forgive."

"No, no," cried Nasie; "I shall never forget!"

"Dear angels," cried Goriot, "it is as if a dark curtain over my
eyes had been raised; your voices have called me back to life.
Kiss each other once more. Well, now, Nasie, that bill will save
you, won't it?"

"I hope so. I say, papa, will you write your name on it?"

"There! how stupid of me to forget that! But I am not feeling at
all well, Nasie, so you must not remember it against me. Send and
let me know as soon as you are out of your strait. No, I will go
to you. No, after all, I will not go; I might meet your husband,
and I should kill him on the spot. And as for signing away your
property, I shall have a word to say about that. Quick, my child,
and keep Maxime in order in future."

Eugene was too bewildered to speak.

"Poor Anastasie, she always had a violent temper," said Mme. de
Nucingen, "but she has a good heart."

"She came back for the endorsement," said Eugene in Delphine's
ear.

"Do you think so?"

"I only wish I could think otherwise. Do not trust her," he
answered, raising his eyes as if he confided to heaven the
thoughts that he did not venture to express.

"Yes. She is always acting a part to some extent."

"How do you feel now, dear Father Goriot?" asked Rastignac.

"I should like to go to sleep," he replied.

Eugene helped him to bed, and Delphine sat by the bedside,
holding his hand until he fell asleep. Then she went.

"This evening at the Italiens," she said to Eugene, "and you can
let me know how he is. To-morrow you will leave this place,
monsieur. Let us go into your room.--Oh! how frightful!" she
cried on the threshold. "Why, you are even worse lodged than our
father. Eugene, you have behaved well. I would love you more if
that were possible; but, dear boy, if you are to succeed in life,
you must not begin by flinging twelve thousand francs out of the
windows like that. The Comte de Trailles is a confirmed gambler.
My sister shuts her eyes to it. He would have made the twelve
thousand francs in the same way that he wins and loses heaps of
gold."

A groan from the next room brought them back to Goriot's bedside;
to all appearances he was asleep, but the two lovers caught the
words, "They are not happy!" Whether he was awake or sleeping,
the tone in which they were spoken went to his daughter's heart.
She stole up to the pallet-bed on which her father lay, and
kissed his forehead. He opened his eyes.

"Ah! Delphine!" he said.

"How are you now?" she asked.

"Quite comfortable. Do not worry about me; I shall get up
presently. Don't stay with me, children; go, go and be happy."

Eugene went back with Delphine as far as her door; but he was not
easy about Goriot, and would not stay to dinner, as she proposed.
He wanted to be back at the Maison Vauquer. Father Goriot had
left his room, and was just sitting down to dinner as he came in.
Bianchon had placed himself where he could watch the old man
carefully; and when the old vermicelli maker took up his square
of bread and smelled it to find out the quality of the flour, the
medical student, studying him closely, saw that the action was
purely mechanical, and shook his head.

"Just come and sit over here, hospitaller of Cochin," said
Eugene.

Bianchon went the more willingly because his change of place
brought him next to the old lodger.

"What is wrong with him?" asked Rastignac.

"It is all up with him, or I am much mistaken! Something very
extraordinary must have taken place; he looks to me as if he were
in imminent danger of serous apoplexy. The lower part of his face
is composed enough, but the upper part is drawn and distorted.
Then there is that peculiar look about the eyes that indicates an
effusion of serum in the brain; they look as though they were
covered with a film of fine dust, do you notice? I shall know
more about it by to-morrow morning."

"Is there any cure for it?"

"None. It might be possible to stave death off for a time if a
way could be found of setting up a reaction in the lower
extremities; but if the symptoms do not abate by to-morrow
evening, it will be all over with him, poor old fellow! Do you
know what has happened to bring this on? There must have been
some violent shock, and his mind has given way."

"Yes, there was," said Rastignac, remembering how the two
daughters had struck blow on blow at their father's heart.

"But Delphine at any rate loves her father," he said to himself.

That evening at the opera Rastignac chose his words carefully,
lest he should give Mme. de Nucingen needless alarm.

"Do not be anxious about him," she said, however, as soon as
Eugene began, "our father has really a strong constitution, but
this morning we gave him a shock. Our whole fortunes were in
peril, so the thing was serious, you see. I could not live if
your affection did not make me insensible to troubles that I
should once have thought too hard to bear. At this moment I have
but one fear left, but one misery to dread--to lose the love that
has made me feel glad to live. Everything else is as nothing to
me compared with our love; I care for nothing else, for you are
all the world to me. If I feel glad to be rich, it is for your
sake. To my shame be it said, I think of my lover before my
father. Do you ask why? I cannot tell you, but all my life is in
you. My father gave me a heart, but you have taught it to beat.
The whole world may condemn me; what does it matter if I stand
acquitted in your eyes, for you have no right to think ill of me
for the faults which a tyrannous love has forced me to commit for
you! Do you think me an unnatural daughter? Oh! no, no one could
help loving such a dear kind father as ours. But how could I hide
the inevitable consequences of our miserable marriages from him?
Why did he allow us to marry when we did? Was it not his duty to
think for us and foresee for us? To-day I know he suffers as much
as we do, but how can it be helped? And as for comforting him, we
could not comfort him in the least. Our resignation would give
him more pain and hurt him far more than complaints and
upbraidings. There are times in life when everything turns to
bitterness."

Eugene was silent, the artless and sincere outpouring made an
impression on him.

Parisian women are often false, intoxicated with vanity, selfish
and self-absorbed, frivolous and shallow; yet of all women, when
they love, they sacrifice their personal feelings to their
passion; they rise but so much the higher for all the pettiness
overcome in their nature, and become sublime. Then Eugene was
struck by the profound discernment and insight displayed by this
woman in judging of natural affection, when a privileged
affection had separated and set her at a distance apart. Mme. de
Nucingen was piqued by the silence,

"What are you thinking about?" she asked.

"I am thinking about what you said just now. Hitherto I have
always felt sure that I cared far more for you than you did for
me."

She smiled, and would not give way to the happiness she felt,
lest their talk should exceed the conventional limits of
propriety. She had never heard the vibrating tones of a sincere
and youthful love; a few more words, and she feared for her self-
control.

"Eugene," she said, changing the conversation, "I wonder whether
you know what has been happening? All Paris will go to Mme. de
Beauseant's to-morrow. The Rochefides and the Marquis d'Ajuda
have agreed to keep the matter a profound secret, but to-morrow
the king will sign the marriage-contract, and your poor cousin
the Vicomtesse knows nothing of it as yet. She cannot put off her
ball, and the Marquis will not be there. People are wondering
what will happen?"

"The world laughs at baseness and connives at it. But this will
kill Mme. de Beauseant."

"Oh, no," said Delphine, smiling, "you do not know that kind of
woman. Why, all Paris will be there, and so shall I; I ought to
go there for your sake."

"Perhaps, after all, it is one of those absurd reports that
people set in circulation here."

"We shall know the truth to-morrow."

Eugene did not return to the Maison Vauquer. He could not forego
the pleasure of occupying his new rooms in the Rue d'Artois.
Yesterday evening he had been obliged to leave Delphine soon
after midnight, but that night it was Delphine who stayed with
him until two o'clock in the morning. He rose late, and waited
for Mme. de Nucingen, who came about noon to breakfast with him.
Youth snatches eagerly at these rosy moments of happiness, and
Eugene had almost forgotten Goriot's existence. The pretty things
that surrounded him were growing familiar; this domestication in
itself was one long festival for him, and Mme. de Nucingen was
there to glorify it all by her presence. It was four o'clock
before they thought of Goriot, and of how he had looked forward
to the new life in that house. Eugene said that the old man ought
to be moved at once, lest he should grow too ill to move. He left
Delphine and hurried back to the lodging-house. Neither Father
Goriot nor young Bianchon was in the dining-room with the others.

"Aha!" said the painter as Eugene came in, "Father Goriot has
broken down at last. Bianchon is upstairs with him. One of his
daughters--the Comtesse de Restaurama--came to see the old
gentleman, and he would get up and go out, and made himself
worse. Society is about to lose one of its brightest ornaments."

Rastignac sprang to the staircase.

"Hey! Monsieur Eugene!"

"Monsieur Eugene, the mistress is calling you," shouted Sylvie.

"It is this, sir," said the widow. "You and M. Goriot should by
rights have moved out on the 15th of February. That was three
days ago; to-day is the 18th, I ought really to be paid a month
in advance; but if you will engage to pay for both, I shall be
quite satisfied."

"Why can't you trust him?"

"Trust him, indeed! If the old gentleman went off his head and
died, those daughters of his would not pay me a farthing, and his
things won't fetch ten francs. This morning he went out with all
the spoons and forks he has left, I don't know why. He had got
himself up to look quite young, and--Lord, forgive me--but I
thought he had rouge on his cheeks; he looked quite young again."

"I will be responsible," said Eugene, shuddering with horror, for
he foresaw the end.

He climbed the stairs and reached Father Goriot's room. The old
man was tossing on his bed. Bianchon was with him.

"Good-evening, father," said Eugene.

The old man turned his glassy eyes on him, smiled gently, and
said:

"How is SHE?"

"She is quite well. But how are you?"

"There is nothing much the matter."

"Don't tire him," said Bianchon, drawing Eugene into a corner of
the room.

"Well?" asked Rastignac.

"Nothing but a miracle can save him now. Serous congestion has
set in; I have put on mustard plasters, and luckily he can feel
them, they are acting."

"Is it possible to move him?"

"Quite out of the question. He must stay where he is, and be kept
as quiet as possible----"

"Dear Bianchon," said Eugene, "we will nurse him between us."

"I have had the head physician round from my hospital to see
him."

"And what did he say?"

"He will give no opinion till to-morrow evening. He promised to
look in again at the end of the day. Unluckily, the preposterous
creature must needs go and do something foolish this morning; he
will not say what it was. He is as obstinate as a mule. As soon
as I begin to talk to him he pretends not to hear, and lies as if
he were asleep instead of answering, or if he opens his eyes he
begins to groan. Some time this morning he went out on foot in
the streets, nobody knows where he went, and he took everything
that he had of any value with him. He has been driving some
confounded bargain, and it has been too much for his strength.
One of his daughters has been here."

"Was it the Countess?" asked Eugene. "A tall, dark-haired woman,
with large bright eyes, slender figure, and little feet?"

"Yes."

"Leave him to me for a bit," said Rastignac. "I will make him
confess; he will tell me all about it."

"And meanwhile I will get my dinner. But try not to excite him;
there is still some hope left."

"All right."

"How they will enjoy themselves to-morrow," said Father Goriot
when they were alone. "They are going to a grand ball."

"What were you doing this morning, papa, to make yourself so
poorly this evening that you have to stop in bed?"

"Nothing."

"Did not Anastasie come to see you?" demanded Rastignac.

"Yes," said Father Goriot.

"Well, then, don't keep anything from me. What more did she want
of you?"

"Oh, she was very miserable," he answered, gathering up all his
strength to speak. "It was this way, my boy. Since that affair of
the diamonds, Nasie has not had a penny of her own. For this ball
she had ordered a golden gown like a setting for a jewel. Her
mantuamaker, a woman without a conscience, would not give her
credit, so Nasie's waiting-woman advanced a thousand francs on
account. Poor Nasie! reduced to such shifts! It cut me to the
heart to think of it! But when Nasie's maid saw how things were
between her master and mistress, she was afraid of losing her
money, and came to an understanding with the dressmaker, and the
woman refuses to send the ball-dress until the money is paid. The
gown is ready, and the ball is to-morrow night! Nasie was in
despair. She wanted to borrow my forks and spoons to pawn them.
Her husband is determined that she shall go and wear the
diamonds, so as to contradict the stories that are told all over
Paris. How can she go to that heartless scoundrel and say, 'I owe
a thousand francs to my dressmaker; pay her for me!' She cannot.
I saw that myself. Delphine will be there too in a superb
toilette, and Anastasie ought not to be outshone by her younger
sister. And then--she was drowned in tears, poor girl! I felt so
humbled yesterday when I had not the twelve thousand francs, that
I would have given the rest of my miserable life to wipe out that
wrong. You see, I could have borne anything once, but latterly
this want of money has broken my heart. Oh! I did not do it by
halves; I titivated myself up a bit, and went out and sold my
spoons and forks and buckles for six hundred francs; then I went
to old Daddy Gobseck, and sold a year's interest on my annuity
for four hundred francs down. Pshaw! I can live on dry bread, as
I did when I was a young man; if I have done it before, I can do
it again. My Nasie shall have one happy evening, at any rate. She
shall be smart. The banknote for a thousand francs is under my
pillow; it warms me to have it lying there under my head, for it
is going to make my poor Nasie happy. She can turn that bad girl
Victoire out of the house. A servant that cannot trust her
mistress, did any one ever hear the like! I shall be quite well
to-morrow. Nasie is coming at ten o'clock. They must not think
that I am ill, or they will not go to the ball; they will stop
and take care of me. To-morrow Nasie will come and hold me in her
arms as if I were one of her children; her kisses will make me
well again. After all, I might have spent the thousand francs on
physic; I would far rather give them to my little Nasie, who can
charm all the pain away. At any rate, I am some comfort to her in
her misery; and that makes up for my unkindness in buying an
annuity. She is in the depths, and I cannot draw her out of them
now. Oh! I will go into business again, I will buy wheat in
Odessa; out there, wheat fetches a quarter of the price it sells
for here. There is a law against the importation of grain, but
the good folk who made the law forgot to prohibit the
introduction of wheat products and food stuffs made from corn.
Hey! hey! . . . That struck me this morning. There is a fine
trade to be done in starch."

Eugene, watching the old man's face, thought that his friend was
light-headed.

"Come," he said, "do not talk any more, you must rest----" Just
then Bianchon came up, and Eugene went down to dinner.

The two students sat up with him that night, relieving each other
in turn. Bianchon brought up his medical books and studied;
Eugene wrote letters home to his mother and sisters. Next morning
Bianchon thought the symptoms more hopeful, but the patient's
condition demanded continual attention, which the two students
alone were willing to give--a task impossible to describe in the
squeamish phraseology of the epoch. Leeches must be applied to
the wasted body, the poultices and hot foot-baths, and other
details of the treatment required the physical strength and
devotion of the two young men. Mme. de Restaud did not come; but
she sent a messenger for the money.

"I expected she would come herself; but it would have been a pity
for her to come, she would have been anxious about me," said the
father, and to all appearances he was well content.

At seven o'clock that evening Therese came with a letter from
Delphine.

  "What are you doing, dear friend? I have been loved for a very
  little while, and I am neglected already? In the confidences of
  heart and heart, I have learned to know your soul--you are too
  noble not to be faithful for ever, for you know that love with
  all its infinite subtle changes of feeling is never the same.
  Once you said, as we were listening to the Prayer in Mose in
  Egitto, 'For some it is the monotony of a single note; for
  others, it is the infinite of sound.' Remember that I am
  expecting you this evening to take me to Mme. de Beauseant's
  ball. Every one knows now that the King signed M. d'Ajuda's
  marriage-contract this morning, and the poor Vicomtesse knew
  nothing of it until two o'clock this afternoon. All Paris will
  flock to her house, of course, just as a crowd fills the Place de
  Greve to see an execution. It is horrible, is it not, to go out
  of curiosity to see if she will hide her anguish, and whether she
  will die courageously? I certainly should not go, my friend, if I
  had been at her house before; but, of course, she will not
  receive society any more after this, and all my efforts would be
  in vain. My position is a very unusual one, and besides, I am
  going there partly on your account. I am waiting for you. If you
  are not beside me in less than two hours, I do not know whether I
  could forgive such treason."

Rastignac took up a pen and wrote:

  "I am waiting till the doctor comes to know if there is any hope
  of your father's life. He is lying dangerously ill. I will come
  and bring you the news, but I am afraid it may be a sentence of
  death. When I come you can decide whether you can go to the
  ball.--Yours a thousand times."

At half-past eight the doctor arrived. He did not take a very
hopeful view of the case, but thought that there was no immediate
danger. Improvements and relapses might be expected, and the good
man's life and reason hung in the balance.

"It would be better for him to die at once," the doctor said as
he took leave.

Eugene left Goriot to Bianchon's care, and went to carry the sad
news to Mme. de Nucingen. Family feeling lingered in her, and
this must put an end for the present to her plans of amusement.

"Tell her to enjoy her evening as if nothing had happened," cried
Goriot. He had been lying in a sort of stupor, but he suddenly
sat upright as Eugene went out.

Eugene, half heartbroken, entered Delphine's. Her hair had been
dressed; she wore her dancing slippers; she had only to put on
her ball-dress; but when the artist is giving the finishing
stroke to his creation, the last touches require more time than
the whole groundwork of the picture.

"Why, you are not dressed!" she cried.

"Madame, your father----"

"My father again!" she exclaimed, breaking in upon him. "You need
not teach me what is due to my father, I have known my father
this long while. Not a word, Eugene. I will hear what you have to
say when you are dressed. My carriage is waiting, take it, go
round to your rooms and dress, Therese has put out everything in
readiness for you. Come back as soon as you can; we will talk
about my father on the way to Mme. de Beauseant's. We must go
early; if we have to wait our turn in a row of carriages, we
shall be lucky if we get there by eleven o'clock."

"Madame----"

"Quick! not a word!" she cried, darting into her dressing-room
for a necklace.

"Do go, Monsieur Eugene, or you will vex madame," said Therese,
hurrying him away; and Eugene was too horror-stricken by this
elegant parricide to resist.

He went to his rooms and dressed, sad, thoughtful, and
dispirited. The world of Paris was like an ocean of mud for him
just then; and it seemed that whoever set foot in that black mire
must needs sink into it up to the chin.

"Their crimes are paltry," said Eugene to himself. "Vautrin was
greater."

He had seen society in its three great phases--Obedience,
Struggle, and Revolt; the Family, the World, and Vautrin; and he
hesitated in his choice. Obedience was dull, Revolt impossible,
Struggle hazardous. His thoughts wandered back to the home
circle. He thought of the quiet uneventful life, the pure
happiness of the days spent among those who loved him there.
Those loving and beloved beings passed their lives in obedience
to the natural laws of the hearth, and in that obedience found a
deep and constant serenity, unvexed by torments such as these.
Yet, for all his good impulses, he could not bring himself to
make profession of the religion of pure souls to Delphine, nor to
prescribe the duties of piety to her in the name of love. His
education had begun to bear its fruits; he loved selfishly
already. Besides, his tact had discovered to him the real nature
of Delphine; he divined instinctively that she was capable of
stepping over her father's corpse to go to the ball; and within
himself he felt that he had neither the strength of mind to play
the part of mentor, nor the strength of character to vex her, nor
the courage to leave her to go alone.

"She would never forgive me for putting her in the wrong over
it," he said to himself. Then he turned the doctor's dictum over
in his mind; he tried to believe that Goriot was not so
dangerously ill as he had imagined, and ended by collecting
together a sufficient quantity of traitorous excuses for
Delphine's conduct. She did not know how ill her father was; the
kind old man himself would have made her go to the ball if she
had gone to see him. So often it happens that this one or that
stands condemned by the social laws that govern family relations;
and yet there are peculiar circumstances in the case, differences
of temperament, divergent interests, innumerable complications of
family life that excuse the apparent offence.

Eugene did not wish to see too clearly; he was ready to sacrifice
his conscience to his mistress. Within the last few days his
whole life had undergone a change. Woman had entered into his
world and thrown it into chaos, family claims dwindled away
before her; she had appropriated all his being to her uses.
Rastignac and Delphine found each other at a crisis in their
lives when their union gave them the most poignant bliss. Their
passion, so long proved, had only gained in strength by the
gratified desire that often extinguishes passion. This woman was
his, and Eugene recognized that not until then had he loved her;
perhaps love is only gratitude for pleasure. This woman, vile or
sublime, he adored for the pleasure she had brought as her dower;
and Delphine loved Rastignac as Tantalus would have loved some
angel who had satisfied his hunger and quenched the burning
thirst in his parched throat.

"Well," said Mme. de Nucingen when he came back in evening dress,
"how is my father?"

"Very dangerously ill," he answered; "if you will grant me a
proof of your affections, we will just go in to see him on the
way."

"Very well," she said. "Yes, but afterwards. Dear Eugene, do be
nice, and don't preach to me. Come."

They set out. Eugene said nothing for a while.

"What is it now?" she asked.

"I can hear the death-rattle in your father's throat," he said
almost angrily. And with the hot indignation of youth, he told
the story of Mme. de Restaud's vanity and cruelty, of her
father's final act of self-sacrifice, that had brought about this
struggle between life and death, of the price that had been paid
for Anastasie's golden embroideries. Delphine cried.

"I shall look frightful," she thought. She dried her tears.

"I will nurse my father; I will not leave his bedside," she said
aloud.

"Ah! now you are as I would have you," exclaimed Rastignac.

The lamps of five hundred carriages lit up the darkness about the
Hotel de Beauseant. A gendarme in all the glory of his uniform
stood on either side of the brightly lighted gateway. The great
world was flocking thither that night in its eager curiosity to
see the great lady at the moment of her fall, and the rooms on
the ground floor were already full to overflowing, when Mme. de
Nucingen and Rastignac appeared. Never since Louis XIV. tore her
lover away from La grand Mademoiselle, and the whole court
hastened to visit that unfortunate princess, had a disastrous
love affair made such a sensation in Paris. But the youngest
daughter of the almost royal house of Burgundy had risen proudly
above her pain, and moved till the last moment like a queen in
this world--its vanities had always been valueless for her, save
in so far as they contributed to the triumph of her passion. The
salons were filled with the most beautiful women in Paris,
resplendent in their toilettes, and radiant with smiles.
Ministers and ambassadors, the most distinguished men at court,
men bedizened with decorations, stars, and ribbons, men who bore
the most illustrious names in France, had gathered about the
Vicomtesse.

The music of the orchestra vibrated in wave after wave of sound
from the golden ceiling of the palace, now made desolate for its
queen.

Madame de Beauseant stood at the door of the first salon to
receive the guests who were styled her friends. She was dressed
in white, and wore no ornament in the plaits of hair braided
about her head; her face was calm; there was no sign there of
pride, nor of pain, nor of joy that she did not feel. No one
could read her soul; she stood there like some Niobe carved in
marble. For a few intimate friends there was a tinge of satire in
her smile; but no scrutiny saw any change in her, nor had she
looked otherwise in the days of the glory of her happiness. The
most callous of her guests admired her as young Rome applauded
some gladiator who could die smiling. It seemed as if society had
adorned itself for a last audience of one of its sovereigns.

"I was afraid that you would not come," she said to Rastignac.

"Madame," he said, in an unsteady voice, taking her speech as a
reproach, "I shall be the last to go, that is why I am here."

"Good," she said, and she took his hand. "You are perhaps the
only one I can trust here among all these. Oh, my friend, when
you love, love a woman whom you are sure that you can love
always. Never forsake a woman."

She took Rastignac's arm, and went towards a sofa in the card-
room.

"I want you to go to the Marquis," she said. "Jacques, my
footman, will go with you; he has a letter that you will take. I
am asking the Marquis to give my letters back to me. He will give
them all up, I like to think that. When you have my letters, go
up to my room with them. Some one shall bring me word."

She rose to go to meet the Duchesse de Langeais, her most
intimate friend, who had come like the rest of the world.

Rastignac went. He asked for the Marquis d'Ajuda at the Hotel
Rochefide, feeling certain that the latter would be spending his
evening there, and so it proved. The Marquis went to his own
house with Rastignac, and gave a casket to the student, saying as
he did so, "They are all there."

He seemed as if he was about to say something to Eugene, to ask
about the ball, or the Vicomtesse; perhaps he was on the brink of
the confession that, even then, he was in despair, and knew that
his marriage had been a fatal mistake; but a proud gleam shone in
his eyes, and with deplorable courage he kept his noblest
feelings a secret.

"Do not even mention my name to her, my dear Eugene." He grasped
Rastignac's hand sadly and affectionately, and turned away from
him. Eugene went back to the Hotel Beauseant, the servant took
him to the Vicomtesse's room. There were signs there of
preparations for a journey. He sat down by the fire, fixed his
eyes on the cedar wood casket, and fell into deep mournful
musings. Mme. de Beauseant loomed large in these imaginings, like
a goddess in the Iliad.

"Ah! my friend! . . ." said the Vicomtesse; she crossed the room
and laid her hand on Rastignac's shoulder. He saw the tears in
his cousin's uplifted eyes, saw that one hand was raised to take
the casket, and that the fingers of the other trembled. Suddenly
she took the casket, put it in the fire, and watched it burn.

"They are dancing," she said. "They all came very early; but
death will be long in coming. Hush! my friend," and she laid a
finger on Rastignac's lips, seeing that he was about to speak. "I
shall never see Paris again. I am taking my leave of the world.
At five o'clock this morning I shall set out on my journey; I
mean to bury myself in the remotest part of Normandy. I have had
very little time to make my arrangements; since three o'clock
this afternoon I have been busy signing documents, setting my
affairs in order; there was no one whom I could send to . . ."

She broke off.

"He was sure to be . . ."

Again she broke off; the weight of her sorrow was more than she
could bear. In such moments as these everything is agony, and
some words are impossible to utter.

"And so I counted upon you to do me this last piece of service
this evening," she said. "I should like to give you some pledge
of friendship. I shall often think of you. You have seemed to me
to be kind and noble, fresh-hearted and true, in this world where
such qualities are seldom found. I should like you to think
sometimes of me. Stay," she said, glancing about her, "there is
this box that has held my gloves. Every time I opened it before
going to a ball or to the theatre, I used to feel that I must be
beautiful, because I was so happy; and I never touched it except
to lay some gracious memory in it: there is so much of my old
self in it, of a Madame de Beauseant who now lives no longer.
Will you take it? I will leave directions that it is to be sent
to you in the Rue d'Artois.--Mme. de Nucingen looked very
charming this evening. Eugene, you must love her. Perhaps we may
never see each other again, my friend; but be sure of this, that
I shall pray for you who have been kind to me.--Now, let us go
downstairs. People shall not think that I am weeping. I have all
time and eternity before me, and where I am going I shall be
alone, and no one will ask me the reason of my tears. One last
look round first."

She stood for a moment. Then she covered her eyes with her hands
for an instant, dashed away the tears, bathed her face with cold
water, and took the student's arm.

"Let us go!" she said.

This suffering, endured with such noble fortitude, shook Eugene
with a more violent emotion than he had felt before. They went
back to the ballroom, and Mme. de Beauseant went through the
rooms on Eugene's arm--the last delicately gracious act of a
gracious woman. In another moment he saw the sisters, Mme. de
Restaud and Mme. de Nucingen. The Countess shone in all the glory
of her magnificent diamonds; every stone must have scorched like
fire, she was never to wear them again. Strong as love and pride
might be in her, she found it difficult to meet her husband's
eyes. The sight of her was scarcely calculated to lighten
Rastignac's sad thougths; through the blaze of those diamonds he
seemed to see the wretched pallet-bed on which Father Goriot was
lying. The Vicomtesse misread his melancholy; she withdrew her
hand from his arm.

"Come," she said, "I must not deprive you of a pleasure."

Eugene was soon claimed by Delphine. She was delighted by the
impression that she had made, and eager to lay at her lover's
feet the homage she had received in this new world in which she
hoped to live and move henceforth.

"What do you think of Nasie?" she asked him.

"She has discounted everything, even her own father's death,"
said Rastignac.

Towards four o'clock in the morning the rooms began to empty. A
little later the music ceased, and the Duchesse de Langeais and
Rastignac were left in the great ballroom. The Vicomtesse, who
thought to find the student there alone, came back there at last.
She had taken leave of M. de Beauseant, who had gone off to bed,
saying again as he went, "It is a great pity, my dear, to shut
yourself up at your age! Pray stay among us."

Mme. de Beauseant saw the Duchesse, and, in spite of herself, an
exclamation broke from her.

"I saw how it was, Clara," said Mme. de Langeais. "You are going
from among us, and you will never come back. But you must not go
until you have heard me, until we have understood each other."

She took her friend's arm, and they went together into the next
room. There the Duchess looked at her with tears in her eyes; she
held her friend in close embrace and kissed her cheek.

"I could not let you go without a word, dearest; the remorse
would have been too hard to bear. You can count upon me as surely
as upon yourself. You have shown yourself great this evening; I
feel that I am worthy of our friendship, and I mean to prove
myself worthy of it. I have not always been kind; I was in the
wrong; forgive me, dearest; I wish I could unsay anything that
may have hurt you; I take back those words. One common sorrow has
brought us together again, for I do not know which of us is the
more miserable. M. de Montriveau was not here to-night; do you
understand what that means?--None of those who saw you to-night,
Clara, will ever forget you. I mean to make one last effort. If I
fail, I shall go into a convent. Clara, where are you going?"

"Into Normandy, to Courcelles. I shall love and pray there until
the day when God shall take me from this world.--M. de
Rastignac!" called the Vicomtesse, in a tremulous voice,
remembering that the young man was waiting there.

The student knelt to kiss his cousin's hand.

"Good-bye, Antoinette!" said Mme. de Beauseant. "May you be
happy."--She turned to the student. "You are young," she said;
"you have some beliefs still left. I have been privileged, like
some dying people, to find sincere and reverent feeling in those
about me as I take my leave of this world."

It was nearly five o'clock that morning when Rastignac came away.
He had put Mme. de Beauseant into her traveling carriage, and
received her last farewells, spoken amid fast-falling tears; for
no greatness is so great that it can rise above the laws of human
affection, or live beyond the jurisdiction of pain, as certain
demagogues would have the people believe. Eugene returned on foot
to the Maison Vauquer through the cold and darkness. His
education was nearly complete.

"There is no hope for poor Father Goriot," said Bianchon, as
Rastignac came into the room. Eugene looked for a while at the
sleeping man, then he turned to his friend. "Dear fellow, you are
content with the modest career you have marked out for yourself;
keep to it. I am in hell, and I must stay there. Believe
everything that you hear said of the world, nothing is too
impossibly bad. No Juvenal could paint the horrors hidden away
under the covering of gems and gold."

At two o'clock in the afternoon Bianchon came to wake Rastignac,
and begged him to take charge of Goriot, who had grown worse as
the day wore on. The medical student was obliged to go out.

"Poor old man, he has not two days to live, maybe not many
hours," he said; "but we must do our utmost, all the same, to
fight the disease. It will be a very troublesome case, and we
shall want money. We can nurse him between us, of course, but,
for my own part, I have not a penny. I have turned out his
pockets, and rummaged through his drawers--result, nix. I asked
him about it while his mind was clear, and he told me he had not
a farthing of his own. What have you?"

"I have twenty francs left," said Rastignac; "but I will take
them to the roulette table, I shall be sure to win."

"And if you lose?"

"Then I shall go to his sons-in-law and his daughters and ask
them for money."

"And suppose they refuse?" Bianchon retorted. "The most pressing
thing just now is not really money; we must put mustard
poultices, as hot as they can be made, on his feet and legs. If
he calls out, there is still some hope for him. You know how to
set about doing it, and besides, Christophe will help you. I am
going round to the dispensary to persuade them to let us have the
things we want on credit. It is a pity that we could not move him
to the hospital; poor fellow, he would be better there. Well,
come along, I leave you in charge; you must stay with him till I
come back."

The two young men went back to the room where the old man was
lying. Eugene was startled at the change in Goriot's face, so
livid, distorted, and feeble.

"How are you, papa?" he said, bending over the pallet-bed. Goriot
turned his dull eyes upon Eugene, looked at him attentively, and
did not recognize him. It was more than the student could bear;
the tears came into his eyes.

"Bianchon, ought we to have the curtains put up in the windows?"

"No, the temperature and the light do not affect him now. It
would be a good thing for him if he felt heat or cold; but we
must have a fire in any case to make tisanes and heat the other
things. I will send round a few sticks; they will last till we
can have in some firewood. I burned all the bark fuel you had
left, as well as his, poor man, yesterday and during the night.
The place is so damp that the water stood in drops on the walls;
I could hardly get the room dry. Christophe came in and swept the
floor, but the place is like a stable; I had to burn juniper, the
smell was something horrible.

"MON DIEU!" said Rastignac. "To think of those daughters of his."

"One moment, if he asks for something to drink, give him this,"
said the house student, pointing to a large white jar. "If he
begins to groan, and the belly feels hot and hard to the touch,
you know what to do; get Christophe to help you. If he should
happen to grow much excited, and begin to talk a good deal and
even to ramble in his talk, do not be alarmed. It would not be a
bad symptom. But send Christophe to the Hospice Cochin. Our
doctor, my chum, or I will come and apply moxas. We had a great
consultation this morning while you were asleep. A surgeon, a
pupil of Gall's came, and our house surgeon, and the head
physician from the Hotel-Dieu. Those gentlemen considered that
the symptoms were very unusual and interesting; the case must be
carefully watched, for it throws a light on several obscure and
rather important scientific problems. One of the authorities says
that if there is more pressure of serum on one or other portion
of the brain, it should affect his mental capacities in such and
such directions. So if he should talk, notice very carefully what
kind of ideas his mind seems to run on; whether memory, or
penetration, or the reasoning faculties are exercised; whether
sentiments or practical questions fill his thoughts; whether he
makes forecasts or dwells on the past; in fact; you must be
prepared to give an accurate report of him. It is quite likely
that the extravasation fills the whole brain, in which case he
will die in the imbecile state in which he is lying now. You
cannot tell anything about these mysterious nervous diseases.
Suppose the crash came here," said Bianchon, touching the back of
the head, "very strange things have been known to happen; the
brain sometimes partially recovers, and death is delayed. Or the
congested matter may pass out of the brain altogether through
channels which can only be determined by a post-mortem
examination. There is an old man at the Hospital for Incurables,
an imbecile patient, in his case the effusion has followed the
direction of the spinal cord; he suffers horrid agonies, but he
lives."

"Did they enjoy themselves?" It was Father Goriot who spoke. He
had recognized Eugene.

"Oh! he thinks of nothing but his daughters," said Bianchon.
"Scores of times last night he said to me, 'They are dancing now!
She has her dress.' He called them by their names. He made me
cry, the devil take it, calling with that tone in his voice, for
'Delphine! my little Delphine! and Nasie!' Upon my word," said
the medical student, "it was enough to make any one burst out
crying."

"Delphine," said the old man, "she is there, isn't she? I knew
she was there," and his eyes sought the door.

"I am going down now to tell Sylvie to get the poultices ready,"
said Bianchon. "They ought to go on at once."

Rastignac was left alone with the old man. He sat at the foot of
the bed, and gazed at the face before him, so horribly changed
that it was shocking to see.

"Noble natures cannot dwell in this world," he said; "Mme de
Beauseant has fled from it, and there he lies dying. What place
indeed is there in the shallow petty frivolous thing called
society for noble thoughts and feelings?"

Pictures of yesterday's ball rose up in his memory, in strange
contrast to the deathbed before him. Bianchon suddenly appeared.

"I say, Eugene, I have just seen our head surgeon at the
hospital, and I ran all the way back here. If the old man shows
any signs of reason, if he begins to talk, cover him with a
mustard poultice from the neck to the base of the spine, and send
round for us."

"Dear Bianchon," exclaimed Eugene.

"Oh! it is an interesting case from a scientific point of view,"
said the medical student, with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte.

"So!" said Eugene. "Am I really the only one who cares for the
poor old man for his own sake?"

"You would not have said so if you had seen me this morning,"
returned Bianchon, who did not take offence at this speech.
"Doctors who have seen a good deal of practice never see anything
but the disease, but, my dear fellow, I can see the patient
still."

He went. Eugene was left alone with the old man, and with an
apprehension of a crisis that set in, in fact, before very long.

"Ah! dear boy, is that you?" said Father Goriot, recognizing
Eugene.

"Do you feel better?" asked the law student, taking his hand.

"Yes. My head felt as if it were being screwed up in a vise, but
now it is set free again. Did you see my girls? They will be here
directly; as soon as they know that I am ill they will hurry here
at once; they used to take such care of me in the Rue de la
Jussienne! Great Heavens! if only my room was fit for them to
come into! There has been a young man here, who has burned up all
my bark fuel."

"I can hear Christophe coming upstairs," Eugene answered. "He is
bringing up some firewood that that young man has sent you."

"Good, but how am I to pay for the wood. I have not a penny left,
dear boy. I have given everything, everything. I am a pauper now.
Well, at least the golden gown was grand, was it not? (Ah! what
pain this is!) Thanks, Christophe! God will reward you, my boy; I
have nothing left now."

Eugene went over to Christophe and whispered in the man's ear, "I
will pay you well, and Sylvie too, for your trouble."

"My daughters told you that they were coming, didn't they,
Christophe? Go again to them, and I will give you five francs.
Tell them that I am not feeling well, that I should like to kiss
them both and see them once again before I die. Tell them that,
but don't alarm them more than you can help."

Rastignac signed to Christophe to go, and the man went.

"They will come before long," the old man went on. "I know them
so well. My tender-hearted Delphine! If I am going to die, she
will feel it so much! And so will Nasie. I do not want to die;
they will cry if I die; and if I die, dear Eugene, I shall not
see them any more. It will be very dreary there where I am going.
For a father it is hell to be without your children; I have
served my apprenticeship already since they married. My heaven
was in the Rue de la Jussienne. Eugene, do you think that if I go
to heaven I can come back to earth, and be near them in spirit? I
have heard some such things said. It is true? It is as if I could
see them at this moment as they used to be when we all lived in
the Rue de la Jussienne. They used to come downstairs of a
morning. 'Good-morning, papa!' they used to say, and I would take
them on my knees; we had all sorts of little games of play
together, and they had such pretty coaxing ways. We always had
breakfast together, too, every morning, and they had dinner with
me--in fact, I was a father then. I enjoyed my children. They did
not think for themselves so long as they lived in the Rue de la
Jussienne; they knew nothing of the world; they loved me with all
their hearts. MON DIEU! why could they not always be little
girls? (Oh! my head! this racking pain in my head!) Ah! ah!
forgive me, children, this pain is fearful; it must be agony
indeed, for you have used me to endure pain. MON DIEU! if only I
held their hands in mine, I should not feel it at all.--Do you
think that they are on the way? Christophe is so stupid; I ought
to have gone myself. HE will see them. But you went to the ball
yesterday; just tell me how they looked. They did not know that I
was ill, did they, or they would not have been dancing, poor
little things? Oh! I must not be ill any longer. They stand too
much in need of me; their fortunes are in danger. And such
husbands as they are bound to! I must get well! (Oh! what pain
this is! what pain this is! . . . ah! ah!)--I must get well, you
see; for they MUST have money, and I know how to set about making
some. I will go to Odessa and manufacture starch there. I am an
old hand, I will make millions. (Oh! this is agony!)"

Goriot was silent for a moment; it seemed to require his whole
strength to endure the pain.

"If they were here, I should not complain," he said. "So why
should I complain now?"

He seemed to grow drowsy with exhaustion, and lay quietly for a
long time. Christophe came back; and Rastignac, thinking that
Goriot was asleep, allowed the man to give his story aloud.

"First of all, sir, I went to Madame la Comtesse," he said; "but
she and her husband were so busy that I couldn't get to speak to
her. When I insisted that I must see her, M. de Restaud came out
to me himself, and went on like this: 'M. Goriot is dying, is he?
Very well, it is the best thing he can do. I want Mme. de Restaud
to transact some important business, when it is all finished she
can go.' The gentleman looked angry, I thought. I was just going
away when Mme. de Restaud came out into an ante-chamber through a
door that I did not notice, and said, 'Christophe, tell my father
that my husband wants me to discuss some matters with him, and I
cannot leave the house, the life or death of my children is at
stake; but as soon as it is over, I will come.' As for Madame la
Baronne, that is another story! I could not speak to her either,
and I did not even see her. Her waiting-woman said, 'Ah yes, but
madame only came back from a ball at a quarter to five this
morning; she is asleep now, and if I wake her before mid-day she
will be cross. As soon as she rings, I will go and tell her that
her father is worse. It will be time enough then to tell her bad
news!' I begged and I prayed, but, there! it was no good. Then I
asked for M. le Baron, but he was out."

"To think that neither of his daughters should come!" exclaimed
Rastignac. "I will write to them both."

"Neither of them!" cried the old man, sitting upright in bed.
"They are busy, they are asleep, they will not come! I knew that
they would not. Not until you are dying do you know your
children. . . . Oh! my friend, do not marry; do not have
children! You give them life; they give you your deathblow. You
bring them into the world, and they send you out of it. No, they
will not come. I have known that these ten years. Sometimes I
have told myself so, but I did not dare to believe it."

The tears gathered and stood without overflowing the red sockets.

"Ah! if I were rich still, if I had kept my money, if I had not
given all to them, they would be with me now; they would fawn on
me and cover my cheeks with their kisses! I should be living in a
great mansion; I should have grand apartments and servants and a
fire in my room; and THEY would be about me all in tears, and
their husbands and their children. I should have had all that;
now--I have nothing. Money brings everything to you; even your
daughters. My money. Oh! where is my money? If I had plenty of
money to leave behind me, they would nurse me and tend me; I
should hear their voices, I should see their faces. Ah, God! who
knows? They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too
much; it was not likely that they should love me. A father ought
always to be rich; he ought to keep his children well in hand,
like unruly horses. I have gone down on my knees to them.
Wretches! this is the crowning act that brings the last ten years
to a proper close. If you but knew how much they made of me just
after they were married. (Oh! this is cruel torture!) I had just
given them each eight hundred thousand francs; they were bound to
be civil to me after that, and their husbands too were civil. I
used to go to their houses: it was 'My kind father' here, 'My
dear father' there. There was always a place for me at their
tables. I used to dine with their husbands now and then, and they
were very respectful to me. I was still worth something, they
thought. How should they know? I had not said anything about my
affairs. It is worth while to be civil to a man who has given his
daughters eight hundred thousand francs apiece; and they showed
me every attention then--but it was all for my money. Grand
people are not great. I found that out by experience! I went to
the theatre with them in their carriage; I might stay as long as
I cared to stay at their evening parties. In fact, they
acknowleged me their father; publicly they owned that they were
my daughters. But I was always a shrewd one, you see, and nothing
was lost upon me. Everything went straight to the mark and
pierced my heart. I saw quite well that it was all sham and
pretence, but there is no help for such things as these. I felt
less at my ease at their dinner-table than I did downstairs here.
I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand folks would ask
in my son-in-law's ear, 'Who may that gentleman be?'--'The
father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.'--'The devil,
e is!' they would say, and look again at me with the respect due
to my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly
for my mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one
sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man
might die of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the
pain I endured when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time,
that I had said something stupid. She looked at me, and that
glance of hers opened all my veins. I used to want to know
everything, to be learned; and one thing I did learn thoroughly
--I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.

"The next day I went to Delphine for comfort, and what should I
do there but make some stupid blunder that made her angry with
me. I was like one driven out of his senses. For a week I did not
know what to do; I did not dare to go to see them for fear they
should reproach me. And that was how they both turned me out of
the house.

"Oh God! Thou knowest all the misery and anguish that I have
endured; Thou hast counted all the wounds that have been dealt to
me in these years that have aged and changed me and whitened my
hair and drained my life; why dost Thou make me to suffer so to-
day? Have I not more than expiated the sin of loving them too
much? They themselves have been the instruments of vengeance;
they have tortured me for my sin of affection.

"Ah, well! fathers know no better; I loved them so; I went back
to them as a gambler goes to the gaming table. This love was my
vice, you see, my mistress--they were everything in the world to
me. They were always wanting something or other, dresses and
ornaments, and what not; their maids used to tell me what they
wanted, and I used to give them the things for the sake of the
welcome that they bought for me. But, at the same time, they used
to give me little lectures on my behavior in society; they began
about it at once. Then they began to feel ashamed of me. That is
what comes of having your children well brought up. I could not
go to school again at my time of life. (This pain is fearful! MON
DIEU! These doctors! these doctors! If they would open my head,
it would give me some relief!) Oh, my daughters, my daughters!
Anastasie! Delphine! If I could only see them! Send for the
police, and make them come to me! Justice is on my side, the
whole world is on my side, I have natural rights, and the law
with me. I protest! The country will go to ruin if a father's
rights are trampled under foot. That is easy to see. The whole
world turns on fatherly love; fatherly love is the foundation of
society; it will crumble into ruin when children do not love
their fathers. Oh! if I could only see them, and hear them, no
matter what they said; if I could simply hear their voices, it
would soothe the pain. Delphine! Delphine most of all. But tell
them when they come not to look so coldly at me as they do. Oh!
my friend, my good Monsieur Eugene, you do not know that it is
when all the golden light in a glance suddenly turns to a leaden
gray. It has been one long winter here since the light in their
eyes shone no more for me. I have had nothing but disappointments
to devour. Disappointment has been my daily bread; I have lived
on humiliation and insults. I have swallowed down all the
affronts for which they sold me my poor stealthy little moments
of joy; for I love them so! Think of it! a father hiding himself
to get a glimpse of his children! I have given all my life to
them, and to-day they will not give me one hour! I am hungering
and thirsting for them, my heart is burning in me, but they will
not come to bring relief in the agony, for I am dying now, I feel
that this is death. Do they not know what it means to trample on
a father's corpse? There is a God in heaven who avenges us
fathers whether we will or no.

"Oh! they will come! Come to me, darlings, and give me one more
kiss; one last kiss, the Viaticum for your father, who will pray
God for you in heaven. I will tell Him that you have been good
children to your father, and plead your cause with God! After
all, it is not their fault. I tell you they are innocent, my
friend. Tell every one that it is not their fault, and no one
need be distressed on my account. It is all my own fault, I
taught them to trample upon me. I loved to have it so. It is no
one's affair but mine; man's justice and God's justice have
nothing to do in it. God would be unjust if He condemned them for
anything they may have done to me. I did not behave to them
properly; I was stupid enough to resign my rights. I would have
humbled myself in the dust for them. What could you expect? The
most beautiful nature, the noblest soul, would have been spoiled
by such indulgence. I am a wretch, I am justly punished. I, and I
only, am to blame for all their sins; I spoiled them. To-day they
are as eager for pleasure as they used to be for sugar-plums.
When they were little girls I indulged them in every whim. They
had a carriage of their own when they were fifteen. They have
never been crossed. I am guilty, and not they--but I sinned
through love.

"My heart would open at the sound of their voices. I can hear
them; they are coming. Yes! yes! they are coming. The law demands
that they should be present at their father's deathbed; the law
is on my side. It would only cost them the hire of a cab. I would
pay that. Write to them, tell them that I have millions to leave
to them! On my word of honor, yes. I am going to manufacture
Italian paste foods at Odessa. I understand the trade. There are
millions to be made in it. Nobody has thought of the scheme as
yet. You see, there will be no waste, no damage in transit, as
there always is with wheat and flour. Hey! hey! and starch too;
there are millions to be made in the starch trade! You will not
be telling a lie. Millions, tell them; and even if they really
come because they covet the money, I would rather let them
deceive me; and I shall see them in any case. I want my children!
I gave them life; they are mine, mine!" and he sat upright. The
head thus raised, with its scanty white hair, seemed to Eugene
like a threat; every line that could still speak spoke of menace.

"There, there, dear father," said Eugene, "lie down again; I will
write to them at once. As soon as Bianchon comes back I will go
for them myself, if they do not come before."

"If they do not come?" repeated the old man, sobbing. "Why, I
shall be dead before then; I shall die in a fit of rage, of rage!
Anger is getting the better of me. I can see my whole life at
this minute. I have been cheated! They do not love me--they have
never loved me all their lives! It is all clear to me. They have
not come, and they will not come. The longer they put off their
coming, the less they are likely to give me this joy. I know
them. They have never cared to guess my disappointments, my
sorrows, my wants; they never cared to know my life; they will
have no presentiment of my death; they do not even know the
secret of my tenderness for them. Yes, I see it all now. I have
laid my heart open so often, that they take everything I do for
them as a matter of course. They might have asked me for the very
eyes out of my head and I would have bidden them to pluck them
out. They think that all fathers are like theirs. You should
always make your value felt. Their own children will avenge me.
Why, for their own sakes they should come to me! Make them
understand that they are laying up retribution for their own
deathbeds. All crimes are summed up in this one. . . . Go to
them; just tell them that if they stay away it will be parricide!
There is enough laid to their charge already without adding that
to the list. Cry aloud as I do now, 'Nasie! Delphine! here! Come
to your father; the father who has been so kind to you is lying
ill!'--Not a sound; no one comes! Then am I do die like a dog?
This is to be my reward--I am forsaken at the last. They are
wicked, heartless women; curses on them, I loathe them. I shall
rise at night from my grave to curse them again; for, after all,
my friends, have I done wrong? They are behaving very badly to
me, eh? . . . What am I saying? Did you not tell me just now that
Delphine is in the room? She is more tender-hearted than her
sister. . . . Eugene, you are my son, you know. You will love
her; be a father to her! Her sister is very unhappy. And there
are their fortunes! Ah, God! I am dying, this anguish is almost
more than I can bear! Cut off my head; leave me nothing but my
heart."

"Christophe!" shouted Eugene, alarmed by the way in which the old
man moaned, and by his cries, "go for M. Bianchon, and send a cab
here for me.--I am going to fetch them, dear father; I will bring
them back to you."

"Make them come! Compel them to come! Call out the Guard, the
military, anything and everything, but make them come!" He looked
at Eugene, and a last gleam of intelligence shone in his eyes.
"Go to the authorities, to the Public Prosecutor, let them bring
them here; come they shall!"

"But you have cursed them."

"Who said that!" said the old man in dull amazement. "You know
quite well that I love them, I adore them! I shall be quite well
again if I can see them. . . . Go for them, my good neighbor, my
dear boy, you are kind-hearted; I wish I could repay you for your
kindness, but I have nothing to give you now, save the blessing
of a dying man. Ah! if I could only see Delphine, to tell her to
pay my debt to you. If the other cannot come, bring Delphine to
me at any rate. Tell her that unless she comes, you will not love
her any more. She is so fond of you that she will come to me
then. Give me something to drink! There is a fire in my bowels.
Press something against my forehead! If my daughters would lay
their hands there, I think I should get better. . . . MON DIEU!
who will recover their money for them when I am gone? . . . I
will manufacture vermicelli out in Odessa; I will go to Odessa
for their sakes."

"Here is something to drink," said Eugene, supporting the dying
man on his left arm, while he held a cup of tisane to Goriot's
lips.

"How you must love your own father and mother!" said the old man,
and grasped the student's hand in both of his. It was a feeble,
trembling grasp. "I am going to die; I shall die without seeing
my daughters; do you understand? To be always thirsting, and
never to drink; that has been my life for the last ten years. . . .
I have no daughters, my sons-in-law killed them. No, since
their marriages they have been dead to me. Fathers should
petition the Chambers to pass a law against marriage. If you love
your daughters, do not let them marry. A son-in-law is a rascal
who poisons a girl's mind and contaminates her whole nature. Let
us have no more marriages! It robs us of our daughters; we are
left alone upon our deathbeds, and they are not with us then.
They ought to pass a law for dying fathers. This is awful! It
cries for vengeance! They cannot come, because my sons-in-law
forbid them! . . . Kill them! . . . Restaud and the Alsatian,
kill them both! They have murdered me between them! . . . Death
or my daughters! . . . Ah! it is too late, I am dying, and they
are not here! . . . Dying without them! . . . Nasie! Fifine! Why
do you not come to me? Your papa is going----"

"Dear Father Goriot, calm yourself. There, there, lie quietly and
rest; don't worry yourself, don't think."

"I shall not see them. Oh! the agony of it!"

"You SHALL see them."

"Really?" cried the old man, still wandering. "Oh! shall I see
them; I shall see them and hear their voices. I shall die happy.
Ah! well, after all, I do not wish to live; I cannot stand this
much longer; this pain that grows worse and worse. But, oh! to
see them, to touch their dresses--ah! nothing but their dresses,
that is very little; still, to feel something that belongs to
them. Let me touch their hair with my fingers . . . their
hair . . ."

His head fell back on the pillow, as if a sudden heavy blow had
struck him down, but his hands groped feebly over the quilt, as
if to find his daughters' hair.

"My blessing on them . . ." he said, making an effort, "my
blessing . . ."

His voice died away. Just at that moment Bianchon came into the
room.

"I met Christophe," he said; "he is gone for your cab."

Then he looked at the patient, and raised the closed eyelids with
his fingers. The two students saw how dead and lustreless the
eyes beneath had grown.

"He will not get over this, I am sure," said Bianchon. He felt
the old man's pulse, and laid a hand over his heart.

"The machinery works still; more is the pity, in his state it
would be better for him to die."

"Ah! my word, it would!"

"What is the matter with you? You are as pale as death."

"Dear fellow, the moans and cries that I have just heard. . . .
There is a God! Ah! yes, yes, there is a God, and He has made a
better world for us, or this world of ours would be a nightmare.
I could have cried like a child; but this is too tragical, and I
am sick at heart.

"We want a lot of things, you know; and where is the money to
come from?"

Rastignac took out his watch.

"There, be quick and pawn it. I do not want to stop on the way to
the Rue du Helder; there is not a moment to lose, I am afraid,
and I must wait here till Christophe comes back. I have not a
farthing; I shall have to pay the cabman when I get home again."

Rastignac rushed down the stairs, and drove off to the Rue du
Helder. The awful scene through which he had just passed
quickened his imagination, and he grew fiercely indignant. He
reached Mme. de Restaud's house only to be told by the servant
that his mistress could see no one.

"But I have brought a message from her father, who is dying,"
Rastignac told the man.

"The Count has given us the strictest orders, sir----"

"If it is M. de Restaud who has given the orders, tell him that
his father-in-law is dying, and that I am here, and must speak
with him at once."

The man went out.

Eugene waited for a long while. "Perhaps her father is dying at
this moment," he thought.

Then the man came back, and Eugene followed him to the little
drawing-room. M. de Restaud was standing before the fireless
grate, and did not ask his visitor to seat himself.

"Monsieur le Comte," said Rastignac, "M. Goriot, your father-in-
law, is lying at the point of death in a squalid den in the Latin
Quarter. He has not a penny to pay for firewood; he is expected
to die at any moment, and keeps calling for his daughter----"

"I feel very little affection for M. Goriot, sir, as you probably
are aware," the Count answered coolly. "His character has been
compromised in connection with Mme. de Restaud; he is the author
of the misfortunes that have embittered my life and troubled my
peace of mind. It is a matter of perfect indifference to me if he
lives or dies. Now you know my feelings with regard to him.
Public opinion may blame me, but I care nothing for public
opinion. Just now I have other and much more important matters to
think about than the things that fools and chatterers may say
about me. As for Mme. de Restaud, she cannot leave the house; she
is in no condition to do so. And, besides, I shall not allow her
to leave it. Tell her father that as soon as she has done her
duty by her husband and child she shall go to see him. If she has
any love for her father, she can be free to go to him, if she
chooses, in a few seconds; it lies entirely with her----"

"Monsieur le Comte, it is no business of mine to criticise your
conduct; you can do as you please with your wife, but may I count
upon your keeping your word with me? Well, then, promise me to
tell her that her father has not twenty-four hours to live; that
he looks in vain for her, and has cursed her already as he lies
on his deathbed,--that is all I ask."

"You can tell her yourself," the Count answered, impressed by the
thrill of indignation in Eugene's voice.

The Count led the way to the room where his wife usually sat. She
was drowned in tears, and lay crouching in the depths of an
armchair, as if she were tired of life and longed to die. It was
piteous to see her. Before venturing to look at Rastignac, she
glanced at her husband in evident and abject terror that spoke of
complete prostration of body and mind; she seemed crushed by a
tyranny both mental and physical. The Count jerked his head
towards her; she construed this as a permission to speak.

"I heard all that you said, monsieur. Tell my father that if he
knew all he would forgive me. . . . I did not think there was
such torture in the world as this; it is more than I can endure,
monsieur!--But I will not give way as long as I live," she said,
turning to her husband. "I am a mother.--Tell my father that I
have never sinned against him in spite of appearances!" she cried
aloud in her despair.

Eugene bowed to the husband and wife; he guessed the meaning of
the scene, and that this was a terrible crisis in the Countess'
life. M. de Restaud's manner had told him that his errand was a
fruitless one; he saw that Anastasie had no longer any liberty of
action. He came away mazed and bewildered, and hurried to Mme. de
Nucingen. Delphine was in bed.

"Poor dear Eugene, I am ill," she said. "I caught cold after the
ball, and I am afraid of pneumonia. I am waiting for the doctor
to come."

"If you were at death's door," Eugene broke in, "you must be
carried somehow to your father. He is calling for you. If you
could hear the faintest of those cries, you would not feel ill
any longer."

"Eugene, I dare say my father is not quite so ill as you say; but
I cannot bear to do anything that you do not approve, so I will
do just as you wish. As for HIM, he would die of grief I know if
I went out to see him and brought on a dangerous illness. Well, I
will go as soon as I have seen the doctor.--Ah!" she cried out,
"you are not wearing your watch, how is that?"

Eugene reddened.

"Eugene, Eugene! if you have sold it already or lost it. . . .
Oh! it would be very wrong of you!"

The student bent over Delphine and said in her ear, "Do you want
to know? Very well, then, you shall know. Your father has nothing
left to pay for the shroud that they will lay him in this
evening. Your watch has been pawned, for I had nothing either."

Delphine sprang out of bed, ran to her desk, and took out her
purse. She gave it to Eugene, and rang the bell, crying:

"I will go, I will go at once, Eugene. Leave me, I will dress.
Why, I should be an unnatural daughter! Go back; I will be there
before you.--Therese," she called to the waiting-woman, "ask M.
de Nucingen to come upstairs at once and speak to me."

Eugene was almost happy when he reached the Rue Nueve-Sainte-
Genevieve; he was so glad to bring the news to the dying man that
one of his daughters was coming. He fumbled in Delphine's purse
for money, so as to dismiss the cab at once; and discovered that
the young, beautiful, and wealthy woman of fashion had only
seventy francs in her private purse. He climbed the stairs and
found Bianchon supporting Goriot, while the house surgeon from
the hospital was applying moxas to the patient's back--under the
direction of the physician, it was the last expedient of science,
and it was tried in vain.

"Can you feel them?" asked the physician. But Goriot had caught
sight of Rastignac, and answered, "They are coming, are they
not?"

"There is hope yet," said the surgeon; "he can speak."

"Yes," said Eugene, "Delphine is coming."

"Oh! that is nothing!" said Bianchon; "he has been talking about
his daughters all the time. He calls for them as a man impaled
calls for water, they say----"

"We may as well give up," said the physician, addressing the
surgeon. "Nothing more can be done now; the case is hopeless."

Bianchon and the house surgeon stretched the dying man out again
on his loathsome bed.

"But the sheets ought to be changed," added the physician. "Even
if there is no hope left, something is due to human nature. I
shall come back again, Bianchon," he said, turning to the medical
student. "If he complains again, rub some laudanum over the
diaphragm."

He went, and the house surgeon went with him.

"Come, Eugene, pluck up heart, my boy," said Bianchon, as soon as
they were alone; "we must set about changing his sheets, and put
him into a clean shirt. Go and tell Sylvie to bring some sheets
and come and help us to make the bed."

Eugene went downstairs, and found Mme. Vauquer engaged in setting
the table; Sylvie was helping her. Eugene had scarcely opened his
mouth before the widow walked up to him with the acidulous sweet
smile of a cautious shopkeeper who is anxious neither to lose
money nor to offend a customer.

"My dear Monsieur Eugene," she said, when he had spoken, "you
know quite as well as I do that Father Goriot has not a brass
farthing left. If you give out clean linen for a man who is just
going to turn up his eyes, you are not likely to see your sheets
again, for one is sure to be wanted to wrap him in. Now, you owe
me a hundred and forty-four francs as it is, add forty francs for
the pair of sheets, and then there are several little things,
besides the candle that Sylvie will give you; altogether it will
all mount up to at least two hundred francs, which is more than a
poor widow like me can afford to lose. Lord! now, Monsieur
Eugene, look at it fairly. I have lost quite enough in these five
days since this run of ill-luck set in for me. I would rather
than ten crowns that the old gentlemen had moved out as you said.
It sets the other lodgers against the house. It would not take
much to make me send him to the workhouse. In short, just put
yourself in my place. I have to think of my establishment first,
for I have my own living to make."

Eugene hurried up to Goriot's room.

"Bianchon," he cried, "the money or the watch?"

"There it is on the table, or the three hundred and sixty odd
francs that are left of it. I paid up all the old scores out of
it before they let me have the things. The pawn ticket lies there
under the money."

Rastignac hurried downstairs.

"Here, madame" he said in disgust, "let us square accounts. M.
Goriot will not stay much longer in your house, nor shall I----"

"Yes, he will go out feet foremost, poor old gentleman," she
said, counting the francs with a half-facetious, half-lugubrious
expression.

"Let us get this over," said Rastignac.

"Sylvie, look out some sheets, and go upstairs to help the
gentlemen."

"You won't forget Sylvie," said Mme. Vauquer in Eugene's ear;
"she has been sitting up these two nights."

As soon as Eugene's back was turned, the old woman hurried after
her handmaid.

"Take the sheets that have had the sides turned into the middle,
number 7. Lord! they are plenty good enough for a corpse," she
said in Sylvie's ear.

Eugene, by this time, was part of the way upstairs, and did not
overhear the elderly economist.

"Quick," said Bianchon, "let us change his shirt. Hold him
upright."

Eugene went to the head of the bed and supported the dying man,
while Bianchon drew off his shirt; and then Goriot made a
movement as if he tried to clutch something to his breast,
uttering a low inarticulate moaning the while, like some dumb
animal in mortal pain.

"Ah! yes!" cried Bianchon. "It is the little locket and the chain
made of hair that he wants; we took it off a while ago when we
put the blisters on him. Poor fellow! he must have it again.
There it lies on the chimney-piece."

Eugene went to the chimney-piece and found the little plait of
faded golden hair--Mme. Goriot's hair, no doubt. He read the name
on the little round locket, ANASTASIE on the one side, DELPHINE
on the other. It was the symbol of his own heart that the father
always wore on his breast. The curls of hair inside the locket
were so fine and soft that is was plain they had been taken from
two childish heads. When the old man felt the locket once more,
his chest heaved with a long deep sigh of satisfaction, like a
groan. It was something terrible to see, for it seemed as if the
last quiver of the nerves were laid bare to their eyes, the last
communication of sense to the mysterious point within whence our
sympathies come and whither they go. A delirious joy lighted up
the distorted face. The terrific and vivid force of the feeling
that had survived the power of thought made such an impression on
the students, that the dying man felt their hot tears falling on
him, and gave a shrill cry of delight.

"Nasie! Fifine!"

"There is life in him yet," said Bianchon.

"What does he go on living for?" said Sylvie.

"To suffer," answered Rastignac.

Bianchon made a sign to his friend to follow his example, knelt
down and pressed his arms under the sick man, and Rastignac on
the other side did the same, so that Sylvie, standing in
readiness, might draw the sheet from beneath and replace it with
the one that she had brought. Those tears, no doubt, had misled
Goriot; for he gathered up all his remaining strength in a last
effort, stretched out his hands, groped for the students' heads,
and as his fingers caught convulsively at their hair, they heard
a faint whisper:

"Ah! my angels!"

Two words, two inarticulate murmurs, shaped into words by the
soul which fled forth with them as they left his lips.

"Poor dear!" cried Sylvie, melted by that exclamation; the
expression of the great love raised for the last time to a
sublime height by that most ghastly and involuntary of lies.

The father's last breath must have been a sigh of joy, and in
that sigh his whole life was summed up; he was cheated even at
the last. They laid Father Goriot upon his wretched bed with
reverent hands. Thenceforward there was no expression on his
face, only the painful traces of the struggle between life and
death that was going on in the machine; for that kind of cerebral
consciousness that distinguishes between pleasure and pain in a
human being was extinguished; it was only a question of time--and
the mechanism itself would be destroyed.

"He will lie like this for several hours, and die so quietly at
last, that we shall not know when he goes; there will be no
rattle in the throat. The brain must be completely suffused."

As he spoke there was a footstep on the staircase, and a young
woman hastened up, panting for breath.

"She has come too late," said Rastignac.

But it was not Delphine; it was Therese, her waiting-woman, who
stood in the doorway.

"Monsieur Eugene," she said, "monsieur and madame have had a
terrible scene about some money that Madame (poor thing!) wanted
for her father. She fainted, and the doctor came, and she had to
be bled, calling out all the while, 'My father is dying; I want
to see papa!' It was heartbreaking to hear her----"

"That will do, Therese. If she came now, it would be trouble
thrown away. M. Goriot cannot recognize any one now."

"Poor, dear gentleman, is he as bad at that?" said Therese.

"You don't want me now, I must go and look after my dinner; it is
half-past four," remarked Sylvie. The next instant she all but
collided with Mme. de Restaud on the landing outside.

There was something awful and appalling in the sudden apparition
of the Countess. She saw the bed of death by the dim light of the
single candle, and her tears flowed at the sight of her father's
passive features, from which the life had almost ebbed. Bianchon
with thoughtful tact left the room.

"I could not escape soon enough," she said to Rastignac.

The student bowed sadly in reply. Mme. de Restaud took her
father's hand and kissed it.

"Forgive me, father! You used to say that my voice would call you
back from the grave; ah! come back for one moment to bless your
penitent daughter. Do you hear me? Oh! this is fearful! No one on
earth will ever bless me henceforth; every one hates me; no one
loves me but you in all the world. My own children will hate me.
Take me with you, father; I will love you, I will take care of
you. He does not hear me . . . I am mad . . ."

She fell on her knees, and gazed wildly at the human wreck before
her.

"My cup of misery is full," she said, turning her eyes upon
Eugene. "M. de Trailles has fled, leaving enormous debts behind
him, and I have found out that he was deceiving me. My husband
will never forgive me, and I have left my fortune in his hands. I
have lost all my illusions. Alas! I have forsaken the one heart
that loved me (she pointed to her father as she spoke), and for
whom? I have held his kindness cheap, and slighted his affection;
many and many a time I have given him pain, ungrateful wretch
that I am!"

"He knew it," said Rastignac.

Just then Goriot's eyelids unclosed; it was only a muscular
contraction, but the Countess' sudden start of reviving hope was
no less dreadful than the dying eyes.

"Is it possible that he can hear me?" cried the Countess. "No,"
she answered herself, and sat down beside the bed. As Mme. de
Restaud seemed to wish to sit by her father, Eugene went down to
take a little food. The boarders were already assembled.

"Well," remarked the painter, as he joined them, "it seems that
there is to be a death-orama upstairs."

"Charles, I think you might find something less painful to joke
about," said Eugene.

"So we may not laugh here?" returned the painter. "What harm does
it do? Bianchon said that the old man was quite insensible."

"Well, then," said the employe from the Museum, "he will die as
he has lived."

"My father is dead!" shrieked the Countess.

The terrible cry brought Sylvie, Rastignac, and Bianchon; Mme. de
Restaud had fainted away. When she recovered they carried her
downstairs, and put her into the cab that stood waiting at the
door. Eugene sent Therese with her, and bade the maid take the
Countess to Mme. de Nucingen.

Bianchon came down to them.

"Yes, he is dead," he said.

"Come, sit down to dinner, gentlemen," said Mme. Vauquer, "or the
soup will be cold."

The two students sat down together.

"What is the next thing to be done?" Eugene asked of Bianchon.

"I have closed his eyes and composed his limbs," said Bianchon.
"When the certificate has been officially registered at the
Mayor's office, we will sew him in his winding sheet and bury him
somewhere. What do you think we ought to do?"

"He will not smell at his bread like this any more," said the
painter, mimicking the old man's little trick.

"Oh, hang it all!" cried the tutor, "let Father Goriot drop, and
let us have something else for a change. He is a standing dish,
and we have had him with every sauce this hour or more. It is one
of the privileges of the good city of Paris that anybody may be
born, or live, or die there without attracting any attention
whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization.
There are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to
do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs
of dead in Paris. Father Goriot has gone off the hooks, has he?
So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it
to yourselves, and let the rest of us feed in peace."

"Oh, to be sure," said the widow, "it is all the better for him
that he is dead. It looks as though he had had trouble enough,
poor soul, while he was alive."

And this was all the funeral oration delivered over him who had
been for Eugene the type and embodiment of Fatherhood.

The fifteen lodgers began to talk as usual. When Bianchon and
Eugene had satisfied their hunger, the rattle of spoons and
forks, the boisterous conversation, the expressions on the faces
that bespoke various degrees of want of feeling, gluttony, or
indifference, everything about them made them shiver with
loathing. They went out to find a priest to watch that night with
the dead. It was necessary to measure their last pious cares by
the scanty sum of money that remained. Before nine o'clock that
evening the body was laid out on the bare sacking of the bedstead
in the desolate room; a lighted candle stood on either side, and
the priest watched at the foot. Rastignac made inquiries of this
latter as to the expenses of the funeral, and wrote to the Baron
de Nucingen and the Comte de Restaud, entreating both gentlemen
to authorize their man of business to defray the charges of
laying their father-in-law in the grave. He sent Christophe with
the letters; then he went to bed, tired out, and slept.

Next day Bianchon and Rastignac were obliged to take the
certificate to the registrar themselves, and by twelve o'clock
the formalities were completed. Two hours went by, no word came
from the Count nor from the Baron; nobody appeared to act for
them, and Rastignac had already been obliged to pay the priest.
Sylvie asked ten francs for sewing the old man in his winding-
sheet and making him ready for the grave, and Eugene and Bianchon
calculated that they had scarcely sufficient to pay for the
funeral, if nothing was forthcoming from the dead man's family.
So it was the medical student who laid him in a pauper's coffin,
despatched from Bianchon's hospital, whence he obtained it at a
cheaper rate.

"Let us play those wretches a trick," said he. "Go to the
cemetery, buy a grave for five years at Pere-Lachaise, and
arrange with the Church and the undertaker to have a third-class
funeral. If the daughters and their husbands decline to repay
you, you can carve this on the headstone--'HERE LIES M. GORIOT,
FATHER OF THE COMTESSE DE RESTAUD AND THE BARONNE DE NUCINGEN,
INTERRED AT THE EXPENSE OF TWO STUDENTS.' "

Eugene took part of his friend's advice, but only after he had
gone in person first to M. and Mme. de Nucingen, and then to M.
and Mme. de Restaud--a fruitless errand. He went no further than
the doorstep in either house. The servants had received strict
orders to admit no one.

"Monsieur and Madame can see no visitors. They have just lost
their father, and are in deep grief over their loss."

Eugene's Parisian experience told him that it was idle to press
the point. Something clutched strangely at his heart when he saw
that it was impossible to reach Delphine.

"Sell some of your ornaments," he wrote hastily in the porter's
room, "so that your father may be decently laid in his last
resting-place."

He sealed the note, and begged the porter to give it to Therese
for her mistress; but the man took it to the Baron de Nucingen,
who flung the note into the fire. Eugene, having finished his
errands, returned to the lodging-house about three o'clock. In
spite of himself, the tears came into his eyes. The coffin, in
its scanty covering of black cloth, was standing there on the
pavement before the gate, on two chairs. A withered sprig of
hyssop was soaking in the holy water bowl of silver-plated
copper; there was not a soul in the street, not a passer-by had
stopped to sprinkle the coffin; there was not even an attempt at
a black drapery over the wicket. It was a pauper who lay there;
no one made a pretence of mourning for him; he had neither
friends nor kindred--there was no one to follow him to the grave.

Bianchon's duties compelled him to be at the hospital, but he had
left a few lines for Eugene, telling his friend about the
arrangements he had made for the burial service. The house
student's note told Rastignac that a mass was beyond their means,
that the ordinary office for the dead was cheaper, and must
suffice, and that he had sent word to the undertaker by
Christophe. Eugene had scarcely finished reading Bianchon's
scrawl, when he looked up and saw the little circular gold locket
that contained the hair of Goriot's two daughters in Mme.
Vauquer's hands.

"How dared you take it?" he asked.

"Good Lord! is that to be buried along with him?" retorted
Sylvie. "It is gold."

"Of course it shall!" Eugene answered indignantly; "he shall at
any rate take one thing that may represent his daughters into the
grave with him."

When the hearse came, Eugene had the coffin carried into the
house again, unscrewed the lid, and reverently laid on the old
man's breast the token that recalled the days when Delphine and
Anastasie were innocent little maidens, before they began "to
think for themselves," as he had moaned out in his agony.

Rastignac and Christophe and the two undertaker's men were the
only followers of the funeral. The Church of Saint-Etienne du
Mont was only a little distance from the Rue Nueve-Sainte-
Genevieve. When the coffin had been deposited in a low, dark,
little chapel, the law student looked round in vain for Goriot's
two daughters or their husbands. Christophe was his only fellow-
mourner; Christophe, who appeared to think it was his duty to
attend the funeral of the man who had put him in the way of such
handsome tips. As they waited there in the chapel for the two
priests, the chorister, and the beadle, Rastignac grasped
Christophe's hand. He could not utter a word just then.

"Yes, Monsieur Eugene," said Christophe, "he was a good and
worthy man, who never said one word louder than another; he never
did any one any harm, and gave nobody any trouble."

The two priests, the chorister, and the beadle came, and said and
did as much as could be expected for seventy francs in an age
when religion cannot afford to say prayers for nothing.

The ecclesiatics chanted a psalm, the Libera nos and the De
profundis. The whole service lasted about twenty minutes. There
was but one mourning coach, which the priest and chorister agreed
to share with Eugene and Christophe.

"There is no one else to follow us," remarked the priest, "so we
may as well go quickly, and so save time; it is half-past five."

But just as the coffin was put in the hearse, two empty
carriages, with the armorial bearings of the Comte de Restaud and
the Baron de Nucingen, arrived and followed in the procession to
Pere-Lachaise. At six o'clock Goriot's coffin was lowered into
the grave, his daughters' servants standing round the while. The
ecclesiastic recited the short prayer that the students could
afford to pay for, and then both priest and lackeys disappeared
at once. The two grave diggers flung in several spadefuls of
earth, and then stopped and asked Rastignac for their fee. Eugene
felt in vain in his pocket, and was obliged to borrow five francs
of Christophe. This thing, so trifling in itself, gave Rastignac
a terrible pang of distress. It was growing dusk, the damp
twilight fretted his nerves; he gazed down into the grave and the
tears he shed were drawn from him by the sacred emotion, a
single-hearted sorrow. When such tears fall on earth, their
radiance reaches heaven. And with that tear that fell on Father
Goriot's grave, Eugene Rastignac's youth ended. He folded his
arms and gazed at the clouded sky; and Christophe, after a glance
at him, turned and went--Rastignac was left alone.

He went a few paces further, to the highest point of the
cemetery, and looked out over Paris and the windings of the
Seine; the lamps were beginning to shine on either side of the
river. His eyes turned almost eagerly to the space between the
column of the Place Vendome and the cupola of the Invalides;
there lay the shining world that he had wished to reach. He
glanced over that humming hive, seeming to draw a foretaste of
its honey, and said magniloquently:

"Henceforth there is war between us."

And by way of throwing down the glove to Society, Rastignac went
to dine with Mme. de Nucingen.



ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d'
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Secrets of a Princess
  Beatrix

Beauseant, Marquis
  An Episode under the Terror

Beauseant, Vicomte de
  The Deserted Woman

Beauseant, Vicomtesse de
  The Deserted Woman
  Albert Savarus

Bianchon, Horace
  The Atheist's Mass
  Cesar Birotteau
  The Commission in Lunacy
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  A Bachelor's Establishment
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Government Clerks
  Pierrette
  A Study of Woman
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Honorine
  The Seamy Side of History
  The Magic Skin
  A Second Home
  A Prince of Bohemia
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Muse of the Department
  The Imaginary Mistress
  The Middle Classes
  Cousin Betty
  The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
  Another Study of Woman
  La Grande Breteche

Bibi-Lupin (chief of secret police, called himself Gondureau)
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de
  Sarrasine

Collin, Jacques
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Member for Arcis

Derville
  Gobseck
  A Start in Life
  The Gondreville Mystery
  Colonel Chabert
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Franchessini, Colonel
  The Member for Arcis

Galathionne, Princess
  A Daughter of Eve

Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
  Gobseck
  Cesar Birotteau
  The Government Clerks
  The Unconscious Humoriists

Jacques (M. de Beauseant's butler)
  The Deserted Woman

Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de
  The Thirteen

Marsay, Henri de
  The Thirteen
  The Unconscious Humorists
  Another Study of Woman
  The Lily of the Valley
  Jealousies of a Country Town
  Ursule Mirouet
  A Marriage Settlement
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Letters of Two Brides
  The Ball at Sceaux
  Modest Mignon
  The Secrets of a Princess
  The Gondreville Mystery
  A Daughter of Eve

Maurice (de Restaud's valet)
  Gobseck

Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de
  The Thirteen
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Another Study of Woman
  Pierrette
  The Member for Arcis

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
  The Firm of Nucingen
  Pierrette
  Cesar Birotteau
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Another Study of Woman
  The Secrets of a Princess
  A Man of Business
  Cousin Betty
  The Muse of the Department
  The Unconscious Humorists

Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
  The Thirteen
  Eugenie Grandet
  Cesar Birotteau
  Melmoth Reconciled
  Lost Illusions
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  The Commission in Lunacy
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  Modeste Mignon
  The Firm of Nucingen
  Another Study of Woman
  A Daughter of Eve
  The Member for Arcis

Poiret
  The Government Clerks
  A Start in Life
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Middle Classes

Poiret, Madame (nee Christine-Michelle Michonneau)
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Middle Classes

Rastignac, Baron and Baronne de (Eugene's parents)
  Lost Illusions

Rastignac, Eugene de
  A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
  The Ball at Sceaux
  The Interdiction
  A Study of Woman
  Another Study of Woman
  The Magic Skin
  The Secrets of a Princess
  A Daughter of Eve
  The Gondreville Mystery
  The Firm of Nucingen
  Cousin Betty
  The Member for Arcis
  The Unconscious Humorists

Rastignac, Laure-Rose and Agathe de
  Lost Illusions
  The Member for Arcis

Rastignac, Monseigneur Gabriel de
  The Country Parson
  A Daughter of Eve

Restaud, Comte de
  Gobseck

Restaud, Comtesse Anastasie de
  Gobseck

Selerier
  Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Taillefer, Jean-Frederic
  The Firm of Nucingen
  The Magic Skin
  The Red Inn

Taillefer, Victorine
  The Red Inn

Therese
  A Daughter of Eve

Tissot, Pierre-Francois
  A Prince of Bohemia

Trailles, Comte Maxime de
  Cesar Birotteau
  Gobseck
  Ursule Mirouet
  A Man of Business
  The Member for Arcis
  The Secrets of a Princess
  Cousin Betty
  The Member for Arcis
  Beatrix
  The Unconscious Humorists





End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac