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 '' ' " 

 
 THE COMEDY OF HUMAN LIFE. 
 BY H. DE BALZAC. 
 
 SCENES FROM PARISIAN LIFE. 
 PERE GORIOT.
 
 HONORE DE BALZAC. 
 
 " Balzac is perhaps the greatest name in the post-Revolutionary literature 
 of France. His writings display a profound knowledge of the human heart, 
 with extraordinary range of knowledge. . . . Balzac holds a more distinct 
 and supreme place in French fiction than perhaps any English author does 
 in the same field of art." Encyclopedia Britannica. 
 
 " Messrs. Roberts Brothers are soon to bring out a series of translations 
 of Balzac's novels, whose acknowledged cJiefs tfceuvres are superior to every- 
 thing of their kind in English letters. The initial volume, which is ' Pere 
 Goriot,' is now in the hands of the printers, and may soon be expected. It 
 will be followed by another after a short interval, and this by others, provided 
 the novel readers of America can be made to perceive the surpassing excel- 
 lence of this great French master, who is to the novelists of the nineteenth 
 century what Shakspeare was to the dramatists of the sixteenth and seven- 
 teenth centuries, the incomparable author of Le Come'die Humaine. This 
 translation of Balzac ought to succeed, and will succeed." Richard Henry 
 Stoddard 
 
 " Balzac, though he paints human life perhaps too much in tints of fate 
 that remind us of the Greek tragedians, is far deeper and more true to nature 
 than George Sand or Rousseau. The teachings implied in his tales come 
 home closer to the conscience and heart than do their essays and stories. 
 There is in him more than Gallic blood. He is the greatest of novelists, 
 unmatched in his guild or kind as a social philosopher, and unsurpassed in 
 his literary style. As a romance-writer he has no peer as yet in the English 
 tongue." Rev Dr. C. A. Bartol.
 
 HONORE DE BALZAC 
 
 PERE GORIOT 
 
 ROBERTS BROTHERS 
 
 3 SOMERSET STREET 
 
 BOSTON 
 
 1885
 
 Copyright, 1885, 
 BY ROBERTS BROTHERS. 
 
 JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE.
 
 PREFACE. 1 
 
 IN giving to a work, begun nearly thirteen years ago, the 
 title of " The Comedy of Human Life," it is necessary that 
 I should state its purpose, relate its origin, and give some 
 explanation of its plan; endeavoring to do so as if I had no 
 personal interest in the matter. This is not as difficult as the 
 public might imagine. The writing of a few books makes a 
 man self-sufficient; but much labor and hard toil bring hu- 
 mility. This reflection explains the survey which Corneille, 
 Moliere, and other great authors made of their writings. If 
 it is impossible to equal them in the grandeur of their con- 
 ceptions, at least we may share the spirit with which they 
 examined them. 
 
 The leading idea of this human comedy came to me at 
 first like a dream; like one of those impossible visions which 
 we try to clasp as they elude us; a smiling fancy showing for 
 a moment a woman's face, as it spreads its wings and rises 
 to the ideal heavens. But soon this vision, this chimera, 
 changed, after the fashion of chimeras, into a living shape 
 with compelling will and tyrannous power, to which I yielded 
 myself up. The idea came from the study of human life in 
 comparison with the life of animals. 
 
 1 This preface, written forty-three years ago, is placed here to give 
 Balzac's own interpretation of his books. Without it they will not be 
 fully understood. His letters, published after his death, reveal in like 
 manner the man himself, his wonderful method of work, and the sin- 
 cerity of this preface. 
 
 2024327
 
 vi Preface. 
 
 It is a mistake to suppose that the controversy which in 
 these latter days has arisen between Cuvier and Geoffroy 
 Saint-Hilaire rests upon a scientific innovation. Synthetic 
 unity filled, under various definitions, the greatest minds of 
 the two preceding centuries. In reading the strange books 
 of those mystical writers who drew science into their concep- 
 tions of the infinite, such as Swedenborg, Saint-Martin, 
 and others; also the writings of the great naturalists, Leib- 
 nitz, Buffon, Charles Bonnet, etc., we find in the monads of 
 Leibnitz, in the organic molecules of Buffon, in the vegetative 
 force of Needham, in the encasement of germs of Charles 
 Bonnet, who was bold enough to write in 1760, " animal life 
 vegetates like plant life," we find, I say, the rudiments of 
 that strong law of self-preservation upon which rests the the- 
 ory of synthetic unity. There is but one animal. The Cre- 
 ator used one and the same principle for all organized being. 
 An animal is an essence which takes external form, or, to 
 speak more correctly, takes the differences of its form from 
 the centres or conditions in which it comes to its develop- 
 ment. All zoological species grow out of these differences. 
 The announcement and pursuit of this theory, keeping it as 
 he did in harmony with preconceived ideas of the Divine 
 power, will be the lasting glory of Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, the 
 conqueror of Cuvier in this particular branch of science, 
 a fact recognized by the great Goethe in the last words which 
 came from his pen. 
 
 Filled with these ideas, I had perceived, long before this 
 discussion arose, that Society in these respects is like Nature. 
 Society makes the man; he develops according to the social 
 centres in which he is placed: there are as many different 
 men as there are species in zoology. The differences between 
 a soldier, a workman, a governor, a lawyer, a man of leisure, a 
 scholar, a statesman, a merchant, a sailor, a poet, a beggar, a 
 priest, though more difficult to decipher, are at least as marked 
 as those which separate the wolf, the lion, the ass, the crow,
 
 Preface. vii 
 
 the shark, the seal, the lamb, etc. There have always been, 
 and always will be, social species just as there are zoological 
 species. If Bivffou achieved a great work when he put together 
 in one book the whole scheme of zoology, is there not a work 
 of the same kind to be done for Society,? Nature imposes 
 upon the animal kingdom limitations which do not bind the 
 social realm. When Buffon had described a lion, he could dis- 
 miss the lioness with a word; but in the world of men, woman 
 is far .from being the female of the male. Two species of man- 
 kind may exist in one household: the wife of a shopkeeper 
 is sometimes fit to be the wife of a prince; often the wife of 
 a prince is unworthy to be the companion of the meanest 
 laborer. ^ The Social kingdom has uncertainties and acci- 
 dents which are not to be found in the natural world, for it 
 is itself Nature plus Society.^ Any description of the social 
 species, consequently, doubles all description of the animal 
 species in the matter of the sexes alone. 
 
 Moreover, among animals there is no drama, no current of 
 events to excite and move them; the circumstances of their 
 life are not confusing; they attack each other, and that is all. 
 Men attack each other in like manner, but their greater or 
 lesser intelligence renders the struggle far more complicated. 
 If some scientific men do not yet admit that the animal world 
 is transfused into the human world by the current of the 
 original principle of life, it is at least certain that a grocer 
 can become peer of France, and a noble may fall to the lowest 
 social stratum. Further than this: Buffon found the life of 
 animals extremely simple. They have no belongings, neither 
 arts nor sciences; while man, by a law still unexplained, feels 
 the need to set. the stamp of his habits, his thoughts, his be- 
 ing, upon all that he collects to meet his wants. Though 
 Leuwenhoec, Swammerdam, Spallanzani, Rdaumur, Charles 
 Bonnet, Muller, Haller, and other patient zoologists proclaim 
 the interest which attaches to the habits of animals, yet to 
 our eyes at least they remain perpetually the same; whereas
 
 viii Preface. 
 
 the habits clothing, methods of speech, the abodes of princes, 
 bankers, artists, citizens, priests, and paupers, are all widely 
 dissimilar, and change with the whims of civilization. 
 
 For these reasons my ideal work took on a triple form, 
 men, women, and things; that is to say, persons and the 
 material representation which they gave to their being: in 
 short, man and his life. 
 
 In reading the dry and sapless dictionaries of facts which 
 are called history, who does not feel that the writers .of all 
 epochs Egyptian, Persian, Grecian, Roman have for- 
 gotten to give us the vital history of manners and customs? 
 That fragment of Petronius upon the private life of Rome 
 provokes more curiosity than it satisfies. It was a sense of 
 this enormous void in the history of the world that led the 
 Abbe Barthelemy to spend his life in reproducing Grecian 
 manners by his " Anacharsis." 
 
 But how was it possible to bring within the compass of a 
 reader's interest the three or four thousand personages who 
 form Society? How could I satisfy at one and the same 
 time the poets, the philosophers, and the multitude who must 
 have their poetry and their philosophy presented to them 
 under salient forms? However just my conception of the 
 dignity and the poetry of this history of the human heart 
 might be, I could see no way to put it into execution. Up 
 to our own time all celebrated tellers of tales had spent 
 their talent on creating two or three typical characters, or 
 in painting some one limited aspect of human life. 
 
 Thus thinking, I turned to the wurks of Walter Scott. 
 Walter Scott, the troubadour of modern times, had then just 
 placed the imprint of his wondrous method upon a species of 
 composition hitherto unjustly rated as secondary. Is it not 
 far more difficult to enter the lists against ordinary life with 
 Daphne and Chloe, Roland, Amadis, Panurge, Don Quixote, 
 Maiion Lescaut, Clarissa Harlowe, Lovelace, Robinson Crusoe, 
 Gil Bias, Ossian, Julie d'Etanges, My Uncle Toby, Werther,
 
 Preface. ix 
 
 Rene, Corinne, Paul and Virginia, Jeanie Deans, Claver- 
 house, Ivanhoe, Manfred, Mignou, than to put in order his- 
 torical facts which are much the same in all nations, or search 
 out the meaning of laws long fallen into disuse; to revive for- 
 gotten theories that once led nations astray, or explain, like 
 certain metaphysicians, the secret of the things that be? In 
 the first place, nearly all these characters, whose lives ar<" 
 longer and far more vital than those of the generation in 
 which they were born, live only so far as they are allied to 
 the life of the present day. Conceived in the womb of their 
 century, the human heart within them beats for all time, and 
 holds in many instances the germ of a philosophy. Walter 
 Scott raised to the philosophical value of history that form of 
 literature which from age to age has starred with immortal 
 gems the poetic crown of nations where letters and the arts 
 are cultivated. He put into it the mind of the days of old; 
 he brought together drama, dialogue, portraiture, description, 
 scenery, the supernatural with the natural, two elements 
 of hi.s epoch; and side by side with poesy and majesty he 
 placed the familiarities of the humblest speech. Yet with all 
 this he did not so much conceive a system, as find a method 
 in the inspiration of his work, or in the logic of it; and thus 
 he never dreamed of binding his compositions one to another 
 as a complete history, of which each chapter should be a ro- 
 mance, and each romance an epoch. 
 
 In perceiving this lack of unity, which nevertheless does 
 not render the great Scotchman less great, I came to see the 
 system under which I ought to execute my idea, and also the 
 possibility of executing it. Though dazzled, so to speak, by 
 the amazing fecundity of Walter Scott, who is always in har- 
 mony with himself and always original, I was not disheart- 
 ened; for I knew that this faculty grew out of the infinite va- 
 riety of human life. Chance is the great romance-maker of 
 the ages : we have only to study it if we seek to be fertile in 
 representation.
 
 x Preface. 
 
 Society as it exists in France was therefore to be the his- 
 torian ; I was to be its secretary. lii drawing up the inven- 
 tory of its virtues and its vices, in collecting the facts of its 
 manifold passions, in picturing its characters, in choosing 
 its leading events, in constructing types by putting together 
 traits of homogeneous natures, I might perhaps attain to the 
 writing of that history forgotten by historians, the history 
 of manners and the ways of life. By the exercise of much 
 patience and much courage I might hope to accomplish for 
 France of the nineteenth century what Rome, Athens, Tyre, 
 Memphis, Persia, India, had unhappily failed to bestow upon 
 their civilizations, a work such as the patient and cour- 
 ageous Monteil, following the example of the Abbe Barthe- 
 lemy, had endeavored, but with little attraction, to accomplish 
 for the Middle Ages. 
 
 This, however, was not all. A writer who placed before 
 his mind the duty of exact reproduction might become a 
 painter of human types more or less faithful, successful, 
 courageous, and patient; he might be the annalist of the 
 dramas of private life, the archaeologist of the social fabric, 
 the sponsor of trades and professions, the registrar of good 
 and evil. And yet, to merit the applause at which all artists 
 should aim, ought he not also to study the reasons or the 
 reason of the conditions of social life; ought he not to seize 
 the hidden meaning of this vast accretion of beings, of pas- 
 sions, of events ? Finally, having sought I will not say 
 found this reason, this social mainspring, was he not bound 
 to study natural law, and discover why and when Society ap- 
 proached or swerved away from the eternal principles of 
 truth and beauty? Notwithstanding the range of these 
 premises, which in themselves would fill a volume, the work 
 in its entirety should be shown to have a final meaning. 
 Thus depicted, Society might be made to wear upon its brow 
 the reasons of its being. 
 N The law of the writer, that which makes him a teacher
 
 Preface. xi 
 
 of men; that which, I presume to say, renders him the equal 
 and even the superior of the statesman, is to pass judg- 
 ment upon human affairs with a single eye to their originat- 
 ing causes. \\JMachiavelli, Hobbes, Bossuet, Leibnitz, Kant, 
 Montesquieu, divulge the science which statesmen apply. 
 " A writer should have fixed opinions in ethics and in 
 politics ; he should regard himself as an instructor : and 
 mankind does not need to be instructed how to doubt," 
 said Bonald. I took these noble words early to heart as the 
 rule of my work : they are the law of all monarchical writers. 
 Therefore when my critics quote me against myself, it will be 
 found that they have misunderstood some irony, or distorted 
 to my injury some saying of my personages, a trick not 
 uncommon among calumniators. As for the inward meaning, 
 the soul of my work, the following principles are the founda- 
 tion on which it rests: 
 
 Man is neither good nor bad ; he is born with instincts and 
 capacities. Society, far from depraving him, as Rousseau 
 asserts, perfects and lifts him higher; but self-interest in- 
 terposes, and develops his evil tendencies. Christianity, 
 and especially Catholicism, being, as I have said in " The 
 Country Doctor," a complete system for the repression of 
 the selfish instincts of mankind, is the strongest element 
 of the social order. 
 
 If we study carefully a representation of Society moulded 
 as it were upon the living form, with all its good and all its 
 evil, we shall find that while thought, or rather passion, 
 which is thought and feeling combined, is the social ele- 
 ment and bond, it is also an element of destruction. In this 
 respect the social life is like the physical life : races and men 
 attain longevity only by the non-exhaustion of the vital force. 
 Consequently instruction or, to speak more correctly, reli- 
 gious education is the great principle of the life of Society, 
 the only means of diminishing the total of evil and augment- 
 ing the total of good in human life. Thought, the fountain
 
 xii Preface. 
 
 of all good and of all evil, cannot be trained, mastered, and 
 directed except by religion ; and the only possible religion is 
 Christianity, which created the modern world and will pre- 
 serve it. 1 From it sprang the need of the monarchical prin- 
 ciple; in fact, Christianity and monarchy are twin principles. 
 As to the limits within which both should be held and regu- 
 lated lest they develop to their inherent conclusions, my 
 readers will agree with me that this brief preface is not the 
 place for such discussion. Neither can I enter upon the 
 religious and political dissensions of the present day. I 
 write by the light of two eternal truths, religion and mon- 
 archy : two necessities proclaimed by contemporaneous events, 
 and towards which every writer of sound judgment will en- 
 deavor to bring back this nation. Though I am not an 
 enemy to election, which is a sound principle in the consti- 
 tution of law, I reject it when taken as the sole expression of 
 the social will, and especially when organized as it is at this 
 moment. The suffrage, if granted to all, will give us govern- 
 ment by the masses, the only government that is irrespon- 
 sible, and whose tyranny will be without check because 
 exercised under the name of law. For myself, I regard the 
 family and not the individual as the true essence of social 
 life. In this respect, and at the risk of being thought retro- 
 grade, I stand by Bossuet and Bonald, instead of advancing 
 with modem innovators. 
 
 There are persons to whom these remarks will seem arro- 
 gant and presumptuous; they will quarrel with a novelist who 
 assumes to be an historian, and ask why he thus promulgates 
 his theories. My sole reply is, that I obey a sense of duty. 
 The work I have undertaken will spread to the proportions 
 of history, and it is due to my readers that I should state its 
 
 1 See a letter written from Paris in " Louis Lambert," in which the 
 mystical young philosopher shows, apropos of the doctrine of Swe- 
 denborg, that there has been but one religion since the creation of the 
 world.
 
 Preface. xiii 
 
 purpose, hitherto unexplained, together with its principles 
 and ethics. 
 
 Having withdrawn various prefaces which were published 
 in reply to criticisms essentially ephemeral, I shall here 
 recall only one of the observations which I have heretofore 
 made upon my books. 
 
 Writers who have an end in view, be it even a return to 
 the principles of the past for the reason that they contain 
 truths which are eternal, should be careful to clear their way 
 of all difficulties. Now, whoever attacks the realm of pre- 
 conceived ideas, whoever points out an abuse, or sets a mark 
 on evils that they may be checked and curtailed, is held, 
 almost invariably, to be unprincipled.\ The reproach of 
 immorality has never failed to pursue a courageous writer, 
 and is often the only arrow in the quiver of those who can 
 say nothing else against a poe" If a man is faithful in his 
 portraiture; if, toiling night and day, he attains at last to a 
 full expression of that life and language which of all others 
 is the most difficult to render, the stigma of immorality 
 is flung upon him. Thus Socrates was immoral; so was 
 Christ : both were pursued in the name of that social order 
 which they overthrew or reformed. When a man is to be 
 destroyed, this charge is brought against him; but the trick, 
 practised by partisans of all conditions, recoils with shame 
 upon the heads of those who employ it. 
 
 In copying the whole of Society, and in trying to seize its 
 likeness from the midst of the seething struggle, it necessarily 
 happens that more of evil than of good is shown. Thus 
 gome portion of the fresco representing a guilty group excites 
 the cry of immorality, while the critic fails to point out a 
 corresponding part which was intended to show a moral con- 
 trast. As such critics were ignorant of my general plan I 
 readily pardon their mistake, for an author can no more 
 hinder criticism than he can hinder the use of sight or hear- 
 ing or language. Besides, the day of impartial judgment
 
 xiv Preface. 
 
 has not yet dawned for me ; and I may add that the writer 
 who cannot stand the fire of criticism is no more fit to start 
 upon the career of authorship than a traveller is fit to under- 
 take a journey if he is prepared only for fine weather. I 
 shall merely remark, that although the most scrupulous mor- 
 alists have doubted whether Society is able to show as much 
 good as it shows evil, yet in the pictures which I have made 
 of it virtuous characters outnumber the bad. Blameworthy 
 conduct, faults, and crimes have invariably received their 
 punishment, human or divine, startling or secret. In this 
 I have done better than the historian, for I have been free to 
 do so. Cromwell here below received no other chastisement 
 than that inflicted by the thoughts of men ; and even those 
 were vacillating, for Bossuet himself dealt charitably with 
 the great regicide. William of Orange the usurper, and 
 Hugh Capet that other usurper, died full of days, without 
 more to suffer or to fear than Henry IV. or Charles I. The 
 lives of Catherine of Russia and Frederick the Great were at 
 war with every species of morality, even if judged from the 
 double point of view of the virtue which regulates men at 
 large, and of that other virtue reserved for crowned heads, 
 which claims, with Napoleon, that for kings and statesmen 
 there are two moralities, a greater and a lesser. My 
 " Scenes from Political Life " are based on this reflection. 
 History does not, like the novel, hold up the law of a higher 
 ideal. History is, or should be, the world as it has been ; the 
 novel to use a saying of Madame Necker, one of the remark- 
 able minds of the last century should paint a possible better 
 world. 
 
 Yet even so, the novel would be worth little if it pictured 
 only such august fiction, and failed in truth of detail. 
 Here it is that Walter Scott, forced to conform to the ideas 
 of a public essentially hypocritical, was false to humanity in 
 his delineation of women : he drew them from the point of 
 view of a schismatic. The woman of Protestant nations is
 
 Preface. xv 
 
 without ideal. She is chaste, pure, virtuous; but her love, 
 without flow of thought or emotion, remains calm, like a 
 duty fulfilled. It would seem as if the loss of the Virgin 
 Mary had chilled the hearts of the sophists who banished her 
 from heaven, with all her treasures of mercy and of pity. 
 Under the Protestant system there is nothing left for a wo- 
 man who has once fallen ; but in the Catholic Church the 
 hope of pardon still ennobles her life. Thus there is but 
 one woman for the Protestant writer, while for the Catholic 
 there is an ever new woman in all her varying situations. 
 If Walter Scott had been a Catholic, and if he had placed 
 before his mind the task of describing truthfully those phases 
 of Society through which Scotland has passed, perhaps the 
 painter of Effie and Alice (two characters which in his latter 
 days he reproached himself for having drawn) would have 
 admitted into his work the history of passions, with their 
 faults, their punishments, and the virtues which repentance 
 brings. Passion is humanity; without it religion, history, 
 romance, art, would not exist.^ 
 
 In seeing me collect this mass of facts and paint them as 
 they are, in their element of passionate emotion, some per- 
 sons have imagined, very erroneously, that I belong to the 
 school of materialists and sensualists, two aspects of Pan- 
 theism. They are mistaken. I put no faith in any indefi- 
 nite advancement of Society; I believe in the progress and 
 development of the individual man. Those who find in me 
 a disposition to look on man as a completed being are 
 strangely deceived. " Seraphita," which gives what I may 
 call the doctrine of the Christian Buddha, is my answer to 
 this accusation. 
 
 In certain parts of my long work I have tried to popularize 
 those amazing facts, those prodigies of electricity, which pro- 
 duce within a man some unexplained magnetic power. But 
 how, let me ask, can any such phenomena of the brain and 
 nerves, even though they denote the existence of a new moral
 
 xvi Preface. 
 
 world, affect or change the known and necessary relations 
 between mankind and God? In what way can they shake 
 Catholic dogma? If incontestable facts hereafter prove that 
 thought must be classed among the fluids which are known 
 only by their effects, and of which the substance escapes our 
 human perceptions, aided though they be by all mechanical 
 facilities, still this would be no more amazing than the cir- 
 cumference of the globe perceived by Columbus, or its rota- 
 tory motion revealed through Galileo. Our future will remain 
 the same. Animal magnetism, with whose miracles I have 
 been familiar since 1820; the phrenological researches of 
 Gall, successor to Lavater; in fact the works of all those who 
 for fifty years have studied thought as opticians have studied 
 light, two things not dissimilar, give evidence both for 
 the mystics and the disciples of St. John the Apostle, and also 
 for those great thinkers who have endeavored to think out a 
 spiritual world, a new sphere, in which shall be revealed the 
 relations between man and God. 
 
 If the meaning of my work is understood, my readers will 
 see that I give to the recurring events of daily life, secret or 
 manifest, and to the actions of individuals, with their hid- 
 den springs and motives, as much importance as the historian 
 bestows on the public life of a nation. The obscure battle 
 fought in the valley of the Indre between Madame de Mort- 
 sauf and her temptation ("The Lily in the Valley") was 
 perhaps as great a struggle as the most illustrious combat 
 ever related in history. In the latter, fame was the conquer- 
 or's guerdon; in hers, the peace of heaven. The misfortunes 
 of the Birotteaus, the priest and the perfumer, are to me the 
 woes of humanity. La Fosseuse in " The Country Doctor," 
 and Madame Graslin in " The Village Curate," reveal nearly 
 the whole of woman's life. We suffer day by day all that 
 these people suffered. I have had to do a hundred times 
 what Richardson did once. Lovelace presents himself under 
 a thousand shapes, for social corruption takes the color of
 
 Preface. xvii 
 
 the centres in which it develops. On the other hand Clarissa, 
 that lovely image of passionate virtue, has lines of purity that 
 fill me with despair. To create many virgins one needs to be 
 a Raphael, for literature in this respect falls below art. Nev- 
 ertheless, I here call my readers' attention to the large num- 
 ber of virtuous and irreproachable characters which may be 
 found in my works, Pierrette Lorrain, Ursule Mirouet, 
 Constance Birotteau, La Fosseuse, Eugenie Grandet, Mar- 
 guerite Claes, Pauline de Villerioix, Madame Jules, Madame 
 de la Chanterie, Eve Chardon, Mademoiselle d'Esgrignon, 
 Madame Firmiani, Agathe Rouget, Reuee de Maucombe; 
 together with many characters on the second plane, which, 
 though less important to the story, keep before the reader's 
 mind the simple practical virtues of domestic life, such 
 for instance as Joseph Lebas, Genestas, Benassis, the curate 
 Bonnet, the doctor Minoret, Pillerault, David Sechard, the 
 two Birotteaus, the curate Chaperon, the judge Popinot, 
 Bourgeat, Sanviat, the Tascherons, and many others; have 
 they not solved the difficult literary problem of making virtue 
 interesting? 
 
 It has been no light task to paint the three or four thou- 
 sand salient figures of an epoch, for that is about the num- 
 ber of types presented by the generation of which this human 
 comedy is the contemporary and the exponent. This number 
 of figures, of characters, this multitude of portraits needed 
 frames, permit me even to say galleries. Out of this neces- 
 sity grew the classification of my work into Scenes, scenes 
 from private, provincial, Parisian, political, military, and coun- 
 try life. Under these heads I have classed all those studies 
 of manners and morals which form the general history of 
 Society and of its " conduct of life and noble deeds " (faits 
 et gestes), to use the language of our ancestors. These six 
 divisions follow a general idea ; each has its meaning and 
 signification, and represents a distinct phase in human life. 
 The " Scenes from private life " are those of childhood and of 
 b
 
 xviii Preface. 
 
 youth, just as the " Scenes from provincial life " represent the 
 age of passions, calculations, self-interest, and ambition. 
 The " Scenes from Parisian life " draw the picture of tastes, 
 fashions, sentiments, vices, and all those unbridled extrava- 
 gances excited by the life of great cities, where meet together 
 the extremes of good and the extremes of evil. Each of 
 these three divisions has its local color. Paris and the pro- 
 vinces that social antithesis furnished the data. Not 
 only men but events may be formulated by types ; and there 
 are situations in the lives of all, typical phases, which I have 
 sought out and studied carefully. I have also tried to give 
 an idea of the different regions of our beautiful land. My 
 work thus has its geography as it has its genealogy, its fami- 
 lies, its centres, persons, actions; its armorial history, its 
 nobles, artisans, citizens, peasants; its politics, its men of 
 fashion, its army, in short, its world of men and things. 
 
 After drawing these three sections of Society, I wished to 
 show certain other phases of life which unite the interests 
 of some or of all, and yet are partly aloof from the common 
 order. Out of this desire came the " Scenes from political 
 life," also the " Scenes from military life; " in the latter I 
 have sought to show Society in convulsion, carried out of itself 
 either for conquest or for defence. Finally, the " Scenes 
 from country life" are, as it were, the evening of my long 
 day's-work, if I may so call this social drama. In this 
 division will be found my purest characters; also the appli- 
 cation of the great principles of order, of patriotism, and of 
 morality. 
 
 Such is the structure, teeming with life, full of comedy 
 and of tragedy, on which I base the " Philosophical Studies " 
 which form the second part of my work. In these I have 
 shown the keynote of that vast assemblage of all that strikes 
 the eye, that captivates the mind or touches the heart; I 
 have shown the havoc that has followed thought, step by
 
 Preface. xix 
 
 step, from emotion to emotion. The first of these volumes, 
 " The Shagreen Skin," unites the philosophical study to a 
 picture of manners and morals by means of a fantasy, partly 
 Oriental, which shows the principle of life itself in a struggle 
 with the principle of all passion. 
 
 Above these again will be found the " Analytical Studies," 
 of which I shall say nothing, as only one of them has been 
 published. Later, I hope to give other works of the same 
 class, the "Pathology of Social life," the "Anatomy of 
 Educating bodies," the " Monograph of Virtue," etc. 
 
 Looking at the work still to be done, perhaps my readers 
 will join my publishers in saying, " May your life be pro- 
 longed! " My own prayer is that I may not be so tortured 
 by men and events as I have been in the past, since the be- 
 ginning of my great and terrible labor. Yet I have had one 
 support, for which I return thanks to God. The highest 
 talent of our day, the noblest characters, the truest friends, 
 have clasped my hand and said to me, "Take courage!" 
 Why should I not own that such proofs of affection, such 
 testimonials given now and then by strangers, have upheld 
 me in my career in spite of myself, in spite of unjust attacks, 
 in spite of calumnies that have pursued me, upheld me 
 against dishearten ment, and also against that too-vivid hope, 
 the expression of which has been mistaken for excessive 
 self-love. 
 
 The extent of a plan which embraces both the history and 
 the criticism of Society, which analyzes its evils and lays 
 bare its hidden springs, justifies me, I think, in giving to my 
 work the title under which it now appears, " The Comedy 
 of Human Life." Is it ambitious ? Is it not just and legiti- 
 mate ? The public, when my work is done, will decide. 
 
 PARIS, July, 1842.
 
 SCENES FROM PARISIAN LIFE. 
 
 PKE GOEIOT. 
 I. 
 
 MADAME VATJQUER, nee de Conflans, is an old lady 
 who for forty years has kept a second-class boarding- 
 house in Paris, a pension bouryeoise, in the Rue 
 Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, between the Latin quarter 
 and the faubourg Saint-Marceau. This pension, known 
 as the Maison Vauquer, is for both sexes and all ages; 
 and up to the time of which we write, scandal had 
 found nothing to say against the manners or the morals 
 of so respectable an establishment. It must be admit- 
 ted, however, that for more than thirty years no young 
 woman had ever lived in the house, and it is certain that 
 any young man who may have done so received but a 
 slender allowance from his family. Nevertheless, in 
 1819, the date of the opening of this drama, we shall 
 find a poor young girl living there. 
 
 Though the word drama has been recklessly ill-used 
 and misapplied in our degenerate modern literature, 
 it is necessary to employ it here ; not that this story is 
 dramatic in the true sense of the word, but that when 
 it ends some reader may perchance have dropped a 
 1
 
 2 Pere Goriot. 
 
 tear intra muros et extra. "Will it be comprehended 
 beyond the walls of Paris ? I doubt it. Its minute 
 points of personal observation and local color can be 
 caught only by the inhabitants of that valley which lies 
 between the hills of Montinartre and the higher ele- 
 vations of Montrouge, a valley full of plastered archi- 
 tecture crumbling to swift decay, its gutters black with 
 foulest mud ; a valley teeming with sufferings cruelly 
 real, and with joys often as cruelly false ; a place so 
 full of terrible agitation that only some abnormal event 
 occurring there can give rise to more than a passing 
 sensation. And yet, here and there, even in Paris, we 
 encounter griefs to which attendant circumstances of 
 vice or virtue lend a solemn dignity. In their presence 
 self and self-interest pause, checked by a momentary 
 pity. But the impression made is like that of a tooth- 
 some fruit, forgotten as soon as eaten. xN The car of 
 civilization, like that of Juggernaut, is hardly stayed a 
 moment by the resistance of some heart less easily 
 ground to atoms than its fellows : the wheels roll on, 
 the heart is crushed, the car advances on its glorious 
 way.^ You will do the same, you my reader, now 
 holding this book in your white hand, and saying to 
 yourself in the depths of your easy-chair : " I wonder 
 if it will amuse me ! " When you have read the sorrows 
 of Pi-re Goriot you will lay the book aside and eat your 
 dinner with an appetite, and excuse your own callous- 
 ness by taxing the author with exaggeration and poetic 
 license. Ah ! believe me, this drama is no fiction, no 
 romance. All is true, so true that you may recog- 
 nize its elements in your experience, and even find its 
 seeds within your own soul.
 
 Pere G-oriot. 3 
 
 The house in which the pension is carried on belongs 
 to Madame Vauquer. It is situated at the lower end 
 of the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, where the ground 
 slopes towai-d the Rue Arbalete so steeply and abruptly 
 that horses rarely come up or down. This contributes 
 to the silence Avhich reigns in the nest of little streets 
 crowded together between the dome of the Val-de- 
 Grace and that of the Pantheon, two buildings which 
 change the very color of the atmosphere in their neigh- 
 borhood, throwing into it a yellow tone, and darken- 
 ing all by the shadows flung from their cupolas. The 
 pavements of these streets are dry, unless it rains ; the 
 guttei's are free from mud and water ; grass grows in 
 tufts along the walls. The most light-hearted of men 
 catches something as he passes of the common sadness 
 of a place where the houses resemble prisons and the 
 roll of a carriage is an event. A Parisian, w r andering 
 into it by chance, will find there only these gray pen- 
 sions and charitable institutions, sombre with the gloom 
 of poverty and ennui, the gloom of old age slowly 
 passing through the shadow of death ; of youth, whose 
 youthfulness is crushed out of it by the necessities of 
 toil. 
 
 No part of Paris is so depressing, nor, we may add. 
 so little known. The Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, 
 above all, may be likened to an iron frame, the only 
 frame fit to hold the coming narrative, to which the 
 reader's mind must be led by sombre colors and sol- 
 emn thoughts; just as, step by step, when the traveller 
 descends into the catacombs, the light fades and the 
 song of the guide is hushed. An apt comparison ! 
 Who shall say which is the more awful, to watch
 
 4 Pere Goriot. 
 
 the withering of a living heart, or to gaze upon the 
 mouldering of skulls and bones? 
 
 The front of Madame Vauquer's house looks out 
 upon a tiny garden, so that the building runs at right 
 angles from the Rue Xeuve Sainte-Genevieve at its 
 steepest part. Along this front, between the house 
 and garden, is a gutter-like piece of paved work six 
 feet wide ; in front of this runs a gravel walk bordered 
 by geraniums, lauristinus, and pomegranates growing 
 in large vases of blue and white pottery. The street 
 gate opens on this path^ and is surmounted by the 
 inscription, " Maison Vauquer," in large letters : under- 
 neath appears, " Pension Bourgeoise for both sexes, and 
 others." During the day this gate, with an open iron 
 lattice, fitted also with a shrill bell, permits those who 
 pass the house to look into the garden. There, at 
 the end of the pavement and opposite to the street, 
 the wall has been painted by some artist of the neigh- 
 borhood to resemble an alcove of green marble. Be- 
 fore this fictitious depression of the wall is a statue 
 of Cupid ; a half-effaced inscription on the pedestal 
 indicating that the age of this ornament is coeval with 
 the popular enthusiasm for Voltaire on his return to 
 Paris in 1778 : 
 
 Whoe'er thou art, thy master see ! 
 He is, he was, or he will be. 1 
 
 At dusk this gate with its barred openings gives 
 place to a stout wooden door. The garden, wide as 
 the facade of the house, is inclosed by the street wall 
 
 1 Qui que tu sois, void ton maitre ! 
 II Test, le f ut, ou le doit etre.
 
 Pere Groriot. 5 
 
 and by the wall which divides it from the garden of 
 the next house. From these fall a drapery of ivy 
 which conceals them, and which attracts attention by 
 a picturesque effect not common in a city. On both 
 walls fruit-trees have been trained and grape-vines, 
 whose sickly, dusty products are every year the objects 
 of Madame Vauquer's solicitude, and afford a topic of 
 convei'sation between herself and her guests. Under 
 each wall runs a narrow path leading to a spot shaded 
 by lindens, tilleuls. The word tilleuls Madame Vau- 
 quer, though presumably of good family, being nee de 
 Conflans, persists in pronouncing tieuilles, although 
 she has often been corrected for it by her more 
 grammatical Parisians. Between these paths is a bed 
 of artichokes, flanked by a row of fruit-trees trained 
 as standards ; and the whole is bordered by pot- 
 herbs, sorrel, lettuce, and parsley. Under the lindens 
 stands a round table, painted green and surrounded by 
 benches. Here, during the dog-days, those guests who 
 can afford to take coffee come forth to enjoy it in heat 
 sufficient to hatch out a brood of chickens. 
 
 The house is of three storeys, with attic chambers. 
 It is built of rough blocks of stone, plastered with the 
 yellow wash that gives so contemptible a character to 
 half the houses of Paris. The five windows of each 
 storey of the facade have small panes and are pro- 
 vided with green blinds, none of which correspond in 
 height, giving to the outside of the house an aspect of 
 uncomfortable irregularity. At the narrow or street 
 end, the house has two windows on each storey; those 
 on the ground-floor have no blinds, and are protected 
 by iron gratings. Behind the house is a court-yard
 
 6 Pere Groriot. 
 
 twenty feet square, where dwells a " happy family " of 
 pigs, rabbits, and fowls. At the far end is a wood-shed. 
 Between this shed and the kitchen window the meat- 
 safe is hung up directly over the spot where the greasy 
 water from the sink runs into the ground. The court 
 has a small door opening on the Rue Neuve Sainte- 
 Genevieve, through which the cook sweeps the garbage 
 of the house into the street gutters when she washes 
 out the drain with great sluicings of water, a needful 
 precaution against pestilence. 
 
 The ground-floor, necessarily the part of the house 
 where the affairs of such an establishment are carried 
 on, consists, first, of a parlor lighted by two windows 
 looking upon the street, which is entered through a 
 glass door. This, the common sitting-room, leads into 
 the dining-room, which is separated from the kitchen 
 by the well of the staircase, the steps of which are of 
 wood, laid in squares and polished. Nothing can be 
 more dismal than this sitting-room, furnished with 
 chairs and armchairs covered with a species of striped 
 horsehair. In the centre stands a round table with a 
 marble top, and upon it one of those white porcelain 
 tea-sets with gilt edges half effaced, which now-a-days 
 may be seen everywhere. The room has a shabby 
 ceiling, and is wainscoted a third of the way up ; the 
 rest of the wall being covered by varnished paper rep- 
 resenting the ad\ entures of Telemachus, the princi- 
 pal classic personages being clad in color. The space 
 between the barred windows offers to the guests at 
 Madame Vauquer's table a view of the feast prepared 
 by Calypso for the son of Ulysses. For forty years this 
 feast has served the younger members of the household
 
 Pcre G-oriot. 1 
 
 with a theme for jests, and enables them to feel supe- 
 rior to their position by making fun of the wretched 
 fare to which for lack of means they are condemned. 
 The mantel is of marble, and the hearth, always clean, 
 gives evidence that a fire is never kindled there except 
 on great occasions. The mantel-shelf is adorned by 
 two vases, filled with old and faded artificial flowers 
 under glass cases, which flank a clock of blueish marble 
 of the worst taste. This room is pervaded by a smell 
 for which there is no name in any language. We must 
 cull it an odsur de pension, I'odeur du renferme, 
 the odor of the shut-in. It suggests used air, rancid 
 grease, and mildew. It strikes a chill as of malaria to 
 the bones ; it penetrates the clothes with fetid moisture ; 
 it tastes in the mouth like the stale fumes of a dinner ; 
 it fills the nostrils with the mingled odors of a scullery 
 and a hospital. Possibly it might be described if we 
 could invent a process for analyzing the nauseous ca- 
 tarrh al elements thrown off by the physical conditions 
 and idiosyncrasies of a long procession of inmates, 
 young and old. And yet, in spite of these horrors, 
 compare the salon with the dining-room, and you will 
 end by thinking it as elegant and as fragrant as a lady's 
 boudoir. 
 
 The dining-room, with panelled walls, was once 
 painted of a color no longer discernible, which now 
 forms a background on which layers of dirt, more or 
 less thick, have made a variety of curious patterns. 
 The room is surrounded by shelves serving as side- 
 boards, upon which stand chipped water-bottles, cloudy 
 and dim, round mats of zinc metal, and piles of plates 
 made of thick stone-ware with blue edges, from the
 
 8 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 manufactory at Tournai. In one corner is a box with 
 pigeon-holes, in which are placed, according to number, 
 the wine-stained and greasy napkins of the various 
 guests. The whole room is a depository of worthless 
 furniture, rejected elsewhere and gathered here, as the 
 battered relics of humanity are gathered in hospitals 
 for the incurable. Here may be seen a barometer with 
 a hooded monk, who steps out when it rains; exe- 
 crable engravings that turn the stomach, framed in 
 varnished black wood with a thread of gilding; a 
 clock-case of tortoise-shell inlaid with copper; a green 
 porcelain stove; lamps with dust floating on the oil; a 
 long table covered with oilcloth, so greasy that a face- 
 tious guest has been seen to scratch his name upon it 
 with his finger-nail ; wretched little mats made of 
 broom-straw, slipping from the feet yet always in the 
 way ; dilapidated foot-warmers, with their internal ar- 
 rangements so worn out that the wood is beginning to 
 be charred. To describe how old, how ragged, rotten, 
 rusty, moth-eaten, maimed, shabby, and infirm these 
 remnants are would delay too long the current of this 
 story, and readers in haste to follow it might complain. 
 The red-tiled floor is uneven, worn in places either 
 by hard rubbing or by the crumbling action of the 
 color. In a word, here is poverty without relieving 
 sentiment; hard, bitter, rasping poverty. If filth is 
 not yet seen, foul stains are there; rags and tatters 
 may not appear, but rottenness has eaten into warp 
 and woof with a sure decay. 
 
 The room appears in full perfection when at seven 
 o'clock in the morning Madame Vauquer's tom-cat 
 walks in, preceding the arrival of his mistress. He
 
 Pere Goriot. 9 
 
 jumps upon the sideboard, sniffs at the bowls of milk, 
 each covered by a plate, and purrs his matinal content- 
 ment. The widow follows in a tulle cap and front of 
 false hair set on awry, her slippers flapping as she 
 walks slip-shod across the room. Her faded and flabby 
 cheeks, from which projects a nose like the beak of a 
 parrot, her fat hands and plump person, with its bust 
 too plump and undulating visibly, are all in keeping 
 with that room, where misfortune oozes from the very 
 walls, and greed crouches in the corners, and whose 
 fetid air its owner breathes without sickening. Her 
 face, chilling as the first frosts of autumn, her eyes and 
 wrinkled brows changing in expression from the hollow 
 smile of an actress to the grasping frown of a money- 
 lender, all express the character of her pension, just 
 as the pension itself implies its mistress. The pasty 
 plumpness of this woman is the unwholesome out-come 
 of her life, as pysmia is the product of the exhalations 
 of a hospital. Her knitted worsted skirt drops below 
 a petticoat made out of an old gown, of which the wad- 
 ding shows through gaps in the worn covering : it 
 sums up to the eye the salon, the dining-room, and the 
 tiny garden, and gives an inkling of the cookery and 
 the character of the guests. 
 
 About fifty years of age at the time of which we 
 write, Madame Vauquer looked as women commonly 
 look who tell you they have seen better days. Her 
 eyes were light and glassy, and could take on the inno- 
 cent expression of one who would serve an evil pur- 
 pose and make her innocence raise the price of it ; a 
 woman who, to better her own condition, would betray 
 Georges or Pichegru, if Georges and Pichegru still had
 
 10 Pere Goriot. 
 
 a market value. And yet, "after all, she is a good 
 creature" is the set phrase with which her lodgers 
 speak of her ; for, as she goes moaning and coughing 
 about the house, they take her to be as poor as they 
 are themselves. But how about Monsieur Vauquer? 
 Madame has never given any information concerning 
 her late husband. How did he lose his fortune ? By 
 reverses, she implies. He had not been a good hus- 
 band; he had left her nothing but her eyes to weep 
 with and this house to live in, and the privilege of hav- 
 ing no pity to give to others, because, so she said, she 
 had already suffered as much as it was possible for her 
 to bear. 
 
 When Sylvie, the fat cook, hears her mistress in the 
 dining-room, she knows that it is time to serve up 
 breakfast to those lodgers who are inmates of the 
 house. The table guests usually come only for dinner, 
 which costs them thirty francs a month. When this 
 story opens, there are but seven lodgers. The first floor, 
 that is, the floor up one flight of stairs, contained 
 the two best suites of rooms. Madame Vauquer lived 
 in the smaller of these; the other was occupied by 
 Madame Couture, widow of a paymaster in the army 
 under the French Republic. Living with her was a 
 young girl named Victorine Taillefer, whom she treated 
 as a daughter : the board of these ladies amounted to 
 eighteen hundred francs a year. The two suites on 
 the second floor were taken, one by an old gentleman 
 named Poiret ; the other by a man of forty, who wore 
 a black wig, dyed his whiskers, said he was in business, 
 and called himself Monsieur Vautrin. The third storey 
 was divided into four single rooms, of which one was
 
 Pere G-oriot. 11 
 
 occupied by an old maid named Mademoiselle Michon- 
 neau; and anotlier by an aged manufacturer of vermi- 
 celli and other Italian pastes, who allowed himself to 
 be called Pere Goriot. 1 The two remaining chambers 
 were kept for birds of passage, who, like Pere Goriot 
 and Mademoiselle Michonnean, could only afford to 
 pay forty-five francs a month for board and lodging. 
 But Madame Vauquer was not desirous of such guests, 
 and only took them when she could do no better ; for, 
 to tell the truth, their appetites made them unprofit- 
 able. At this time one of these rooms was occupied 
 by a young man who had come to Paris to study law 
 from the neighborhood of Angoulerne, where his family 
 were practising the strictest economy to provide him 
 with the twelve hundred francs a year which enabled 
 him to live. 
 
 Eugene de Rastignac such was his name was 
 one of that targe class of young men taught to work by 
 sheer necessity ; men who understand from infancy 
 the hopes their parents place upon them, and who pre- 
 pare for success in life by directing all their studies to 
 fit them to take advantage of the future set of the cur- 
 rent, and thus be among the first to profit by any on- 
 ward movement of society. Unless we were aided by 
 this young man's powers of observation, and by the 
 address which enabled him to make his way in the 
 great world, this story could not have been colored to 
 the life, as we now hope it mav be, owing to his sagacity 
 and his perseverance in penetrating the mysteries of a 
 
 1 Pere (pronounced like the fruit, pear ; Pear Gorio, the t 
 not sounded), used in this manner, implies "Old Goriot," rather 
 than its exact meaning, "father."
 
 12 Pere Goriot. 
 
 terrible situation, mysteries carefully concealed both 
 by those who created them, and by him who was their 
 victim. 
 
 Above the third storey was a loft where clothes were 
 dried, and two attic rooms, in one of which slept a man 
 of all work named Christophe, and in the other Sylvie, 
 the fat cook. Besides her regular house-lodgers, 
 Madame Vauquer usually had, one year with another, 
 about eight students of law and medicine, and two or 
 three habitues of the neighborhood, all of whom came 
 to dinner only. The dining-room could seat eighteen 
 persons comfortably, and squeeze in twenty. In the 
 mornings, however, there were but seven to breakfast, 
 a circumstance which made that meal seem a family 
 affair. Every one came down in slippers, confidential 
 observations were exchanged concerning the dress and 
 manners of the dinner guests, and comments were made 
 on the events of the previous evening with all the free- 
 dom of intimacy. The seven lodgers were supposed 
 to be in especial favor with Madame Vauquer, who 
 meted out to them with the precision of an astronomer 
 their just dues of care and consideration, based on the 
 arithmetic of their board-bills. The same standard 
 governed the intercourse of the guests with each other, 
 although mere chance, poor waifs, had thrown them 
 here together. 
 
 The two lodgers on the second floor paid seventy- 
 two francs a month. This extremely cheap board, 
 which could have been found only in the Faubourg 
 Saint-Marcel, betAveen La Bourbe and the Salpetriere, 
 and to which Madame Couture made the sole excep- 
 tion, gave sufficient proof that every inhabitant of that
 
 Pere Goriot. 13 
 
 house was weighted with the cares of poverty. In fact, 
 the wretchedness of the whole place was reflected in 
 the shabby dress of its inmates. All the men wore 
 frock-coats of an uncertain color, frayed linen, thread- 
 bare trousers, and boots or shoes which would have 
 been flung away in the more prosperous parts of the 
 city. The gowns of the women were shabby, dyed, 
 and faded, their lace darned, their gloves shiny from 
 long service, their collars soiled, and t\\c\v fichus frayed 
 at the edges. Such were the clothes they wore, and 
 yet the wearers themselves looked sound ; their consti- 
 tutions appeared to have resisted the storms of life ; 
 their cold, hard, washed-out countenances resembled 
 the effigy on a well-worn silver coin ; their withered 
 lips covered teeth still keen. They gave the impres- 
 sion of having had, or having still, a share in some life- 
 drama; not a drama acted before the foot-lights amid 
 painted scenery, but a drama of life itself, dumb, icy, 
 yet living, and acted with throbbing hearts, a drama 
 going on, and on, without conclusion. 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau was in the habit of wear- 
 ing a dingy green-silk shade over her weak eyes, a 
 shade stiffened by a wire rim, which must have scared 
 the very Angel of Pity. Her shawl, with its melan- 
 choly mangy fringes, seemed wrapped about a skeleton. 
 What drop of acid in her cup of life had deprived this 
 forlorn creature of all feminine lines of grace? She 
 must have had them once. Plad she lost them through 
 her faults, her sorrows, her cupidity ? Had she once 
 loved, not wisely ? Was she expiating the insolent 
 triumphs of her youth by a despised old age? Her 
 blank gaze chilled you ; her sapless features made you
 
 14 Pere Croriot. 
 
 shudder ; her voice was like that of a cricket in the 
 bushes, lamenting shrilly the approach of winter. She 
 said that she had once taken care of an old gentleman 
 afflicted with' an incurable disease, who had been cast 
 off by his children under the belief that he had no 
 property. The old man, however, had saved money, 
 and left her an annuity of a thousand francs, which 
 his heirs-at-law disputed at every payment, reviving 
 scandals of which she was the object. Though the 
 play of passions had seared her face, she retained some 
 slight traces of past beauty, and also a certain delicacy 
 of complexion which allowed it to be supposed that her 
 form still kept a fragment of its charm. 
 
 Monsieur Poiret was a species of automaton. Had 
 you seen him flitting like a gray ghost through the 
 alleys of the Jardin des Plantes, a shapeless cap on 
 his head, his cane with its discolored ivory knob 
 dangling from his limp hand, his faded coat flying 
 loose, disclosing to view breeches which seemed well- 
 nigh empty, lank legs in blue stockings which quav- 
 ered like those of a drunkard, a dirty white waistcoat, 
 and a crumpled shirl-front of coarse cotton which 
 barely met the old cravat twisted about a neck as long 
 and wrinkled as a turkey's, you might indeed have 
 asked if this spectral figure could belong to the gay 
 race of those sons of Japhet who sunned themselves 
 like butterflies on the Boulevard des Italiens. What 
 occupation in life could have shrunk the makings of a 
 man to this? What passions had blotched that bul- 
 bous face which caricature itself could not exaggerate ? 
 What had he been ? Well, possibly a clerk of the De- 
 partment of Justice, in that office where they keep
 
 Pere Goriot. 15 
 
 the record of moneys spent on the black veils of par- 
 ricides, or bran for the baskets of the guillotine, and 
 count the cost of pack-thread to hold the blades in 
 place. Could he have been the receiver of beasts at a 
 slaughterhouse; or a sub-inspector of public health and 
 sewers ? Whatever his occupation, he was surely one 
 of the asses which are used to turn the mill of our sys- 
 tem of civilization ; a pivot round which had once re- 
 volved the misfortunes and impurities of society; a 
 being of whom we say, in vulgar formula, "It takes all 
 sorts to make a world." Gay Paris has no eye for faces 
 pale through physical or moral wretchedness. But 
 Paris is an ocean ; heave your lead, and you will never 
 find the bottom. Fathom it, describe it, yet how- 
 ever carefully you search, however minutely you de- 
 scribe, however numerous may be your explorations, 
 there will remain some virgin region, some unsuspected 
 cavern in the depths, where flowers or pearls or hid- 
 eous sea-monsters still lie safe, undiscovered by the 
 divers of literature. The Maison Vauquer is one of 
 these hidden monsters. 
 
 Two figures stand out in striking contrast to the 
 rest of the household. Though Mademoiselle Victor- 
 ine Taillefer was of a sickly paleness like a girl in 
 feeble health, and though this paleness, joined to an 
 habitual expression of sadness and self-restraint, linked 
 her with the general misery which formed the back- 
 ground of the life about her, yet her face was not an 
 old face, and her movements and her voice were young 
 and sprightly. She seemed like a sickly shrub trans- 
 planted into uncongenial soil. Her fair complexion, 
 her auburn hair, her too-slender figure, gave her the
 
 16 Pere Goriot. 
 
 grace which modern critics find in the art of the Mid- 
 dle Ages. Her eyes, which were gray with a radiation 
 of dark streaks, expressed the sweetness and resigna- 
 tion of a Christian. Her dress was simple and cheap, 
 but it revealed a youthful shape. She was pretty by 
 juxtaposition. Had she been happy she might have 
 been lovely ; for happiness lends poetic charm to 
 women, and dress adorns them like a delicate tinge of 
 rouge. If the pleasures of a ball had called out the 
 rose-tints on her pallid face; if the comforts and elegan- 
 cies of life had filled out and remodelled her cheeks, 
 already, alas ! too hollow ; if love had ever brightened 
 her sad eyes, then Victorine might have held her own 
 among the fairest of her sex and age. She needed 
 two things, two things which are the second birth of 
 women, the pretty trifles of her sex, and the shy 
 delight of love-letters. The poor girl's story told at 
 length would fill a volume. Her father believed that 
 he had reasons for not acknowledging her ; he refused 
 to let her live with him, and only gave her six hundred 
 francs a year for her support ; moreover he had arranged 
 to leave his fortune wholly to his son. Madame Couture 
 was a distant relative of Victorine's mother, who had 
 died of sorrow in her arms ; and she had brought up 
 the little orphan as her own. Unfortunately, the 
 widow of a paymaster in the army of the French 
 Republic had nothing but her dower and her pension. 
 The time might come when she would have to leave 
 the poor girl, without money or experience, to the 
 tender mercies of a cruel world. The good woman 
 took Victorine to mass every Sunday, and to confession 
 twice a month, hoping to prepare her for the chances
 
 Pere Goriot. 17 
 
 of her fate by making her a pious woman. She was 
 right ; this cast-off daughter might come to find in her 
 religion a refuge and a home. Meantime poor Victor- 
 ine loved her lather, and once a year she went to his 
 house to assure him of the dying forgiveness ^>f her 
 mother. In vain she knocked at that closed door ; it 
 was inexorably shut. Pier brother, who alone could 
 have interceded in her behalf, neglected her, and gave 
 her neither sympathy nor succor. She prayed to 
 God to enlighten the eyes of her father and to soften 
 the heart of her brother ; but her prayers conveyed 
 no reproach. When Madame Couture and Madame 
 Vauquer strove for words to characterize this barbar- 
 ous conduct, and loaded the millionaire with abuse, 
 Victorine interposed her gentle remonstrance like the 
 cry of the wounded wood-pigeon, whose note of suffer- 
 ing is still the note of love. 
 
 Eugene de Rastignac had a face altogether of the 
 sunny south, a pure skin, black hair, and blue eyes. 
 His bearing, his manners, his habitual attitudes, marked 
 him as belonging to a good family, where his earliest 
 training must have been in accordance with the tradi- 
 tions of high birth. If ordinarily he was careful of his 
 clothes, wearing on working-days coats of a past fashion, 
 he always dressed with care and elegance when he 
 went into the world. At other times he appeared 
 in an old frock-coat, an old waistcoat, a shabby black 
 cravat tied in a wisp after the manner of students, 
 trousers out of shape, and boots resoled. 
 
 Between these two young people and the rest of the 
 household Vautrin the man of forty, with dyed whis- 
 kers formed a connecting link. He was one of those 
 2
 
 18 Pere Goriot. 
 
 whom people choose to call " a jolly fellow ! " He had 
 broad shoulders, a deep chest, muscles well developed, 
 and strong square hands, the knuckles marked by tufts 
 of red hair. His face, prematurely furrowed, showed 
 signs of a hard nature not in keeping with his com- 
 pliant and cordial manners ; but his strong barytone 
 voice, which harmonized with his boisterous gayety, was 
 not unpleasing. He was obliging and always cheerful. 
 If a lock were out of order he would unscrew it, mend 
 it, oil it, file it, and put it on again, saying, " Oh, I know 
 how ! " In fact he knew something about many things ; 
 about ships, the sea, France, foreign countries, business, 
 public events, men, laws, hotels, prisons. If any one 
 complained of hard luck, Vautrin offered his services. 
 Several times he had lent money to Madame Vauquer, 
 and even to her guests ; and these creditors would have 
 died sooner than not repay him, for in spite of his ap- 
 parent good temper there was a keen and resolute ex- 
 pression in his eye which inspired them with fear. His 
 very method of spitting marked his imperturbable sang- 
 froid, the sang-froid which shrinks from no crime to 
 escape personal difficulty or danger. A stern judge, 
 his keen eye pierced to the core of all questions, into 
 all consciences, and even into the depths of all feelings. 
 His custom was to go out after breakfast, to come 
 home to dinner, to be off again for the whole evening, 
 and to get in late at night with a latch-key which 
 Madame Vauquer intrusted to him alone. He was on 
 the best terms with his landlady, calling her " Mamma 
 Vauquer," and catching her affectionately round the 
 waist, a flattery not understood on its real merits, for 
 the widow believed it an easy feat, whereas Vautrin
 
 Pere G-oriot. 19 
 
 was the only man in the house whose arms were long 
 enough to encircle that solid circumference. One trait 
 of his character was to pay lavishly fifteen francs a 
 month for the gloria (coffee with brandy in it) which 
 he took at dessert. People less superficial than those 
 about him, who were chiefly young men carried away by 
 the whirl of life in the great city, or old men indifferent 
 to all that did not touch them personally, would have 
 examined into the doubts with which Vautrin inspired 
 them. He knew, or guessed, the private affairs of every 
 one about him ; yet no one knew anything of his, nor 
 of his thoughts and occupations. He set up his good 
 humor, his obligingness, and his unfailing gayety as a 
 barrier between himself and others ; but through it 
 gleamed from time to time alarming flashes of his hid- 
 den nature. Sometimes a saying worthy of Juvenal es- 
 caped his lips, as if it gave him pleasure to scout at law, 
 to lash society, or drag to light its inconsistencies; as 
 if he cherished some grudge against the cause of order, 
 or hid some mystery in the dark recesses of his life. 
 
 Attracted, unconsciously, by the strength of one man 
 and the beauty of the other, Mademoiselle Taillefer 
 divided her shy glances and her secret thoughts between 
 the man of forty and the law student. Neither of 
 them appeared to take notice of her, although her posi- 
 tion might at any time undergo a change which would 
 make her a match worth looking after. None of 
 Madame Vauquer's guests were at much pains to in- 
 quire into the misfortunes which their co-inmates 
 claimed to have suffered. Profound indifference, min- 
 gled with distrust, was the upshot of their relations to 
 each other. They knew they had no help to offer:
 
 20 Pcre G-oriot. 
 
 each had heard the tale of sorrows till their cup of con- 
 solation held nothing but the dregs. Like old married 
 couples, they had nothing more to say to one another; 
 their daily intercourse was now mechanical ; the fric- 
 tion of machinery unoiled. All could pass a blind man 
 in the street without looking at him, or listen, un- 
 touched, to a tale of woe ; death was for them the solu- 
 tion of the problem of poverty, and they stood coldly 
 beside its bitterest agony. The happiest among these 
 hapless beings was Madame Vauquer herself, the ruler 
 of this asylum for broken lives. To her the little garden, 
 arid as a steppe, chill, silent, dusty, humid, was a smiling 
 pleasure-ground. To her the dismal yellow house, which 
 smelt of the corrosions of life, had its delights. Its 
 dungeon cells belonged to her. She fed the prisoners 
 who lived in them, prisoners sentenced to hard 
 labor for life, and she knew how to make her au- 
 thority respected. Indeed, as she said to herself, where 
 could these people find elsewhere in Paris, at so low a 
 price, food that was as wholesome and as plentiful as 
 that which she gave them ? Each had his own room 
 which he was free to keep sweet and clean, if he could 
 not make it elegant or comfortable. They knew this 
 well themselves, and had she been guilty of even cry- 
 ing injustice her victims would have borne it without 
 complaint. 
 
 Such a household might be expected to offer, and 
 did offer, in miniature, the elements of a complete so- 
 ciety. Among the eighteen inmates, there was, as may 
 be seen in schools or in the great world, one repulsed 
 and rejected creature, a souffre-douleur, the butt of 
 jests and ridicule. At the beginning of his second
 
 Pere. G-oriot. 21 
 
 year, this figure became to Eugene de Rastignac the 
 must prominent of those among whom necessity com- 
 pelled him to live. This pariah of the household was 
 the old paste-maker, Pere Goriot, upon whose head a 
 painter would have cast, as the historian casts, all the 
 light of the picture. How came this scorn dashed 
 with a tinge of hate, this persecution mixed with a 
 passing pity, this insolence towards misfortune, to fall 
 upon the oldest member of the pension ? Had he pro- 
 voked such treatment by oddities and absurdities less 
 easily forgiven by his fellows than actual vice ? These 
 are questions which bear closely on many an instance 
 of social injustice. Human nature is hard on those 
 who suffer humbly from a consciousness that they are 
 too feeble to resist, or wearily indifferent to their fate. 
 Do we not all like to test our power by woi'king our 
 will on something or on somebody ? The weakest of 
 beings, the ragged street-boy, rings our door-bell and 
 runs away, or climbs some monument to scratch his 
 name upon the unsullied marble.
 
 22 Pere Goriot. 
 
 II. 
 
 IN 1818, Pere Goriot, then about sixty-two years 
 of age, came to live at Madame Vauquer's, having, 
 as he said, given up business. He took the apart- 
 ment afterwards occupied by Madame Couture, paying 
 twelve hundred francs a year, like a man to whom five 
 louis more or less was of little consequence. Madame 
 Vauquer fitted up at his expense the three rooms of 
 this suite for a sum which just repaid her, she said, for 
 the outlay. They were miserably furnished with yel- 
 low cotton curtains, chairs of painted pine covered with 
 worsted velvet, and a few worthless colored prints upon 
 the walls, which were hung with papers rejected, one 
 might suppose, by the wineshops of the suburbs. Per- 
 haps the careless liberality shown in this transaction 
 by Pore Goriot, who at that period was respectfully 
 called Monsieur Goriot, caused his landlady to consider 
 him as a simpleton who knew little of business. 
 
 Goriot brought with him a well-furnished wardrobe, 
 suitable for a rich tradesman who on retiring from 
 business could afford to make himself comfortable. 
 Madame Vauquer especially admired eighteen linen 
 shirts of the best quality, to which attention was at- 
 tracted by two pins worn on his shirt-frill and united 
 by a chain, in each of which shone a large diamond. 
 The old man usually wore a light-blue coat, and he
 
 Pere Goriot. 23 
 
 put on a clean white waistcoat every day, beneath 
 which rose and fell his portly stomach, upheaving as 
 he breathed a thick gold chain adorned with seals and 
 charms. His snuff-box was of gold, with a medallion 
 on the cover containing hair, which created a suspicion 
 of bonnes fortunes ; and when Madame Vauquer ac- 
 cused him of gallantry, the complacent smile of a man 
 whose vanity is tickled flickered on his lips. His 
 closets, ses armoires (he pronounced the word ormoires 
 after the manner of common people), were full of sil- 
 ver plate, the relics of his housekeeping. The widow's 
 eyes sparkled when she helped him to unpack and 
 arrange these treasures, ladles, forks, and spoons; 
 castors, sauce-boats, dishes, and a breakfast service in 
 silver gilt, the various pieces weighing many ounces, 
 all of which he had been unwilling to part with on 
 breaking up his home, many of them recalling events 
 which were sacred in his family history. " This," he 
 said to Madame Vauquer as he put away a dish and 
 porringer, on the cover of which were two turtle-doves 
 fondling each other with their beaks, "was the first 
 gift my wife made me. She gave it to me on the an- 
 niversary of our wedding-day. Poor dear ! it cost her 
 all the little money she had saved up before our mar- 
 riage. Ah ! Madame, I would rather scratch a living 
 with my nails out of the ground than part with that 
 porringer ; but, thank God ! I can drink my coffee out 
 of it as long as I live. I am not badly off: I have 
 plenty of bread baked, as they say, for some time to 
 come." 
 
 In addition to this, Madame Vauquer's prying eyes 
 had seen a certain entry in what is called the great
 
 24 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 book, le grand livre, that is, the list of those who 
 have money in the state funds, from which, roughly 
 calculated, it was evident that the worthy Goriot had 
 an income of eight to ten thousand francs. From that 
 moment Madame Vauquer, nee de Conflans, who was 
 then forty-eight years old, and owned to thirty-nine, 
 nourished a dream of ambition. Though Monsieur 
 Goriot's eyelids were swollen, and an obstruction of 
 the tear-passage caused him to wipe his eyes fre- 
 quently, she thought his person agreeable and his 
 manners comme-il-faut. Moreover, the stout calves of 
 his legs, and even his long square nose, seemed to her 
 to denote points of character which suited her inten- 
 tions ; and this opinion was confirmed by the round- 
 ness of his face and the naif silliness of its expression. 
 She put him down for a sturdy fool, whose mind ran 
 to sentiment, and who could be led by his feelings 
 in any direction. His hair, which he wore in " pigeon- 
 wings," ailes de pigeon, that is to say, drawn low 
 over the ears and tied behind in a queue, was dressed 
 and powdered daily by the hair-dresser of the Ecole 
 Polytechnique, who arranged five points on his low 
 forehead, which she thought very becoming. Thouo-h 
 somewhat uncouth in manner, he was always spick and 
 span in his dress, and took snuff with so opulent an 
 air, scattering it liberally as if confident the box would 
 be always full of the very best, that the night after his 
 arrival Madame Vauquer went to bed turning over in 
 her mind a project for shuffling off the shroud of Vau- 
 quer and coming to life again as Madame Goriot. To 
 be married ; to get rid of her pension; to have the arm 
 of this high flower of bourgeoisie ; to become a nota-
 
 Pere Croriot. 25 
 
 bility in her own quarter; to queter ^collect money) for 
 the poor; to make up little parties for Sunday jaunts 
 to Choisy, Soissy, or Gentilly ; to go to the play when 
 she liked, and sit in a box she should pay for, instead 
 of waiting for free passes given to her occasionally and 
 only in July, in short, all the Eldorado of Parisian 
 lower-class middle-life seemed possible for her if she 
 married Monsieur Goriot. She had never told any one 
 that she had forty thousand francs laid by, scraped 
 together sou by sou. Thus she was an equal match 
 for the worthy man in point of fortune; and "as 
 to everything else, I am quite as good as he," she 
 reflected, turning over in her bed, where the fat 
 Sylvie found every morning the impress of her fair 
 form. 
 
 From that day, and for about three months, Madame 
 Vauquer employed the hair-dresser of Monsieur Goriot 
 and made some improvements in her toilette, which 
 she explained by the necessity of keeping the decorum 
 of her house on a level with the distinguished people 
 who frequented it. She did her best to make the pen- 
 sion select, by giving out that henceforth she would 
 admit no one who had not some special pretentious to 
 gentility. If a stranger came to inspect the rooms, he 
 was made aware of the preference which Monsieur 
 Goriot " one of the most distinguished and respect- 
 able men of business in Paris " had given to the es- 
 tablishment. She sent out a prospectus headed MAISON 
 VAUQUER. " It was," she stated, " one of the oldest 
 and best patronized pensions bourgeoises in the Latin 
 quarter. It commanded a fine view of the valley of 
 the Gobelins " (seen from one window in the third
 
 26 Pere Goriot. 
 
 storey), and had a lovely garden, at the end of which 
 stretched an Avenue of Lindens." She concluded by 
 extolling its pure air and the quiet of its retired situa- 
 tion. This prospectus brought her Madame la Com- 
 tesse de 1'Ambermesnil, a woman thirty-six years of 
 age, who was expecting the final settlement of the af- 
 fairs of her late husband and the payments due to her 
 as the widow of a general officer who had died, as she 
 phrased it, upon felds of battle. Madame Vauquer 
 now took pains with her table, made fires in the salon 
 and the dining-room, and justified her prospectus so 
 well that she was actually out of pocket by her liber- 
 ality. The countess was so pleased that she promised 
 Madame Vauquer, whom she called her " dearest 
 friend," to bring to the house the Baronne de Vau- 
 merland and the widow of Colonel Piqueoiseau, two 
 of her acquaintances then living at a pension in the 
 Marais, an establishment more expensive than the 
 Maison Vauquer. All these ladies expected to be in 
 easy circumstances when the War Office made up its 
 accounts. " But," as they said, " government offices 
 keep you waiting so long ! " 
 
 Madame de 1'Ambermesnil used to join Madame 
 Vauquer in her private room after dinner, where they 
 gossipped over small glasses of ratifia and tit-bits from 
 the table, set aside for the mistress of the house. The 
 countess much approved the views of her hostess as to 
 the alliance with Monsieur Goriot. The idea, she said, 
 was excellent ; she had planned it from the moment of 
 her arrival. 
 
 " Ah ! my dear lady, he is all a man ought to be," 
 said the widow ; " a man thoroughly well preserved.
 
 Pere Goriot. 27 
 
 He might make a woman very happy for several years 
 to come." 
 
 The countess was not chary of her criticisms on 
 Madame Vauquer's dress, which harmonized ill with 
 her intentions. "You must put yourself on a war- 
 footing," she said. 
 
 After much consultation the two widows repaired to 
 the Palais Royal, where, in the Galeries de Bois, they 
 bought a hat, and a bonnet with many feathers. Then 
 the countess enticed her friend to the famous shop 
 called La Petite Jeannette, where they chose a dress 
 and mantle. When these preparations were made, and 
 the widow was fairly under arms, she looked a good 
 deal like the figure on a sign-board of the Boeuf a la 
 Mode. However, she thought herself so changed for 
 the better, and so much indebted to her friend, that, 
 though naturally stingy, she begged her acceptance of 
 a hat costing twenty francs. It is true she expected 
 in return her good offices with Monsieur Goriot, and 
 asked her to sound him as to his views. Madame de 
 l'Ainbermesnil was quite ready to undertake the nego- 
 tiation, and got round the old gentleman so far as to 
 bring him to a conference ; from which, however, find- 
 ing him shy not to say refractory when she made 
 advances to him (on her own account), she came away 
 disgusted, and pronounced him a mere boor. 
 
 " My angel," she said to her dear friend, U you will 
 never make anything of that man. He is a miser, a 
 fool, a perfect wretch, who will give you nothing but 
 annoyance." 
 
 Whatever may have taken place between Madame 
 de I'Ambermesnil and Monsieur Goriot, the result of
 
 28 Pre Goriot. 
 
 the interview was that the former declared she would 
 not remain in the house with him. The next morning 
 she went off, forgetting to pay her bill, and leaving 
 nothing behind her but a parcel of old clothes to the 
 value of five francs ; and although Madame Vauquer 
 did her best to get upon her traces, she could never 
 discover in all Paris the smallest sign of Madame la 
 Comtesse de 1'Ambermesnil. 
 
 She often alluded to this trying affair, and invariably 
 blamed herself for her rash confidence in human nature, 
 though she was in reality more distrustful than a cat 
 in her dealings with her fellow-men. But like many 
 other people, while suspecting those about her, she fell 
 an easv prey to persons she did not know, a curious 
 and contradictory fact ; but the root of its paradox 
 will be found in the human heart. There are people 
 who come at last to perceive that they have nothing 
 more to gain from those who know them well. To 
 such they have shown the hollowness of their natures ; 
 they know themselves judged and severely judged ; yet 
 so insatiable is their craving for flattery, so devouring 
 their desire to assume in the eyes of others the virtues 
 which they have not got, that they court the esteem 
 and affection of strangers who do not know them and 
 therefore cannot judge them, taking the risk of losing 
 all such credit eventually. There is also another class 
 of minds born selfish, who will not do good to friends 
 or neighbors because it is their duty to do it, while by 
 paying attentions to strangers they secure a return 
 of thanks and praise which feeds their self-love. The 
 nearer people stand to them the less they will do for 
 them ; widen the circle, and they are more ready to
 
 Pere G-oriot. 29 
 
 lend a helping hand. Madame Vauquer's nature was 
 allied to both classes ; it was essentially mean, false, 
 and sordid. 
 
 " If I had been here," Vautrin used to say to her, 
 " this would never have happened. I 'd have unmasked 
 the woman fast enough. I know their tricks." 
 
 Like all narrow-minded people, Madame Vauquer 
 never looked beyond the limits of the events around 
 her, nor troubled herself about their hidden causes. 
 She liked to blame others for her own mistakes. When 
 this disaster happened, she chose to consider the old 
 vermicelli maker as the author of her woe, and began 
 from that time to get sober, as she phrased it to se 
 degriser about him. No sooner did she recognize 
 the inutility of her advances and of her outlay upon 
 allurements, than she set up a theory to account for it. 
 The old man must, she said, have liaisons elsewhere. 
 She admitted that the hopes she had nursed were built 
 upon imaginary foundations; that the countess, who 
 appeared to know what she was talking about, was 
 right in saying that nothing could be made of such a 
 man. Of course she went further in hate than she had 
 gone in friendship, her hatred not being the child of 
 love, but of hopes disappointed. If the human heart 
 pauses to rest by the wayside, as it mounts to the sum- 
 mits of affection, it finds no stopping-place when it 
 starts on the down-incline. 
 
 Monsieur Goriot, however, was her lodger, and the 
 widow was obliged to repress all outward expression of 
 her wounded feelings, to smother the sighs caused by 
 her self-deception, and to choke down her desires for 
 vengeance, like a monk taunted by his superior. Little
 
 30 P$re Goriot. 
 
 minds vent their feelings, bad or good, in little ways. 
 The widow used her woman's wit to invent subtle per- 
 secutions for her victim. She began by cutting off the 
 superfluities of her housekeeping. " No more pickles, 
 no more anchovies," she said to Sylvie the morning she 
 went back to the old programme ; " pickles and ancho- 
 vies are delusions." Monsieur Goriot, however, was a 
 frugal man, habitually parsimonious, as most men are 
 who have saved up their fortunes : soup, bouilli, and 
 one dish of vegetables was, and always had been, the 
 dinner he liked best ; so that it was difficult for Madame 
 Yauquer to annoy him by offending his tastes in this 
 line. Disheartened by her failure, she now began to 
 treat him with contempt, and to snub him before the 
 other guests, who, chiefly for amusement, joined in the 
 persecution, and thus assisted her revenge. At the end 
 of a year she had pushed her ill opinion of him so far 
 as to ask herself why a man with eight to ten thousand 
 francs a year, and superb plate and jewelry, should live 
 in her house and pay a price so small in proportion to 
 his fortune ? 
 
 During the greater part of his first year Goriot had 
 dined out once or twice a week ; then by degrees, only 
 once in two weeks. His absence had suited Madame 
 Vauquer so well that she was displeased at the regu- 
 larity with which he now came to his meals. This 
 change she attributed to a falling off in his means ; also 
 to a wish to disoblige her. One of the despicable 
 traits in lilliputian natures is their habit of attributing 
 their own meannesses to others. Unfortunately, at the 
 end of his second year Monsieur Goriot confirmed some 
 of the gossip in circulatiou by asking Madame Yauquer
 
 Pere Goriot. 31 
 
 if he could take rooms on the second storey and pay 
 only nine hundred francs a year; and he became so 
 economical that he went without a fire in his room 
 all winter. The widow, under this new arrangement, 
 demanded payment in advance, to which Monsieur 
 Goriot consented; and from that day forth she called 
 him Pere Goriot. It now became a question with 
 the whole household, why was he going down in the 
 world? Difficult to answer. As the false countess 
 had said, Pere Goriot was reticent and sly. Accord- 
 ing to the logic of empty heads who tattle because 
 they have brains for nothing else, people who keep 
 their own counsel must have something suspicious to 
 conceal. The late distinguished man of business now 
 sank into a cheat ; the elderly gallant became a dissi- 
 pated rogue. Some, following Vautrin (who by this 
 time was living at Madame Vauquer's), thought he 
 dabbled at the Bourse, where, having ruined himself 
 by speculations, he now picked up a few francs by 
 fleecing others. Some said he was a petty gambler 
 playing for ten francs a night; others that he was a 
 spy of the police, though Vautrin declared him " not 
 deep enough for that" Then he became a usurer, 
 lending money by the week in small sums at extor- 
 tionate interest ; finally a speculator in lotteries. In 
 turn, they guessed him to be all that vice, impotence, 
 and trickery made most shameful and mysterious. 
 Yet, however low his conduct or his vices, the aver- 
 sion he inspired never went so far as to propose that 
 he should leave the house. He paid his board regu- 
 larly. Besides, in a way they found him useful. On 
 him they could vent their good and evil humors by
 
 32 P3re 
 
 jests or stinging sarcasms. The opinion generally 
 adopted among them was Madame Vauquer's. Ac- 
 cording to her, the man she had lately pronuunced 
 " all that he ought to be ; a man who might make a 
 woman happy for years to come," was a libertine 
 with extraordinary tastes. 
 
 Here are the facts on which the widow based her 
 calumnies. Some months after the departure of the 
 disastrous countess who had lived six months at her 
 expense, she was awakened early one morning by the 
 rustle of a silk dress and the light foot-fall of a young 
 woman going up to Goriot's apartment, the outer 
 door of which was left conveniently ajar. A few 
 moments later, Sylvie came to tell her that a "creature 
 much too pretty to be what she ought to be," dressed 
 like a goddess, wearing prunella slippers " not even 
 dusty," had glided like au eel from the street to the 
 kitchen, and had asked her the way to Monsieur Gori- 
 ot's apartment. Mistress and maid listened, and 
 caught several words pronounced in tender tones. 
 The visit lasted some time. When Monsieur Goriot 
 conducted his lady downstairs, Sylvie picked up her 
 basket and pretended to be going to market as an 
 excuse for following them. 
 
 " Madame," she said to her mistress when she re- 
 turned, " Monsieur Goriot must be deucedly rich to 
 carry matters in that way. Would you believe it ? at 
 the corner of the Estrapade there was a splendid car- 
 riage waiting, and he put her into it ! " 
 
 That day at dinner Madame Vauquer drew down a 
 curtain to shade the old man's eyes into which the sun 
 was shining.
 
 Pre Goriot. 33 
 
 "I see that you know how to attract pretty women, 
 Monsieur Goriot," she said as she did so ; " the sun 
 follows you," alluding by means of the proverb to his 
 visitor. " Well, you have good taste ; she is very 
 pretty." 
 
 " That was my daughter," lie said, with a gleam of 
 pride, which those present mistook for the conceit of 
 an old man pretending to save appearances. 
 
 A month after this visit Monsieur Goriot received 
 another. His daughter, who came the first time in 
 morning dress, now came after dinner in full evening 
 toilette. The company, who were all sitting in the 
 salon, saw, as she passed, that she was a lovely blonde, 
 slender, graceful, and far too distinguished looking to 
 be the daughter of a Pere Goriot. 
 
 " "Why, he's got two ! " cried Sylvie, who did not 
 recognize her. 
 
 A few days later another daughter came, tall, dark, 
 with black hair and brilliant eyes ; she too asked for 
 Monsieur Goriot. 
 
 " Three ! " said Sylvie. 
 
 This lady, who came early in the morning at her 
 first visit, came again a few days later in a carriage 
 and dressed for a ball. 
 
 "That makes four! " exclaimed Madame Vauquer 
 and Sylvie, who did not recognize in the fine lady of 
 the evening the simply dressed young woman who 
 paid her first visit on foot at an early hour. 
 
 Goriot was still paying twelve hundred francs a 
 year when this took place ; and Madame Vauquer was 
 indulgent, nay, even amused at what she thought his 
 adroitness in passing these ladies off as his daughters.
 
 34 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 Still, as the visits explained his indifference to her own 
 attractions, she permitted herself to call him an old 
 scamp ; and when, soon after, he suddenly fell to pay- 
 ing nine hundred francs a year, she fiercely asked what 
 business he had to receive people of that kind in her 
 house. Pere Goriot answered that the lady she alluded 
 to was his eldest daughter. 
 
 " I suppose you will tell me next that you have 
 thirty-six daughters," she said sharply. 
 
 " I have only two," he replied, with the gentleness of 
 a broken spirit beaten down to the docility of misery. 
 
 Towards the end of the third year, Pere Goriot re- 
 duced his expenses still further, by going up to the 
 third storey and paying only forty-five francs a month. 
 He gave up snuff, dismissed his barber, and ceased to 
 wear powder. When he appeared for the first time 
 without it, his landlady uttered an exclamation of sur- 
 prise on seeing the color of his hair. It was 'a dirty, 
 greenish gray. His face, which had grown sadder day 
 by day under the influence of some secret sorrow, was 
 now the most desolate of all those that met around 
 that dismal dinner-table. The widow had no longer 
 any doubt. Here was a miserable wretch who had 
 worn himself out by his excesses. 
 
 When his stock of linen was exhausted, he replaced 
 it by cotton at fourteen sous a yard. His diamonds, 
 his gold snuff-box, his chain, his jewels, disappeared 
 one after the other. The light-blue coat was given up 
 with the rest of his comfortable clothing, and he now 
 wore, summer and winter, a frock-coat of coarse brown 
 cloth, a waistcoat of cheap cotton and woollen stuff, 
 and trousers of gray twill. He grew thinner and thin-
 
 Pere Goriot. 35 
 
 ner ; the calves of his legs shrank ; his face, which 
 once had the beaming roundness of a well-to-do bour- 
 geois, was now furrowed with wrinkles, the lines on 
 his forehead deepened, and his jaws grew gaunt and 
 sharp. At the end of his fourth year in the Rue Neuve 
 Sainte-Genevieve he bore no likeness to his former self. 
 The sound old paste-maker of sixty-two, who might 
 have passed for forty ; the jolly, fat bourgeois, foolish 
 and simple-minded, whose jaunty bearing amused even 
 those who passed him on the street, and whose smile 
 had something of the gayety of youth, seemed now a 
 worn-out septuagenarian, stupid, vacillating, wan. His 
 lively blue eyes had tarnished into a dull steel-gray. 
 They never watered now ; but the red rims still en- 
 circled them, and seemed to weep tears of blood. Some 
 people regarded him with horror, others pitied him. 
 The young medical students, who observed the drop of 
 his under lip and took note of his facial angle, said to 
 each other, after teasing and tormenting him and get- 
 ting no reply, that he was falling into imbecility. 
 
 One day, after dinner, Madame Vauquer said to him, 
 " So your daughters don't come to see you any more ? " 
 in a tone as though she doubted the relationship. He 
 started as if she had pricked him with a dagger. 
 
 " They do come sometimes," he said sadly. 
 
 "Ah, ah! so you still see them sometimes some- 
 times ? " cried the students. " Bravo, Pere Goriot ! " 
 
 But the old man did not hear the jests that followed 
 his simple answer. He had fallen back into that pas- 
 sive state which those who observed him superficially 
 took for senile indifference. If they had really known 
 what was passing before their eyes, they might have
 
 36 Pere Croriot. 
 
 felt an interest in his state ns a moral and physical 
 problem. But they did not know, nor would it have 
 been easy to know, the old man's veal life. The elderly 
 people of the pension, who alone felt any interest in 
 it, never went out of the neighborhood, they lived 
 like oysters in a bed ; and as for the young men, the 
 excitements of their Parisian life put the poor old man 
 at whom they gibed out of their heads as soon as they 
 turned the corner of the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve. 
 To narrow minds, like those of these thoughtless stu- 
 dents, the blank misery of Pere Goriot and his dull 
 stupidity were incompatible with the possession of any 
 means or indeed of any capacity whatever. As to the 
 women whom he called his daughters, every one shared 
 the opinion of Madame Vauquer, who argued with 
 that severity of logic which the habit of attributing low 
 motives cultivates in old women given over to gossip- 
 ping that "if Pere Goriot had daughters as rich as 
 these women seemed to be, he would not be living in 
 my house, paying forty-five francs a month, and dress- 
 ing like a beggar." These inductions could not be 
 gainsaid ; so that by the end of the month of Novem- 
 ber, 1819, the time of the opening of this drama, every 
 one in the house had made up his or her mind concern- 
 ing the unhappy old man. He had never had, they 
 declared, either wife or daughter ; he was a snail, a 
 mollusk, "to be classed with the shell-fish," said one of 
 them, an employe at a neighboring museum. Poiret 
 was an eagle, a gentleman of fashion, beside Goriot. 
 Poiret could talk, argue, and answer. To be sure he 
 said nothing, for his talking, arguing, and reasoning 
 were only the repetition in his own words of the last
 
 Pere Goriot. 37 
 
 thing said by other people. But at least he took a 
 share in the common talk, he was alive, he seemed to 
 have his faculties ; while Pere Goriot, as another em- 
 ploye at the museum remarked, was "always below 
 zero."
 
 38 Pere Groriot. 
 
 III. 
 
 DE RASTIGNAC had returned from his vaca- 
 tion in a state of mind not uncommon in young men of 
 talent, or in those to whom circumstances of difficulty 
 impart for a time the qualities of picked men. During 
 his first year in Paris the slight application required to 
 pass through the first stages of his profession had left 
 him free to enjoy the external charms of the capital. 
 A student finds his time well filled up if lie wishes to 
 study the windings of the Parisian labyrinth, to see all 
 that is worth seeing at the theatres, to know the cus- 
 toms, to learn the language, to get used to the special 
 pleasures of the great capital, to ransack all its corners 
 good and bad, to attend those lectures that may amuse 
 him, and make a mental catalogue of the treasures 
 collected in the museums. He begins by an enthusi- 
 asm for some foolery that he thinks grandiose. He 
 chooses a hero, possibly a professor who is paid to 
 keep himself above the level of his audience ; or he 
 pulls up his cravat and assumes an attitude at the 
 Opera-Comique, glancing at some lady in the first tier 
 of boxes. But after these initiations he usually peels 
 off his husk, enlarges the horizon of his life, and ends 
 by getting an idea of the various human strata which 
 make society. If he begins by admiring the carnages 
 on a fine day in the Champs-Elysees, he ends by envy- 
 injr those who own them.
 
 Pere Goriot. 39 
 
 Eugene had unconsciously gone through much of all 
 this before his vacation, when he went back to his 
 father's house with his bachelor's degree in Law and 
 Letters. The faith of his childhood, his idles de prov- 
 ince, his country ideas, had left him. His enlarged 
 intelligence, his excited ambition, made him now see 
 the true condition of things in his old home. His father, 
 mother, two brothers, two sisters, and an aunt who had 
 only a life income, lived on the little estate of Rastig- 
 nac. This property at no time brought in more than 
 three thousand francs a year, which was subject to the 
 uncertainties attendant upon grape culture; and yet 
 out of that limited revenue twelve hundred francs 
 were subtracted for Eugene's expenses. The sight of 
 their perpetual pinching, which they tried generously 
 to conceal from him ; the comparison he was forced to 
 make between his sisters, whom he once thought pretty 
 girls, and the Parisian women who realized the loveli- 
 ness of his boyish dreams ; the uncertain prospects of 
 the large family dependent on his success ; the frugality 
 with which everything was cared for ; the wine squeezed 
 for family use out of the last strainings of the press ; 
 together with innumerable shifts that need not be told 
 here, increased ten-fold his desires for success, and 
 made him thirst for the distinctions of the world. At 
 first he felt, as high-strung spirits do feel, that he 
 would owe nothing except to his own merits. But 
 his nature was eminently southern ; when the time 
 for action came, he was liable to be assailed by hesita- 
 tions such as seize men in mid-ocean when they have 
 lost their reckoning and know not how to lay their 
 course, nor at what angle to set their sails. At first
 
 40 Pere Groriot. 
 
 he had been eager to fling himself body and soul into 
 the work of his profession ; then he was led away by 
 the importance of forming social ties. He observed 
 the influence which women exert upon society ; and 
 he suddenly resolved to try for success in the great 
 world, and to win the help and protection of women 
 of social standing. Surely, they might be won by a 
 young man, ardent and intelligent, whose mental gifts 
 were aided by the personal charm of elegance, and 
 who possessed the beauty which eminently attracts 
 women, the beauty of strength. 
 
 These ideas worked within him as he walked about 
 the fields listening to the merry chatter of his sisters, 
 who thought him greatly changed. His aunt, Madame 
 de Marcillac, had been at court in the days before the 
 French Revolution, and her associates were among 
 the greatest people of that time. All at once it oc- 
 curred to him, as he pondered his ambitious designs, 
 that among the recollections of her past life, with 
 which she had amused his boyhood, were the elements 
 of a social success more brilliant than any he could 
 hope to attain by the study of law. He questioned 
 her as to family ties, which she might renew on his 
 behalf. After shaking the branches of her genealogi- 
 cal tree, the old lady came to the conclusion, that, of 
 all the persons who might be useful to him among the 
 careless multitude of her great relatives, Madame la 
 Vicomtesse de Beause'ant was likely to prove the most 
 available. She therefore wrote to this young woman 
 an old-fashioned letter of introduction, and told 
 Eugene that if he pleased Madame de Beauseant 
 she would undoubtedly present him to the rest of his
 
 Pere G-oriot. 41 
 
 relatives. A few days after his return to Paris, 
 Rastignac sent his aunt's letter to the viscountess, 
 who replied by an invitation to a ball for the next 
 evening. 
 
 Such, then, was the general situation of affairs in 
 the Maison Vauquer at the end of November, 1819. 
 Two days later, Eugene, having been to Madame de 
 Beauseant's ball, came home about two o'clock in the 
 morning. That he might redeem the time lost in 
 gayety, he had made a vow, in the middle of a dance, to 
 sit up and read law till daylight. It was the first time 
 he had stayed awake in that still and silent quarter of 
 Paris, but he was prepared for it by the strong excite- 
 ment of his introduction to the splendors of the great 
 world. Eugene had not dined that day at the Maison 
 Vauquer, and the household were left to suppose that 
 he would not return before daylight, as had sometimes 
 happened after a fete at the Prado, or a ball at the 
 Odeon, to the detriment of his silk-stockings and the 
 stretching of his dancing-shoes. Before slipping the 
 bolts of the front door for the night, Christophe had 
 opened it and stood looking down the street. At 
 that moment Rastignac came in and went up to his 
 room without making any noise, followed by Chris- 
 tophe who made a great deal. Eugene took off his 
 evening coat, put on his slippers, and an old dressing- 
 gown, lit his fire of mottes, little blocks of refuse bark 
 prepared as a cheap fuel, and sat down so quickly 
 to his work that the noise of Christophe's heavy foot- 
 steps drowned the lesser sound of his own movements. 
 He sat thinking a few moments before he opened his 
 books.
 
 42 Pere Goriot. 
 
 He had found Madame <le Beauseant one of the 
 queens of Parisian society, and her house considered 
 the most agreeable in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. 
 She was by birth and fortune an acknowledged leader 
 in the fashionable world. Thanks to his aunt de Mar- 
 cillac, the poor student had been welcomed in this bril- 
 liant house ; though as yet he did not realize the extent 
 of the favor. To be admitted into those gilded salons 
 was equivalent to a patent of nobility. Once launched 
 in the society he met there, the most exclusive of all 
 societies, he had obtained the right to go everywhere. 
 Dazzled by the brilliancy that surrounded him, Eugene, 
 after exchanging a few words with his hostess, had 
 given all his attention to one lady in that circle of 
 Parisian goddesses, a lady whose beauty was of a 
 type that attracts at first sight the admiration of young 
 men. Countess Anastasie de Restaud, tall and well- 
 made, was thought to have one of the finest figures in 
 Paris. With large dark eyes, beautiful hands, a well- 
 turned foot, vivacity and grace in all her movements, 
 she was a woman whom such an authority as the Mar- 
 quis de Ronquerolles declared to be " thoroughbred." 
 Her high-strung, nervous temperament had not im- 
 paired her beauty. The lines of her figure were full 
 and rounded, though not at all inclining to embonpoint. 
 11 Thoroughbred," lt pure-blooded," these expressions 
 were beginning to take the place of the old forms 
 of approval, "angels of heaven," hyperboles from 
 Ossian, and all the mythological vocabulary rejected 
 by modern dandyism. To Rastignac, Madame de 
 Restaud seemed the woman who might serve his pur- 
 pose. He secured two dances in the list written
 
 Pere Croriot. 43 
 
 upon her fan, and talked to her during the pauses of 
 a quadrille. 
 
 " Where may I hope to meet you again, Madame ? " 
 he said, with that insistent admiration which has so 
 much charm for women. 
 
 " Oh," she said, " in the Bois, at the opera, at home, 
 everywhere." 
 
 And this bold son of the south pressed his way with 
 the charming countess as far as a man could go in the 
 intervals of a waltz and a quadrille. When he told 
 her that he was cousin to Madame de Beauseant, the 
 countess, whom he took for a great lady, invited him 
 to visit her. From the smile she gave him at parting, 
 Rastignac judged that the invitation was one he might 
 accept immediately. He had the good fortune, in the 
 course of the evening, to make the acquaintance of a 
 man too noble to ridicule his ignorance, a vice in the 
 eyes of the impertinent young dandies of the period, 
 gifted themselves with the vice of superciliousness. 
 They were all there in full force : the Maulincourts, 
 the Ronquerolles, the Maxime de Trailles, the de Mar- 
 says, the Adjuda-Pintos, in the glory of their self- 
 conceit, and dancing attendance on the most elegant 
 women of Paris, Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de 
 Lungeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouet, Madame de 
 Serizy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, Comtesse Ferraud, 
 Madame de Lanty, the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Ma- 
 dame Firrniani, the Marquise de Listomere and the 
 Marquise d'Espard, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse, 
 and the de Grandlieus. 1 Happily, therefore, for the 
 
 1 These were all living people to de Balzac, and their histories 
 can be found in his other books.
 
 44 Pre G-oriot. 
 
 inexperienced student, he stumbled upon the Marquis 
 de Montriveau, who was present in attendance on the 
 Duchesse de Langeais, a general, a brave soldier, 
 and simple-hearted as a child. From him Eugene 
 learned that Madame de Restaud lived in the Rue du 
 Helder. 
 
 To be young, to thirst for distinction, to hunger for 
 the smiles of a woman, to see unclosing before him the 
 doors of these great mansions, to plant his foot in the 
 Faubourg at Madame de Beauseant's, to bend the knee 
 in the Chaussee d' Antin at Madame de Restaud's, to 
 glance through the long vista of Parisian salons and 
 know himself attractive and fit to win help and protec- 
 tion from a woman, to feel that he could tread firmly 
 the social tight-rope, where safety depends upon nerve 
 and self-confidence, and to have found already in one 
 of these rare women the balance-pole of his ambition, 
 with such thoughts, with visions of this woman rising 
 in the smoke of his bark fire, Law on the one hand, 
 Poverty on the other, what wonder that Eugene pierced 
 the future in a waking dream, and attained in fancy to 
 his goal, success? His vagrant thoughts were in 
 full career, and he was picturing himself by the side of 
 Madame de Restaud, when a sigh broke the silence of 
 the night, a sigh so deep and piteous that it echoed 
 in the heart of the young man as though it had been 
 a death-rattle. 
 
 He opened his door softly, and slipping into the 
 corridor, saw a line of light along Pere Goriot's thresh- 
 old. Fearing that his neighbor was ill, he stooped 
 and looked through the key-hole. The old man was 
 at work in a way so apparently criminal that Rastignac
 
 Pere Croriot. 45 
 
 thought the interests of society required him to watch 
 and see what came of it. Pere Goriot had fastened 
 two pieces of plate, a bowl of some kind with the dish 
 belonging to it, to the leg of his table. He had twisted 
 a piece of rope round these objects, which were richly 
 embossed, and was pulling upon it with all his strength, 
 evidently trying to reduce them to a mere lump of 
 silver. 
 
 " The devil ! What a fellow ! " cried Rastignac to 
 himself, as he saw the strong arms of the old man 
 kneading up the silver as if it had been dough. " Can 
 he be a robber ; or a receiver of stolen goods ? Does 
 he make believe to be a fool, that he may carry on his 
 iniquities in secret? Is this what makes him live here 
 like a beggar?" added Eugene, taking his eye from 
 the key-hole. 
 
 He looked again. Pere Goriot had unwound his 
 rope. He took the lump of silver and laid it on the 
 table, where he had spread a cloth, and rolled it into a 
 bar, an operation he performed with the utmost ease. 
 
 " Why, he must have arms like Augustus the Strong, 
 King of Poland ! " cried Eugene, when the bar was 
 nearly fashioned. 
 
 Pere Goriot looked sadly at his work, and his tears 
 fell fast upon the silver. He then blew out the rushlight 
 by whose glimmer he had done the deed, and Eugene 
 heard him lie down upon his bed with a heavy sigh. 
 
 " He must be mad ! " thought the student. 
 
 " Poor child ! " groaned Pere Goriot. 
 
 On hearing these words Rastignac suddenly resolved 
 to say nothing about what he had seen, and not to 
 condemn his neighbor too hastily. He was about to
 
 46 Pere Groriot. 
 
 return to his room when he became aware of another 
 noise, and one difficult to define, as if men in felt shoes 
 were treading softly on the stairs. Eugene listened, 
 and was sure that he heard the breathing of two men. 
 No door creaked, and no distinct steps were heard, but 
 he caught a sudden gleam of light on the second storey 
 shining through the chinks of Vautrin's door. 
 
 "Mysteries enough for one night in a pension bour- 
 geoise" he said to himself. He went down a few stairs 
 and listened intently. The chink of gold coin struck 
 his ear. In a few moments the light was extinguished, 
 the breathing of two men was again heard, but again 
 no door creaked. The men were going softly down the 
 stairs, and the slight noise of their steps died away. 
 
 "Who is there?" cried Madame Vauquer, opening 
 a window in her apartment which looked on the stairs. 
 
 "I have just come in, Mamma Vauquer," replied the 
 strong voice of Vautrin. 
 
 " That 's odd," said Eugene returning to his chamber, 
 "for I am certain I saw Christophe slip the bolts! 
 They say you must sit up all night in Paris if you want 
 to know what your neighbors do." 
 
 His dreams of amorous ambition being dispelled by 
 these inteiTuptions, Eugene now began to study ; but 
 with little profit. His mind wandered to the suspicions 
 roused by Pere Goriot, then to the face of Madame de 
 Restaud rising before him as the pharos of a brilliant 
 destiny ; and before long he went to bed and to sleep 
 with his hands clinched. Out of every ten nights which 
 young people vow to study seven are spent in sleep. 
 Ah ! we must be more than twenty to stay awake all 
 night.
 
 Pere Goriot. 47 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE next morning Paris was enveloped in a dense 
 fog ; one of those fogs that wrap themselves about the 
 city and make the atmosphere so dark that even punc- 
 tual people lose note of time. Business engagements 
 are not kept, and many think it eight o'clock when it 
 is nearly midday. It was half-past nine, and Madame 
 Vauquer was not out of bed. Christophe and Sylvie, 
 who were both behindhand, were taking their coffee, 
 made with the top skimmings of the milk, the rest of 
 which Sylvie boiled a long time to thicken it, so that 
 Madame Vauquer might not discover the tithe thus 
 illegally levied. 
 
 " Sylvie," said Christophe, soaking his first bit of 
 toast, " Monsieur Vautrin a good fellow all the same 
 had twb more men to see him last night. If Madame 
 asks about it, you need n't say much." 
 
 " Did he give you anything? " 
 
 " Paid me five francs for his month ; that 's as much 
 as to say, ' Hold your tongue.' " 
 
 " He and Madame Couture," said Sylvie, " are not 
 mean ; all the rest would like to take back with their 
 left hands what their right hands give us on New 
 Year's Day." 
 
 " And what 's that, anyhow ?" cried Christophe. " A 
 miserable five-franc piece, that 's all ! There 's Pere
 
 48 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Goriot, who has blacked his own boots these two 
 months. That old miser, Poiret, won't use blacking ; 
 he'd drink it sooner than put it on his broken old 
 shoes. As to that slip of a student, he only gives me 
 forty sous a month. Forty sons doesn't pay for my 
 brushes ; and he sells his old clothes into the bargain. 
 What a hovel, to be sure ! " 
 
 "Bah !" said Sylvie, slowly sipping her coffee, " our 
 places are the best in the quarter. We do very well. 
 But as to that big Vautrin Christophe, did anybody 
 ever ask you about him ?" 
 
 " Yes, I met a gentleman a few days ago in the 
 street, and said he, ' Have n't you got at your house a 
 stout gentleman who dyes his whiskers ? ' I said, ' No ; 
 our stout gentleman's whiskers are not dyed ; a man 
 who goes the pace he does has n't the time to dye his 
 whiskers.' I told Monsieur Vautrin about it, and he 
 said, ' Quite right, my boy ; always answer such ques- 
 tions like that. There's nothing more disagreeable 
 than to have people finding out your little infirmities. 
 Marriages can be balked that way.'" 
 
 " Well, in the market the other day," said Sylvie, 
 " they tried to lime me too. A man asked if I had 
 ever seen him putting on his shirt. Think of that, 
 now! Goodness!" she cried, interrupting herself, 
 " there 's a quarter to ten striking on the Val de Grace ; 
 and everybody in bed ! " 
 
 " Pooh ! they are all out. Madame Couture and her 
 young person went to mass at Saint-Etienne's at eight 
 o'clock. Pere Goriot was off early with a bundle ; the 
 student won't be back till after lecture. I saw them 
 all go out as I was cleaning my stairs. Pere Goriot
 
 Pere Goriot. 49 
 
 knocked me as he passed with the thing he was carry- 
 ing ; it was as hard as iron. What on earth is he 
 about, that old fellow? All the rest of them spin him 
 round like a top. But he 's a good man, I can tell you ; 
 worth more than the whole of them put together. He 
 does not give me a great deal, but the ladies where he 
 sends me give famously. They are finely dressed out, 
 I can tell you." 
 
 " Them that he calls his daughters, hein? Why, 
 there 's a dozen of them ! " 
 
 " I only go to two, the two that came here." 
 - " There ! I hear Madame getting up. She '11 make 
 an uproar about it 's being late. I must go. Look 
 after the milk, Christophe, and see that the cat does n't 
 get it." 
 
 So saying, Sylvie went upstairs to Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Why, Sylvie, how is this ? A quarter to ten, and 
 you have let me sleep so late. I have slept like a 
 dormouse. Such a thing never happened to me 
 before." 
 
 " It 's the fog ; you could cut it with a knife." 
 
 " But about breakfast " 
 
 "Bah! the devil got into the lodgers, and they 
 turned out des lepatron-jaquet" (at daybreak). 
 
 " Sylvie, do speak properly, and say le patron-minet" 
 
 " Well, Madame, any way you like. But you '11 all 
 breakfast to-day at ten o'clock. Old Michonneau and 
 Poiret are not out of their beds. There 's no one else 
 in the house, and those two sleep like logs as they 
 are." 
 
 " But, Sylvie, why do you always mention them to- 
 gether, as if " 
 
 4
 
 50 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 "As if what?" said Sylvie, with her horse-laugh, 
 "why not? Two make a pair." 
 
 " Something happened very odd last night, Syl- 
 vie. How did Monsieur Vautrin get in after Chris- 
 tophe had bolted the front door?" 
 
 ' Oh ! it was this way, Madame. Christophe heard 
 Monsieur Vautrin, and he came down and unfastened 
 the door. That's why you thought ' 
 
 " Give me my wrapper, and go and see about break- 
 fast. You can hash up the remains of that mutton 
 with potatoes ; and give us some baked pears, those 
 that cost three sous a dozen." 
 
 A few minutes later, Madame Vauquer came into the 
 dining-room just as her cat had knocked off a plate 
 which covered a bowl of milk, and was lapping the 
 contents. 
 
 " Mistigris ! " she cried. The cat scampered off, but 
 soon returned and rubbed up against her legs. " Yes, 
 yes, you old hypocrite ! you can coax when you 've 
 been stealing. Sylvie ! Sylvie ! " 
 
 " Yes, what is it, Madame ? " 
 
 " Just see how much the cat has stolen ! " 
 
 " That animal of a Christophe ! it's his fault. I told 
 him to watch the cat, and set the table. Where has 
 he gone to, I wonder ? Nevermind, Madame, I '11 keep 
 that milk for Pere Goriot. I '11 put some water to it, 
 and he '11 never know. He takes no notice of what he 
 puts in his mouth." 
 
 " What took him out early this morning, the old 
 heathen ? " said Madame Vauquer, as she put the plates 
 round the table. 
 
 " Who knows ? He trades with all the five hundred 
 devils."
 
 Pere Croriot. 51 
 
 " I believe I slept too long," said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 "But the sleep has made Madame as fresh as a 
 rose." 
 
 At this moment the door-bell rang, and Vautrin came 
 into the salon, singing in his strong voice, 
 
 "'Long have I wandered here and there, 
 And wherever by chance 
 I cast my glance ' 
 
 " Oh ! Oh ! good morning, Mamma Vauquer," he 
 cried, as soon as he perceived his landlady, gallantly 
 catching her round the waist. 
 
 " Come, come don't ! " she said. 
 
 " Say, ' Don't, you impertinent rascal ! ' Ah ! do as I 
 tell you ; say so ! Now I '11 help you to set the table. 
 I 'm a pretty good fellow, am I not ? 
 
 " ' I courted the brown, and I courted the fair ' 
 I saw something odd just now 
 
 " ' When I happened by chance 
 To cast my glance ' " 
 
 " What was it ? " exclaimed the widow. 
 
 " Pere Goriot, at half-past eight o'clock, in the gold- 
 smith's shop in the Rue Dauphine, the fellow, you 
 know, who buys old spoons and gold lace. Pere Goriot 
 sold him, for a good round sum, some sort of utensil in 
 silver-gilt quite skilfully twisted out of shape, con- 
 sidering he has never followed the profession." 
 
 "Bah! really?" 
 
 " Yes, truly. I was coming back that way after see- 
 ing off a friend by the Messageries Royales. I followed 
 Goriot to see what he would do next just for fun. 
 He turned into the Rue des Gres, where he went to the
 
 52 Pre &orfot. 
 
 house of an old usurer whom everybody knows, named 
 Gobseck, a thorough rascal, capable of turning his 
 father's bones into dominos ; a Jew, an Arab, a Greek, 
 a Bohemian, a fellow confoundedly hard for a man to 
 rob ; puts all his money into the bank." 
 
 " But what does this old Goriot really do ? " 
 
 " He does nothing," said Vautrin ; " he undoes. He 
 is fool enough to ruin himself for worthless women, 
 who " 
 
 " He 's coming in," said Sylvie. 
 
 " Christophe ! " called Pdre Goriot from without, 
 " come up to my room." 
 
 Christophe did as he was bid, and came back for his 
 hat in a few moments. 
 
 " Where are you going ? " said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " On a message for Monsieur Goriot." 
 
 " What have you got there? " cried Vautrin, snatch- 
 ing a letter out of Christophe's hand and reading the 
 address, To Madame la Comtesse Anastasie de 
 Hestaud. 
 
 " Where are you going to take it ? " he continued, 
 giving the letter back to Christophe. 
 
 " Rue du Helcler. I was told to give it into the 
 hands of Madame la comtesse herself." 
 
 " I wonder what 's inside of it ? " said Vautrin, tak- 
 ing it back again, and holding it up to the light; "a 
 bank-note? No " he peeped into the envelope 
 " it 's a cancelled note ! " he cried. " What a gal- 
 lant old rascal ! Be off, my boy ! " he added, putting 
 the palm of his big hand on Christophe's head, and 
 spinning him round like a thimble. " You ought to 
 get a good pour-boire"
 
 Pere Goriot. 53 
 
 The table being set, Sylvie proceeded to boil the 
 milk ; Madame Vauquer lit the dining-room stove, and 
 Vautrin helped her, still humming, 
 
 " Long have I wandered here and there." 
 
 By the time all was ready, Madame Couture and 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer came in. 
 
 "Where have you been so early, my dear lady?" 
 said Madame Vauquer to Madame Couture. 
 
 " We have been to pray at Saint-Etienne du Mont. 
 This is the day, you know, we are to go to Monsieur 
 Taillefer. Victorine, poor little thing, is trembling like 
 a leaf," said Madame Couture, sitting down before the 
 stove, and putting up her damp feet, which began to 
 smoke. 
 
 " Pray, warm yourself, Victorine," said Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " It is all very right, Mademoiselle, to pray to the 
 good God to soften your father's heart," said Vautrin 
 to the young lady ; "but that 's not enough. You need 
 a friend who will speak his mind to the fierce old fel- 
 low, a savage, they say, who has three millions of 
 francs, and won't give you a dot [a dowry]. Every 
 pretty girl needs a dot in times like these." 
 
 "Poor darling!" said Madame Vauquer, "your 
 monster of a father will bring punishment on his own 
 head." 
 
 At these words tears started in the eyes of the poor 
 girl, and Madame Vauquer stopped, restrained by a 
 sign from Madame Couture. 
 
 " If we could only see him, if I might speak to 
 him and give him the last letter of his poor wife," said
 
 64 Pere Goriot. 
 
 the paymaster's widow. " I have never dared to send 
 it to him by post ; he knows my writing." 
 
 " ' O woman ! innocent, unhappy, persecuted,' as the 
 poet says," cried Vautrin, " see what you have come 
 to! In a few days I shall interfere in your affairs, 
 and then things will go better." 
 
 "Ah, Monsieur !" said Victorine, casting a look at 
 once tearful and eager upon Vautrin, who seemed quite 
 immoved by it ; " if you know any way of communi- 
 cating with my father, tell him that his love and the 
 honor of my mother are dearer to me than all the 
 riches of the world. If you could succeed in making 
 him less harsh to me, I would pray God for you. Be 
 sure that my gratitude " 
 
 " Long have I wandered here and there," 
 
 sang Vautrin, in a tone of irony. 
 
 At that moment Goriot, Mademoiselle Michonneau, 
 and Poiret came down, attracted probably by the sa- 
 vory smell of Sylvie's mutton. Just as the seven sat 
 down to table and exchanged good mornings, half-past 
 ten struck, and the step of the student was heard on 
 the gravel. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur Eugene," said Sylvie, " to-day you 
 will get your breakfast with the others." 
 
 The young man bowed to the company, and took his 
 seat by Pere Goriot. 
 
 " I have just had a strange adventure," he said, 
 helping himself liberally to the mutton, and cutting a 
 slice of bread which Madame Vauquer measured with 
 her eye. 
 
 ' An adventure ! " repeated Poiret.
 
 Pere Groriot. 55 
 
 " Well, old fellow, why should that astonish you ? " 
 said Vautrin. " Monsieur looks as if he were made 
 for adventures." 
 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer glanced timidly at the young 
 man. 
 
 " Come, tell us ! " said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Last night I was at a ball at the house of my cou- 
 sin, Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauseant. She has a 
 splendid house, rooms hung with silk ; in short, she 
 gave us a magnificent fete, where I amused myself as 
 much as a king " 
 
 " Fisher," interpolated Vautrin. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Eugene angrily, " what do you. 
 mean ? " 
 
 "I said fisher, because kingfishers amuse themselves 
 a great deal better than kings." 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; I 'd rather be a little bird that has 
 no cares, than a king ; because because " said 
 Poiret, man of echoes. 
 
 " Well, anyway,'* continued the student, " I danced 
 with one of the loveliest women at the ball, a 
 charming countess, the most delightful creature I have 
 ever seen. She wore peach-blossoms in her hair, and 
 flowers at her waist, natural flowers of delicious fra- 
 grance. Pshaw ! you ought to have seen her ; it is 
 impossible to describe a lovely woman animated by 
 dancing. Well, this morning I met this same divine 
 countess about nine o'clock, on foot, in the Rue des 
 Gres. Oh ! my heart jumped ! I fancied for a 
 moment " 
 
 " That she was coming here," said Vautrin, looking 
 the young man through and through. " She was
 
 56 Pre Q-oriot. 
 
 probably going to look up Papa Gobseck, the money- 
 lender. Young man, if you ever get an insight into 
 the hearts of Parisian women, you will find money- 
 more potent there than love. Your countess's name 
 was Annstasie de Restaud, and she lives in the Rue 
 du Helder." 
 
 At this the student turned and stared at Vautrin. 
 Pere Goriot raised his head quickly and shot at the 
 two speakers a glance so keen and anxious that he 
 astonished the other guests who noticed him. " Chris- 
 tophe will -get there too late ; she will have gone," he 
 murmured sadly. 
 
 " I guessed right, you see," said Vautrin, leaning 
 over and whispering to Madame Vauquer. 
 
 Goriot went on eating his breakfast without know- 
 ing what he was doing; he sank back into himself, 
 and never looked more stupid and self-absorbed than 
 at this moment. 
 
 " Who the devil, Monsieur Vautrin," cried Eugene de 
 Rastignac, " could have told you that lady's name ? " 
 
 "Ha, ha!" laughed Vautrin. "Pere Goriot knew 
 it, why should n't I ? " 
 
 " Monsieur Goriot ! " cried the student. 
 
 "What did you say?" asked the poor old man. 
 " Was she very beautiful last night ! " 
 
 "Who?" 
 
 " Madame de Restaud." 
 
 " Look at the old wretch ; how his eyes sparkle ! " 
 whispered Madame Vauquer to her neighbor. 
 
 "Yes, she was marvellously beautiful," replied 
 Eugene, at whom Pere Goriot was now looking 
 engerly. If Madame de Beauseant had been absent,
 
 Pre Goriot. 57 
 
 my divine countess would have been queen of the ball. 
 The young men had no eyes but for her. I was the 
 twelfth written on her list ; she danced all the eve- 
 ning. The other women were jealous of her. If any 
 creature was happy last night, it was she. The old 
 saying is true, the three most beautiful things in 
 motion are a frigate under sail, a horse at full speed, 
 and a woman dancing." 
 
 " Last night at the top of the wheel, at the ball of a 
 duchess ; this morning down in the mud in the shop 
 of a money-lender," said Vautrin. " If their husbands 
 cannot pay for their unbridled extravagance, they will 
 get the money in other ways. They would rip open 
 their mother's breasts to get the means of outshining 
 their rivals at a ball." 
 
 Pere Goriot's face, which at the praise of Madame de 
 Restaud had lighted up like a landscape when the sun 
 falls upon it, clouded over as he listened to these words. 
 
 " Well," said Madame Vauquer, " how about your 
 adventure, Monsieur Eugene ? Did you speak to her ? 
 Did you ask her if she was coming into this neighbor- 
 hood to study law?" 
 
 " She did not see me," said Eugene ; "but to meet 
 such a lady in the Rue des Gres at nine o'clock in the 
 morning, a woman who could not have got home 
 from the ball for some hours after midnight, does 
 seem to me very singular. Paris is the only place for 
 such strange things." " 
 
 " Bah ! there are many far more strange," said 
 Vautrin. 
 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer had scarcely listened, so pre- 
 occupied was she by the fresh effort she was about to
 
 58 Pere Goriot. 
 
 make to see her father. Madame Couture made her 
 a sign that it was time to dress; and when the two 
 ladies rose and left the room Pere Goriot left also. 
 
 " Did you notice him ? " said Madame Vauquer to 
 Vautrin and the rest. " I am convinced those women 
 are his ruin." 
 
 " You will never make me believe," cried the stu- 
 dent, "that the beautiful Comtesse de Restaud has 
 anything to do with Pere Goriot 
 
 "Who wants you to believe it?" said Vautrin, in- 
 terrupting him. "You don't know Paris yet, you 
 are too young. You '11 find out later that there are 
 men absorbed by passions, a passion." At these 
 words, Mademoiselle Michonneau raised her head and 
 looked at him, like a war horse that hears the sound 
 of a trumpet. " Ah ! " said Vautrin, interrupting him- 
 self to send her a piercing glance ; " we know, do we, 
 all about that ? Yes," he resumed, " such men pursue 
 one idea, one passion, and never relinquish it. They 
 thirst for one water, from one fountain, often stag- 
 nant. To gain it they will sell wife and children, 
 they will sell their own souls. For some this fountain 
 is play, or stocks, collections of pictures, even in- 
 sects, music. For others it is a woman who ministers 
 to some taste ; to these you may offer every other 
 woman upon earth, they will not look at them. 
 They will have the woman who satisfies their want, 
 whatever it is. Often this woman does not love them, 
 nay, will ill-treat them, and despoil them, and make 
 them pay dearly for small shreds of satisfaction. No 
 matter, the fools will not let go ; they will pawn their 
 last blanket for her sake, and bring her their last sou.
 
 PeVe G-oriot. 59 
 
 Pere Goriot is one of these men. Your countess gets 
 all she can out of him, he is safe and silent. The 
 poor fellow has no thought except for her. Watch 
 him : outside of this passion he is little more than a 
 dumb animal ; rouse him about her, and his eyes spar- 
 kle like diamonds. It is easy enough to guess his 
 secret. He carried his bit of plate this morning to be 
 melted ; I saw him afterwards going into Gobseck's, in 
 the Rue des Gres. Now, mark! as soon as he got 
 home he sent that simpleton Christophe to Madame 
 de Restaud with a letter containing a cancelled note. 
 Christophe showed us the address. It is clear that 
 the matter was pressing, for the countess went herself 
 to the old money-lender. Pere Goriot has been rais- 
 ing money for her. It does n't take much cleverness 
 to put two and two together here. And this shows 
 you, my young student, that last night, when your 
 countess was laughing and dancing and playing her 
 tricks, and fluttering her peach-blossoms, and shaking 
 out her gown, her heartf was down in the soles of her 
 little satin slippers, thinking of some note of hers that 
 was going to protest or, of her lover's." 
 
 "You make me savage to know the truth," cried 
 Eugene ; " I will go to-morrow and call on Madame 
 de Restaud." 
 
 " Yes, to-morrow," said Poiret ; " better call to- 
 morrow on Madame de Restaud." 
 
 " But, Paris ! " said Eugene, in a tone of disgust, 
 " what a sink of iniquity your Paris must be." 
 
 " Yes," replied Vautrin, " and a queer sink, too. 
 Those who get muddy in their carriages are virtuous ; 
 those who get muddy afoot are knaves. Hook a trifle
 
 60 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 that is not your own, and they show you up on the 
 Place du Palais de Justice as a public curiosity ; steal 
 a million, and you are received in good society and 
 called ' a clever fellow.' And you pay thirty millions 
 annually to the law courts and the police to keep up 
 that sort of morality ! Pah ! " 
 
 " Do you mean to say," said Madame Vauquer, Ci that 
 Pere Goriot has melted up his silver-gilt porringer?" 
 
 " Were there two turtle-doves on the cover ?" asked 
 Eugene. 
 
 " Yes, there were." 
 
 " He must have cared for it. He wept when he 
 broke it up. I happened to see him by chance," 
 said Eugene. 
 
 " He did care for it, as for his life," answered Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " Now see the force of passion ! " said Vautrin. " That 
 woman can wring his very soul." 
 
 Eugene went up to his own chamber. Vautrin went 
 out. A few minutes later Macfeme Couture and Victo- 
 rine got into a hackney coach which Sylvie had called. 
 Poiret gave his arm to Mademoiselle Michonneau, and 
 they walked off together to wander in the Jardin des 
 Plantes during the fine part of the day. 
 
 " Don't they look almost married ? " said Sylvie. 
 "They are so dried up that if they knock together, 
 they '11 make sparks like flint and steel." 
 
 "Look out, then, for Mademoiselle Michonneau's 
 shawl, it will catch like tinder," observed Madame 
 Vauquer.
 
 Pere Goriot. 61 
 
 V. 
 
 AT four o'clock, when Pere Goriot returned, he saw 
 by the dim light of two smoky lamps Victorine Taille- 
 fer sitting silent with red eyes, while Madame Couture 
 was volubly relating the result of the visit made to the 
 father. Tired of refusing to see his daughter and her 
 old friend, Taillefer had granted them an interview. 
 
 "My dear lady," Madame Couture was saying to 
 Madame Vauquer, " would you believe me, he did not 
 so much as ask Victorine to sit down ; she stood all the 
 time that we were there. He told me, without any 
 anger, but sternly, that we might for the future spare 
 ourselves the trouble of coming; that mademoiselle 
 (he did not say daughter) only injured herself by per- 
 sisting in coming after him once a year! the mon- 
 ster ! He said that as Victorine's mother had brought 
 him no fortune, her daughter was not entitled to ex- 
 pect any; in short, he said all kinds of cruel things 
 which made the poor dear cry. She flung herself at 
 her father's feet, and found courage to tell him that she 
 only pressed her case for her mother's sake ; that she 
 would obey him without a murmur if he would only 
 read the last words of his wife. She offered him the 
 letter, saying the most touching things you ever heard. 
 I don't know where she got them ; God must have in- 
 spired them, for the poor child was so carried away that
 
 62 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 I, as I listened to her, wept like a fool. What do you 
 suppose that brutal man did while she was speaking ? 
 He pared his nails ! He took the letter which his poor 
 wife had written with so many tears, and flung it into 
 the fire, saying, ' That 's enough.' He tried to make his 
 daughter get up from her knees : she wanted to kiss his 
 hand, but he would not let her. Was n't it atrocious ? 
 His great booby of a son came in while we were there, 
 but he would not take any notice of his sister." 
 
 " Can such monsters be ? " said Pere Goriot. 
 
 " And then," continued Madame Couture, paying no 
 attention to this interruption, " father and son walked 
 off together, begging me to excuse them, and saying 
 they had pressing business. So ended our visit. Well ! 
 at any rate he has seen his daughter. I don't know how 
 he can refuse to acknowledge her, for they are as like 
 as two raindrops." 
 
 All the guests now came in, one after another, wish- 
 ing each other good day, and interchanging a style of 
 jest by which certain classes of the Parisian world keep 
 up a spirit of drollery of which sheer nonsense is the 
 principal ingredient, the fun being chiefly confined to 
 gesture and pronunciation. This sort of argot varies 
 continually. The best joke never lasts over a month. 
 An event in politics, a trial in the criminal courts, a 
 street ballad, or an actor's jest, sets the fun afloat and 
 keeps it going ; the amusement consisting, above all, 
 in treating ideas and words like shuttlecocks, and ban- 
 dying them to and fro with the utmost rapidity. 
 
 Just at this time the invention of the diorama, an ex- 
 hibition which carried optical illusion beyond that of 
 the panorama, had set the artists in their studios to
 
 Pere Croriot. 63 
 
 ending all their words in "rama." The fashion had 
 been introduced into the Maison Vauquer by a young 
 painter, one of the dinner guests. 
 
 " Well, Monsieur-re Poiret," s.iid the employe at 
 the Museum, " how goes your healthorama ? " Then 
 not waiting for a reply, " Ladies," he said to Madame 
 Couture and Victorine, "I regret to see that some- 
 thing has gone wrong with you to-day." 
 
 "Are we going to diniare?" cried Horace Bianchon, 
 a medical student and a friend of Rastignac; "my 
 little stomach has gone down usque ad talones" 
 
 " It is a regular frostinorama" said Vautrin. "Draw 
 back a little, Pere Goriot; your foot takes up the 
 whole front of the stove." 
 
 " Illustrious Vautrin," cried Bianchon, " why do you 
 say frostinorama f That 's wrong ; you should say 
 frostorama." 
 
 " No ! " cried the employe at the Museum, fo it is frost- 
 inorama. I have frost in my toes." 
 
 "Ha! Ha!" 
 
 " Here comes his excellency the Marquis de Ras- 
 tignac, Doctor of Laws," cried Bianchon, catching 
 Eugene round the neck and hugging him till he 
 was nearly strangled. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! Help, all of you ! Help ! Oh ! " 
 
 Mademoiselle Miehonneau here entered stealthily, 
 bowed silently to the guests, and took her place among 
 the ladies. 
 
 " That old bat of a woman makes me shiver," 
 whispered Bianchon to Vautrin. " I am studying 
 phrenology, and I tell you she has the bumps of 
 Judas."
 
 64 Pere Goriot. 
 
 "Do you know anything about her?" asked Vautrin. 
 
 "Nothing but what I see. I give you my word 
 of honor that her lanky whiteness puts me in mind 
 of those long worms that eat their way through 
 beams." 
 
 " I '11 tell you what she is, young man," said the 
 man of forty, pulling his whiskers: 
 
 " ' Rose, she has lived the life of a rose, 
 The space of a summer's day ' " 
 
 " Here comes a famous souporama" cried Poiret, as 
 Christophe entered respectfully bearing the tureen. 
 
 " Pardon me, Monsieur," said Madame Vauquer ; 
 "it is soupe aux choux [cabbage soup]." 
 
 All the young men burst out laughing. 
 
 " Beaten, Poiret ! " 
 
 " Poir-r-r-rette is done for ! " 
 
 " Score two for Mamma Vauquer," cried Yautrin. 
 
 " Did any one notice the fog this morning?" asked 
 the employe. 
 
 " It was a fog out of all reason," cried Bianchon ; 
 " a fog without a parallel ; a dismal, melancholy, green, 
 stupid kind of a fog, a fog Goriot." 
 
 " Goriorama? cried the painter; "because it is no 
 go when you want to see through it." 
 
 " Ha ! my lord Goriot ; they are talking of you." 
 
 Sitting at the lower end of the table, near the door 
 opening on the pantry, Pere Goriot looked up at this, 
 smelling, as he did so, at the piece of bread placed 
 under his napkin, according to an old habit in sam- 
 pling flour, which mechanically reappeared when he 
 forgot himself at table.
 
 Ptre 6foriot. 65 
 
 " Well ! " cried Madame Vauquer sharply, in a voice 
 that rose above the general clatter ; " don't you find 
 the bread good enough for you?" 
 
 " It is very good, Madame," he replied ; " it is made 
 of Etampes flour, first quality." 
 
 " How do you know that?" asked Eugene. 
 
 " By it's taste ; by it's color." 
 
 " By the taste of the nose, you mean ; for you have 
 done nothing but smell it," said Madame Vauquer. 
 " You are getting so economical that by and by you 
 will be trying to get your meals by sniffing the smells 
 of the kitchen." 
 
 " T;ike out a patent for the process," cried the em- 
 ploye ; " you will make your fortune." 
 
 " Let him alone; he does it to make us believe he real- 
 ly has been engaged in selling flour," said the painter. 
 
 " Is your nose a corn-chandler ? " asked the young 
 man from the Museum. 
 
 " Corn-what?" said Bianchon. 
 
 " Corn-market." 
 
 " Corn-stalk." 
 
 " Corn-starch." 
 
 " Corn-et." 
 
 " Corn-er." 
 
 " Corn-elian." 
 
 " Corn-ucopia." 
 
 " Corn-orama." 
 
 These eight answers rattled from all parts of the 
 table like a volley of musketry, and made everybody 
 laugh, all the more when poor Pere Goriot looked 
 round with an air of utter bewilderment, like a man 
 trying to make out some meaning in a foreign tongue. 
 5
 
 66 Pere Goriot. 
 
 "Cor?" he said to Vautrin, who sat next to him. 
 
 "Corn, corns on your toes, old gentleman," said 
 Vautrin. patting him on the head in such a way as to 
 drive his hat down over his eyes. 
 
 The poor old man, stupefied by this brusque attack, 
 remained motionless for a moment, during which 
 Christophe carried away his soup; so that when Pere 
 Goriot, having taken off his hat, picked up his spoon 
 to begin his dinner, it tapped upon the table instead 
 of a plate. All present burst out laughing. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the old man, "that was a poor 
 joke; and if you give me any more such " 
 
 "Well, what then, papa?" said Vautrin, interrupt- 
 ing him. 
 
 " Well, you shall pay dearly for it some day 
 
 "Ah ! in the infernal regions, that 's it," said the 
 painter ; " in the little black hole where they put 
 naughty children." 
 
 "Well, Mademoiselle!" said Vautrin, addressing 
 Victorine ; " you seem to eat nothing. Was your 
 papa refractory to-day ? " 
 
 " He was horrible ! " said Madame Couture. 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Vautrin ; " we must bring him to 
 reason." 
 
 Rastignac, who was sitting next to Bianchon, said 
 to him : 
 
 "Mademoiselle can't bring an action for alimony, 
 for she eats nothing. Eh ! eh ! just see how Pere 
 Goriot is looking at her." 
 
 The old man had stopped eating to gaze at the 
 young girl, whose face was convulsed with grief, 
 the grief of a child repulsed by the father she loves.
 
 Pere Goriot. 67 
 
 " My dear fellow," said Rastignac in a whisper, " we 
 are all astray about Pere Goriot. He is neither weak 
 nor imbecile. Just turn a phrenological eye on him, 
 and tell me how he strikes you. I saw him last night 
 twist up a silver dish as if it had been wax ; and at 
 this very moment his face shows that his mind is full 
 of strange emotions. His life seems to me so myste- 
 rious that it might be worth some pains to study him. 
 Oh, very well, Bianchon ; you may laugh, but I 'm not 
 joking." 
 
 " I grant you the man has a medical interest ; he is 
 a case," said Bianchon. " If he '11 let me, I '11 dissect 
 him." 
 
 No, just feel his head." 
 
 " I don't know about that ; his stupidity might be 
 catchingr."
 
 68 Pere Goriot. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE next day Rastignac, elegantly dressed, started 
 about three o'clock in the afternoon to call upon Ma- 
 dame de Restaud, indulging as he went along in those 
 adventurous hopes which fill the lives of young men 
 with varying emotions. In moods like these they take 
 no account of obstacles or dangers ; success is their only 
 vista ; life is made poetic by the play of imagination, 
 and they are saddened or unhappy by the overthrow 
 of projects that exist only in their unbridled fancy. If 
 they were not handicapped by their ignorance and 
 their timidity this social world of ours would be an 
 impossibility. Eugene went along the muddy streets, 
 taking every precaution to keep his boots clean ; and 
 as he walked he turned over in his mind what he 
 should say to Madame de Restaud, providing him- 
 self with the repartees and witty sayings of an imagi- 
 nary conversation, rehearsing phrases a la Talleyrand, 
 and inventing tender scenes favorable to his project of 
 pushing his future in society. He did get his boots 
 muddy, however, and had to have them blacked and 
 his trousers brushed in the Palais-Royal. "If I were 
 rich," he said to himself as he changed a five-franc 
 piece which he had put into his pocket ("in case of 
 accident"), "I should have driven in a carriage to make
 
 Pere Groriot. 69 
 
 my call, and could have thought things over at ray 
 ease." 
 
 At last he reached the Rue du Helder, and asked for 
 Madame de Restaud. With the silent wrath of a man 
 certain of future triumph, he noticed the impertinent 
 looks, of the lacqueys, who saw him crossing the court- 
 yard on foot heralded by no sound of cai'riage wheels 
 at the gate. Those looks were the more galling be- 
 cause already he had been smitten by a sense of social 
 inferiority on seeing, as he entered the courtyard, a 
 fine horse in glittering harness attached to one of those 
 exquisite cabriolets, which evince the luxury of extra- 
 vagant existence and the habit of taking part in the 
 pleasures of Parisian life. Eugene grew out of temper 
 with himself. His brains, which he had stored with 
 clever sayings, refused to work ; he became stupid. 
 While waiting to know if the countess would receive 
 him, he stood by a window in the antechamber, leaning 
 his arm on the knob of its fastening and looking down 
 mechanically into the courtyard. He thought he was 
 kept waiting a long time, and would have gone away 
 in displeasure had he not been gifted with that southern 
 tenacity which works wonders if kept to a straight 
 line. 
 
 "Monsieur," said the footman, "Madame is in her 
 boudoir, and is very much occupied ; she did not an- 
 swer me. But if Monsieur will go into the salon, he 
 will find some one there who is also waiting." 
 
 Wondering within himself at the power possessed 
 by servants to judge and to betray their masters by a 
 word, Rastignac deliberately opened the door through 
 which the man had just passed, wishing, perhaps, to
 
 70 Pere Goriot. 
 
 prove to the lacqueys in attendance that he knew the 
 ways of the house. But he brought up like a fool in a 
 press-room, full of lamps and wardrobes, and an appa- 
 ratus for warming bath-towels, which led to a dark 
 passage and some back stairs. Smothered sounds of 
 laughter in the antechamber behind him put the finish- 
 ing stroke to his confusion. 
 
 " Monsieur, the salon is this way," said the footman, 
 with that false respect which is the last touch of 
 impertinence. 
 
 Eugene stepped back with such precipitation that 
 he knocked against a bath-tub, but happily held fast to 
 his hat so that it did not fall into the water. At this 
 moment a door opened at the end of the dark passage 
 (which was lighted by a lamp), and Rastignac heard 
 Madame de Restaud's voice, Pere Goriot's voice, and 
 the sound of kisses. He went back into the ante- 
 chamber, crossed it, followed the servant, and entered 
 the first salon, where he took his station at a window 
 which he saw at once must command the courtyard. 
 He wanted to see if Pere Goriot could really be Pere 
 Goriot. His heart beat violently as he remembered 
 the horrible insinuations of Vautrin. The footman 
 stood waiting to usher him through the door of an 
 inner drawing-room, when out of it came an elegant 
 young man, who said to the servant, crossly, 
 
 " I am going, Maurice ; you can tell Madame la 
 comtesse that I waited for her more than half an 
 hour." 
 
 This gay young man of fashion, who evidently had 
 the right of entrance, walked on, humming an Italian 
 melody, until he came near the window at which
 
 Pere Goriot. 71 
 
 Eugene was standing. He tried to see the face of the 
 student, and he also wished to get a glimpse into the 
 courtyard. 
 
 " Monsieur le comte had better stay a moment 
 longer; Madame is now at liberty," said Maurice, go- 
 ing back into the antechamber. 
 
 At this moment Pere Goriot came out of the house 
 near the porte-cochere, through a door that opened from 
 the back stair-case. The old man raised his umbrella, 
 and was about to open it without noticing that the 
 gates had been thrown back to admit a young man 
 wearing the ribbon of the Legion of Honor, who was 
 driving himself in a tilbury. Pere Goriot had only 
 time to step backward ; a moment more and he would 
 have been run over. The opening of the umbrella had 
 frightened the horse, which shied, and then dashed for- 
 ward to the steps of the portico. The young man 
 looked round angrily, saw Pere Goriot, and bowed to 
 him with the constrained civility often bestowed upon 
 a money-lender whom it is advisable to propitiate, or 
 vouchsafed to some smirched man reluctantly, and with 
 an after sense of shame. Pere Goriot returned it with 
 a little friendly nod, full of kindness. These things 
 passed like a flash. Too absorbed to notice that be 
 was not alone, Eugene suddenly heard the voice of 
 Madame de Restaud. 
 
 " Maxirne, are you going ? " she cried in a tone of 
 reproach, not un mingled with vexation. 
 
 The countess had not noticed the arrival of the til- 
 bury. Rastignac turned and saw her, dressed coquet- 
 tishly in a breakfast gown of white cashmere 'with pink 
 ribbons, her hair put up with the simplicity which is
 
 72 P$re Goriot. 
 
 the morning fashion of Parisian women. A fragrance 
 diffused about her seemed to suggest that she had just 
 taken her bath ; her eyes were limpid, and her beauty 
 was softened by an air of indolence and languor. Young 
 men have the eyes to see these things ; their minds 
 open to all the rays of a woman's charm as plants as- 
 similate from the air they breathe the substances which 
 give them life. Eugene felt the soft freshness of her 
 hands without touching them ; he saw through the 
 folds of her cashmere the lines of her beautiful figure. 
 She needed no steels or lacings, a belt alone held in 
 her flexible and rounded waist ; her feet were pretty 
 even in their slippers. 
 
 When Maxime raised her beautiful hand to his lips 
 Eugene for the first time perceived Maxime, and 
 Madame de Restaud perceived Eugene. 
 
 " Ah ! is that you, Monsieur de Rastignac ? I am 
 very glad to see you," she said in a tone which a man 
 of the world would have accepted as a dismissal. 
 
 Maxime looked first at Eugene and then at the 
 countess with an expression which might well have ex- 
 pelled the intruder. " What impertinence ! " it seemed 
 to say ; " my dear, I hope you are going to show that 
 puppy the door." 
 
 Rastignac took a violent aversion to this man. In 
 the first place, the blond and well-trimmed head of 
 Maxime m.-tde him ashamed of his own hair ; then 
 Maxima's boots were elegant and spotless, while on 
 his, in spite of all his care, there were spots of mud. 
 Maxime wore a frock-coat, which fitted him round the 
 waist like the corset of a pretty woman ; Eugene, on 
 the contrary, was wearing a black coat in the middle
 
 Pere Goriot. 73 
 
 of the afternoon. The clever son of the Charente felt 
 the advantages dress gave to this supercilious dandy 
 with his tall slender figure, light eyes, and pale skin, 
 a man, he thought to himsellj capable of bringing ruin 
 on the fatherless. 
 
 Meantime Madame de Restaud, without waiting for 
 any reply, flitted back into the great salon, the lappets 
 of her dress floating backward as she went, in a way 
 that gave her the appearance of a butterfly on the 
 wing. Maxime followed her ; Eugene, in a savage 
 mood, followed Maxime ; and all three stood before 
 the fireplace in the great salon. The student knew 
 well enough that he was in the way of that odious 
 Maxime ; but even at the risk of displeasing Madame 
 de Restaud, he was determined to annoy him. Sud- 
 denly he remembered seeing the young man at Madame 
 de Beauseant's ball, and guessed what might be his rela- 
 tions to Madame de Restaud ; but with that youthful 
 audacity which makes a man commit great follies or 
 secures him great successes, he said to himself, " That 
 man is my rival. I will put him out of my way." 
 Imprudent youth ! He did not know that Count 
 Maxime de Trailles was a dead shot, always ready to 
 take up an insult and kill his man. Eugene was a good 
 sportsman, but he could not hit the mark nineteen 
 times out of twenty in a shooting-gallery. The young 
 count threw himself into an easy-chair by the fire, 
 picked up the tongs, and tossed the wood about in so 
 violent and savage a manner that the fair face of An- 
 astasie clouded over with distress. She turned to 
 Eugene and gave him one of those chill interrogative 
 looks which plainly say, " Why don't you go away ? "
 
 74 Pere Goriot. 
 
 to which well-bred people at once reply by what we 
 may call the phrases of leave-taking. 
 
 Eugene, however, put on an agreeable manner, and 
 said, " Madame, I was in haste to see you, because " 
 
 He stopped short, for a door opened, and the gentle- 
 man who had driven into the courtyard entered the 
 room. He was without a hat, and did not bow to the 
 countess, but looked attentively at Rastignac, and held 
 out his hand to Max! me saying, " Good morning," with 
 an air of intimacy which greatly surprised Eugene. 
 
 "Monsieur de Restaud, " said the countess to the 
 student, motioning towards her husband. " Monsieur," 
 she said, presenting Eugene to the Comte de Restaud, 
 "is Monsieur de Rastignac, a relative of Madame de 
 Beauseant, through the Marcillacs. I had the pleasure 
 of meeting him at her ball." 
 
 " A relative of Madame de Beauseant, through the 
 Marcillacs" these words, uttered by the countess 
 with a certain emphasis (for a lady likes to make known 
 that she receives only those who are people of dis- 
 tinction), had an almost magical effect. The count 
 lost his coldly ceremonious air, and bowed to the 
 student. 
 
 " Delighted, Monsieur, to be able to make your ac- 
 quaintance," he said courteously. 
 
 Even Count Maxime de Trailles, casting an uneasy 
 look at de Rastignac, abandoned his impertinent man- 
 ner. This touch of a fairy wand, the magic of an aris- 
 tocratic name, let a flood of light into the brain of the 
 young southerner and gave him back his premeditated 
 cleverness. He suddenly caught a glimpse into the 
 great world of Paris, hitherto only cloud-land for him,
 
 Pere G-oriot. 75 
 
 and the Maison Vauquer and Pere Goriot vanished 
 from his thoughts. 
 
 " I thought the Marcillacs were extinct?" said Mon- 
 sieur cle Restaud to Eugene. 
 
 " You are right, Monsieur," he replied ; " my great- 
 uncle, the Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress 
 of the house of Marcillac. They had only one daughter, 
 who married the Marechal de Clarimbault, Madame de 
 Beauseant's grandfather on the mother's side. We are 
 the younger branch ; all the poorer for the fact that rny 
 great uncle, the Vice- Admiral, lost his fortune in the 
 service of the King. The Revolutionary government 
 would not admit our claims when it wound up the 
 affairs of the India Company." 
 
 " Did not Monsieur, your great-uncle, command the 
 ' Vengeur ' previous to 1789 ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " Then he must have known my grandfather, at that 
 time commanding the ' Warwick.' " 
 
 Here Maxime shrugged his shoulders slightly with a 
 glance at Madame de Restaud, which meant, " If they 
 begin to talk of naval affairs we shall not get a word 
 with each other." 
 
 Anastasie understood the look, and with the ease of 
 a practised woman she smiled and said, " Come this 
 way, Maxime ; I will show you what I want you to do 
 for me. Gentlemen, we will leave you to sail in com- 
 pany with the 'Warwick' and the 'Vengeur.'" 
 
 She rose as she spoke, making a treacherous little 
 sign to Maxime, and the two turned to leave the room. 
 As this morganatic couple (morganatic is a pretty and 
 expressive German word, which as yet has no equiva-
 
 76 Pere Goriot. 
 
 lent in the French language) were leaving the room, 
 the count stopped short in his conversation Witt 
 
 Eugene. 
 
 Anastasie," he said sharply, " don't go, my dear ; 
 
 you know very well " 
 
 I shall be back in a moment," she said, interrupt- 
 ing what he was about to say. " It will only take me 
 a Second to tell Maxime what I want him to do." 
 
 And she did come back. Like all women who study 
 the character of their husbands that they may be able 
 themselves to live as they please, she knew just how 
 far she could go without straining his forbearance, and 
 was careful not to offend him in the lesser things of 
 daily life. She was now aware from the tone of his 
 voice that it would not be safe to prolong her absence. 
 These contretemps were due to Eugene. The countess 
 expressed this by a glance and a gesture of vexation di- 
 rected to Maxime, who said pointedly to the count, his 
 wife, and de Rastignac, " I see you are all engaged. 
 I do not wish to be in your way. Adieu," and he left 
 the salon. 
 
 Don't go, Maxime," cried the count. 
 Come to dinner," said the countess, leaving Eugene 
 and the count together for the second time, and fol- 
 lowing Maxime into the outer salon, where they re- 
 mained long enough, as they thought, for Monsieur de 
 Restaud to get rid of his visitor. 
 
 Eugene heard them laughing together, talking and 
 pausing at intervals ; but the perverse youth continued 
 his conversation with Monsieur de Restaud, nattering 
 him and drawing him into discussions solely that he 
 might see the countess again and find out the secret
 
 Pere Croriot. 7T 
 
 of her relations to Pere Goriot. That this woman, 
 evidently in love with Maxime, yet all-powerful with 
 her husband, should be secretly connected in any way 
 with the old paste-maker, seemed to him a singular 
 mystery. He was resolved to penetrate it. It might 
 give him, he thought, some power over a woman so 
 eminently Parisian, that might serve the ends of his 
 ambition. 
 
 Anastasie," said the count, again calling her. 
 Well, Maxime," she said to the young man, " we 
 must put up with it. This evening " 
 
 I do hope, Nasie," he whispered, "that you will 
 give orders never to admit that young fool, whose 
 eyes sparkle like live coals when he looks at you. He 
 will make love to you and compromise you, and I 
 shall have to kill him." 
 
 "Don't be absurd, Maxime," she said ; "these little 
 students are, on the contrary, very useful as light- 
 ning-rods. Restaud shall be the man to deal with 
 him!" 
 
 Maxime laughed, and left the countess standing at 
 the window to see him get into his cabriolet and flour- 
 ish his whip over the champing steed. She did not 
 come back till the outer gates were closed. 
 
 "Just think, my dear," said the count, as she en- 
 tered ; " the country-seat of Monsieur's family is not 
 far from Vertueil on the Charente. His great-uncle 
 and my grandfather used to know each other." 
 
 "Charmed to be so nearly connected," said the 
 countess, with an absent manner. 
 
 "Nearer, perhaps, than you think for," said Eugene 
 in a low voice.
 
 78 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " In what way ? " she said quickly. 
 
 "Why," said the student, " I have just seen leaving 
 your house some one whose room is next to mine in 
 our pension, Pere Goriot." 
 
 At the jovial word " Pere," so disrespectfully ap- 
 plied, the count, who was mending the fire, flung 
 down the tongs as if they burned his fingers, and 
 started from his chair. 
 
 "Monsieur, you might at least say Monsieur 
 Goriot," he cried. 
 
 The countess turned pale when she saw her hus- 
 band's displeasure; then she blushed, and was evi- 
 dently embarrassed. She replied in a voice which she 
 strove to render natural, and with an air of assumed 
 ease : " It is impossible to know any one whom we 
 love more." Here she stopped ; and looking at her 
 piano as if struck by a sudden thought, she said : 
 
 "Do you like music, Monsieur? " 
 
 " Very much," said Eugene, flushing, and stupefied 
 by a confused sense that he must have committed 
 some enormous blunder. 
 
 "Do you sing?" she said, going to the piano and 
 running a brilliant scale, from C in the bass to F in 
 the treble, r-r-r-rah ! 
 
 "No, Madame." 
 
 Monsieur de Restaud was walking up and down the 
 room. 
 
 " That 's a pity ; you are cut off from one great 
 means of social success. Ca-ro, ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non 
 dubitare ! " sang the countess. 
 
 By pronouncing the name of Pere Goriot, Eugene 
 had for the second time waved a magic wand ; but its
 
 Pere Goriot. 79 
 
 effect was the opposite of that produced by the words, 
 "a relation of Madame de Beauseant." He was like a 
 man introduced by favor into the cabinet of a collec- 
 tor of curios, who touching thoughtlessly a case full 
 of sculptured figures, knocks off by accident three or 
 four heads which have been ill glued on. He felt 
 like jumping into an abyss. The face of Madame de 
 Restaud wore an expression of cold and hard indif- 
 ference, and her eyes pointedly avoided his. 
 
 " Madame," said he, " I leave you to converse with 
 Monsieur de Restaud. Be pleased to accept my hom- 
 age, and permit me " 
 
 " Whenever you come to see us," said the countess 
 quickly, cutting him short by a gesture, "you will be 
 sure of giving Monsieur de Restaud and myself the 
 greatest pleasure." 
 
 Eugene bowed low to husband and wife, and went 
 out, followed, in spite of his remonstrances, by Mon- 
 sieur de Restaud, who accompanied him through the 
 antechamber. 
 
 " Whenever that gentleman calls again," said the 
 count to Maurice, " remember that Madame and I are 
 not at home." 
 
 When Eugene came out on the portico he found 
 that it was raining. 
 
 " Well," he said to himself, " I have made some 
 horrible blunder, I don't know what it is, nor what 
 it may lead to ; and now I am going to spoil my hat 
 and clothes ! I 'd better have stayed at home grub- 
 bing at law, and contented myself with being a coun- 
 try magistrate. How am I to go into the world, when 
 to get along with decency one must have lots of
 
 80 Pere Goriot. 
 
 things, cabriolets, dress-boots, riggings that are ab- 
 solutely indispensable, gold chains, buckskin gloves for 
 the morning that cost six francs, and kid gloves for 
 the evening? Old rogue of a Pere Goriot, vaf" 
 
 When he found himself in the street the driver of a 
 glass coach, who had probably j"st disposed of a bri- 
 dal party and was ready to pick up a fare on his own 
 account before returning to his stable, made a sign to 
 Eugene, seeing him without an umbrella, in a black 
 coat, white waistcoat, yellow gloves, and varnished 
 boots. Eugene was in one of those blind rages which 
 prompt young men to plunge deeper into the gulf 
 they have fallen into, under the idea of finding some 
 lucky way of getting out. He signed to the coach- 
 man, and got into the carriage, where a few orange- 
 blogsoms and scraps of silver ribbon attested the recent 
 presence of a bridal party. 
 
 " Where to, Monsieur ? " said the man, who had taken 
 off his white gloves. 
 
 " Hang it ! " thought Eugene, " since I am in for it 
 I may as well get something out o it. To the Hotel 
 Beauseant," he said aloud. 
 
 " Which one? " asked the coachman. 
 
 This question wholly confounded our embryo man 
 of fashion, who was not aware that there were two 
 Hotels Beauseants, and did not know how rich he was 
 in grand relations to whom he was equally unknown. 
 
 " Vicomte cle Beauseant, Rue " 
 
 " De Crenelle," said the driver, nodding and inter- 
 rupting the direction. "You see there's the hotel of 
 the Cpmte and the Marquis de Beauseant, Rue Saint- 
 Dominique," he added, putting up the steps.
 
 Pere Goriot. 81 
 
 " I am aware of it," said Eugene dryly. " Is every- 
 body laughing at me to-day?" he said to himself, an- 
 grily flinging his hat upon the seat before him. " I 'm 
 launched on a prank which is going to cost me a king's 
 ransom. But at least I '11 pay a visit to my so-called 
 cousin in a style that is solidly aristocratic. Pere 
 Goriot has cost me not less than ten francs the old 
 scoundrel ! Confound it ! I '11 tell the whole story 
 to Madame de Beauseant ; perhaps it will make her 
 laugh. She may know what bond of iniquity unites 
 that old rat without a tail to his beautiful countess. 
 I had better on the whole stick to my cousin, and not 
 run after that shameless woman ; besides, I foresee 
 it would be horribly expensive. If the very name 
 of the Vicomtesse de Beauseant is so powerful, what 
 immense weight her personal influence must have! 
 Aim high, and put your trust in the Lord ! " 
 
 These words contain the substance of the thousand 
 and one thoughts which floated through his mind. He 
 recovered some calmness and self-possession as he saw 
 the rain falling, for he said to himself that if he was 
 forced to part with two of his precious five-franc pieces 
 they were well spent in saving his best coat and hat 
 and boots. He heard, with a touch of hilarity, the 
 coachman call " Gate, if you please ! " A Suisse, in red 
 livery and gold lace, made it swing on its hinges, and 
 Rastignac, with much complacency, saw his carriage 
 pass in under the archway, turn round in the courtyard, 
 and draw up under the roof of the portico. The coach- 
 man, in a big great-coat of blue with red facings, let 
 down the steps. As he got out of the carriage Eugene 
 heard sounds of stifled laughter proceeding from the 
 6
 
 82 Pere Goriot. 
 
 men-servants, three or four of whom were watching 
 the bridal coach from the colonnade. Their mirth en- 
 lightened the student, who now compared his vulgar 
 equipage with one of the most elegant coupes in Paris, 
 drawn by a pair of bay horses with roses in their head- 
 stalls, that were champing their bits under the charge 
 of a powdered coachman who kept a tight hand on 
 his reins. In the Chaussee d'Antin the stylish cabrio- 
 let of a dandy of twenty-six stood in the courtyard of 
 Madame de Restaud, while in the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain waited, in all the pomp of a grand-seigneur, 
 an equipage that thirty thousand francs would scarcely 
 have paid for. 
 
 " Who can that be?" thought Eugene, beginning to 
 be conscious that in Paris all women of fashion have 
 their private engagements ; and that the conquest of 
 one of these queens of society might cost more money 
 than blood. 
 
 " The deuce ! my cousin too ma^ have her Maxime." 
 He went up the broad front steps with a sinking 
 heart. A glass door opened before him, and he found 
 the footmen within looking, by this time, as solemn as 
 donkeys under the curry-comb. The ball had been 
 given in the state apartments which were on the 
 ground-floor of the hotel. Having had no time to call 
 upon his cousin between the invitation and the ball, he 
 had not yet penetrated to her private apartments, and 
 lie was now to see for the first time those marvels of 
 personal elegance which indicate the habits and the 
 tastes of a woman of distinction, a study all the 
 more interesting because the salon of Madame de Res- 
 taud had given him a standard of comparison. At
 
 Pere Goriot. 83 
 
 half-past four the viscountess was visible ; five minutes 
 earlier he would not have been admitted. Eugene, 
 who knew nothing of these various shades of Parisian 
 etiquette, was shown up the grand staircase, which was 
 banked with flowers and was white in tone, with gilt 
 balusters and a red carpet, to the rooms of Madame de 
 Beauseant. Although she was his cousin he knew 
 nothing of her biography, and was not aware that her 
 affairs were at this time passing from ear to ear in the 
 salons of Paris.
 
 84 Pere Goriot. 
 
 VII. 
 
 FOR three years the Vicomtesse de Beauseant had 
 been on terms of great intimacy with a wealthy and 
 celebrated Portuguese nobleman, the Marquis d'Ad- 
 juda-Pinto. It was one of those innocent friendships 
 which have so great a charm for those who are thus 
 allied that they cannot endure to share the companion- 
 ship with others. The Yicomte de Beauseant himself 
 set the example of respecting, willingly or unwillingly, 
 this Platonic intimacy. Visitors who in the early days 
 of the alliance came to call upon the viscountess at two 
 o'clock always found the Marquis d'Acljuda-Pinto in 
 her salon. Madame de Beauseant was not a woman 
 to close her doors to society ; but she received her 
 visitors so coldly, and her manner was so preoccupied, 
 that they soon found out they were in her way at that 
 hour. When it was understood in Paris that Madame 
 de Beauseant preferred not to receive visitors between 
 two and four o'clock, she was left in peace at those 
 hours. She went to the Bouffons or the opera accom- 
 panied by Monsieur cle Beauseant and Monsieur d'Ad- 
 juda-Pinto ; but Monsieur de Beauseant had the tact to 
 leave his wife with her friend the Portuguese after he 
 had established her for the evening. Monsieur d'Ad- 
 juda was now about to be married. lie was engaged 
 to a Mademoiselle de Rochefide ; and in all society
 
 Pere Groriot. 85 
 
 there was but one person who knew nothing of this en- 
 gagement. That one was Madame de Beauseant. Some 
 of her friends had indeed vaguely alluded to the event 
 as possible ; but she had laughed, believing that they 
 wished to trouble a happiness of which they were jeal- 
 ous. The banns, however, were on the eve of being 
 published ; and the handsome Portuguese had come to 
 tell the viscountess on the day of which we write, but 
 had not yet dared to put his treachery into words. 
 There is nothing a man dreads more than to break to 
 a woman the inevitable end of their relations. He 
 would rather defend himself against another man's 
 rapier pointed at his throat than meet the reproaches 
 of a woman, who, after beAvailing her wrongs for hours, 
 faints at his feet, and asks for salts. At this moment 
 Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pinto sat on thorns and was think- 
 ing of taking leave, saying to himself that Madame 
 de Beauseant would surely hear the news from others ; 
 that he would write to her ; and that it would be easier 
 to administer the fatal stab by letter. When, there- 
 fore, the footman announced Monsieur de Rastignac, 
 Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pinto made a slight gesture of 
 relief. Alas! a loving woman is more ingenious in 
 perceiving her wrongs than in varying pleasures for 
 the man she loves. When about to be forsaken, her 
 instinct divines the meaning of a gesture as unerr- 
 ingly as Virgil's courser divined in distant pastures 
 the presence of his mares. Therefore we may be sure 
 that Madame de Beauseant saw and understood that 
 slight yet significant movement of relief. 
 
 Eugene had not yet learned that before entering 
 society in Paris a man should inform himself, through
 
 86 Pere Goriot. 
 
 some friend of each family, about the history of hus- 
 band, wife, and children, lest he commit any of those 
 gross blunders which require him, as they say in Po- 
 land, to " harness oxen to his carriage," meaning, 
 doubtless, that the force of an ox-team alone can drag 
 the blunderer out of the mud-hole into which he has 
 plunged. If as yet there is no term in the French 
 language for such conversational mistakes, it is be- 
 cause they are practically impossible for Parisians by 
 reason of the publicity which all kinds of scandal in- 
 stantly obtain. After having gone heels over head 
 into the mire at Madame de Restaud's, where he had 
 no chance to harness his oxen, it seemed likely that 
 our provincial might yet need the services of a team- 
 ster by presenting himself at an equally inopportune 
 moment at Madame de Beauseant's. However, if his 
 visit had been horribly annoying to Madame de Res- 
 taud and Monsieur cle Trailles, he was now, on the 
 contrary, most welcome to Monsieur d'Adjuda. 
 
 " Adieu," said this gentleman, making for the door 
 as Eugene was shown into the charming inner draw- 
 ing-room, all rose and gray, combining luxury with 
 elegance. 
 
 " But this evening ? " said Madame de Beauseant, 
 turning from Eugene and looking after Adjuda ; " are 
 we not going to the Bouffons?" 
 
 " I cannot," he said, laying his hand on the door- 
 knob. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant rose and called him back, 
 without paying the least attention to Eugene, who 
 was left standing, bewildered by the sparkle of great 
 wealth, the reality, to his mind, of the " Arabian
 
 Pere Groriot. 87 
 
 Nights.' and much embarrassed to know what to do 
 with himself in the presence of a woman who took no 
 notice of him. Madame de Beauseant lifted her right 
 forefinger, and by a graceful gesture signed to the 
 marquis to come back to her. There was something 
 so passionately imperative in her air that he let go the 
 handle of the door and came back into the salon. Eu- 
 gene looked at him with eyes of envy. 
 
 " That 's the man who owns the coupe," he said to 
 himself. "Must one have blood horses, and liveries 
 all covered with gold lace, to make one's way in Paris 
 with a fashionable woman ?" 
 
 The devil Belial bit into his mind; the fever of 
 money-getting was in his veins ; the thirst for gold 
 parched his heart. He had one hundred and thirty 
 francs left, to last him three months. His father, 
 mother, brothers, sisters, and aunt had but two hun- 
 dred francs a month among them all. This rapid 
 comparison of the realities of his position with the end 
 that he was planning to attain, staggered him. 
 
 " Why cannot you go to the theatre ? " said the vis- 
 countess, smiling. 
 
 "I have business. I dine with the English ambas- 
 sador." 
 
 " But you can come away early." 
 
 When a man deceives, he is forced to prop one false- 
 hood by another. Monsieur d'Adjuda answered, 
 smiling, 
 
 " You insist, then ? " 
 
 " Of course I do." 
 
 " Ah ! that was just what I wanted to make you 
 say!" he replied, giving her a look sufficient to reas-
 
 88 Pere Goriot. 
 
 sure any other woman. He took her hand, kissed it, 
 and went out. 
 
 Eugene passed his fingers through his hair and 
 turned toward Madame de Beauseant to make his 
 bow, thinking she would now give her attention to 
 him. To his surprise, she sprang from her chair, ran 
 into the gallery, and looked out at Monsieur d'Adjuda 
 as he got into his carriage. She listened for his or- 
 ders, and heard the chasseur repeating to the coach- 
 man, "To Monsieur de Rochefide's." 
 
 These words, and the way d'Adjuda plunged into 
 his coupe, were like a flash of lightning and a thunder- 
 clap to the poor woman. She drew back sick with 
 dread. The worst catastrophes in the great world 
 take place thus quietly and suddenly. The viscountess 
 turned aside into her bed-room, took a dainty sheet of 
 note-paper, and wrote as follows : " When you have 
 dined at the Rochefide's (and not at the English 
 ambassador's), you owe me an explanation. I shall 
 expect you." After straightening a few letters made 
 illegible by the trembling of her hand, she added a 
 C, which meant " Claire de Bourgogne," and rang the 
 bell. 
 
 "Jacques," she said to her footman, "at half-past 
 seven take this note to Monsieur de Rochefide's, and 
 ask for the Marquis d'Adjuda. If he is there, have 
 the note taken to him at once. There is no answer. 
 If he is not there, bring it back to me." 
 
 " Madame la vicorntesse has a visitor in the salon. 1 ' 
 
 " Yes, true," she said, closing the door. 
 
 Eugene began to feel very ill at ease ; but Madame 
 de Beauseant at last came in and said in a voice whose
 
 Pere Goriot. 89 
 
 emotion thrilled him to the heart, " I beg your pardon, 
 Monsieur; I had to write a few words. Now I ana 
 quite at your service." 
 
 She did not know what she was saying. She was 
 thinking, "Ah ! he must be going to marry Mademoi- 
 selle de Rochefide. But will he? Can he? To-night 
 this marriage shall be broken off, or I But, no ! it 
 shall be!" 
 
 " Cousin," said Eugene. 
 
 "Hein?" said the viscountess, giving him a look 
 whose cold displeasure froze his very blood. He under- 
 stood her exclamation, for he had learned much during 
 the last few hours, and his mind was on the alert. 
 
 " Madame," he resumed, coloring ; he stopped short, 
 and then continued, "forgive me; I need help so 
 much, and this little shred of relationship would be 
 everything to me." 
 
 Madame de Beauseant smiled, but the smile was sad. 
 
 "If you knew the situation of my family," he con- 
 tinued, "I think you would find pleasure in playing 
 the part of a fairy godmother who removes all difficul- 
 ties out of the way of her godchild." 
 
 " Well, cousin," she said laughing, " what can I do 
 for you ? " 
 
 " How can I tell you ? To be acknowledged as your 
 relative, though the link is so far back as to be scarcely 
 visible, is in itself a fortune. I am confused, I don't 
 know what I had to say to you. You are the only 
 person whom I know in Paris. Ah ! I ask your advice; 
 look on me as you might on some poor child clinging 
 to your dress, as one who would die for you." 
 
 " Would you kill a man for my sake ? "
 
 90 Pere Goriot. 
 
 u I would kill two ! " exclaimed Eugene. 
 
 " Foolish boy ! for boy you are," she said, repress- 
 ing her tears. " You could love truly, faithfully ? " 
 
 "Ah !" he replied, throwing back his head. 
 
 The viscountess felt a sudden interest in the youth, 
 and smiled at his answer. This son of the south was 
 at the dawn of his ambition. As he passed from the 
 blue boudoir of Madame de Restaud to the rose-colored 
 drawing-room of Madame de Beauseant he had taken 
 a three-years' course in the social code of Paris, a 
 code never formulated in words, but constituting a high 
 social jurisprudence, which, if well studied and well 
 applied, leads to fortune. 
 
 " Already," said Eugene, " I was attracted at your 
 ball by Madame de Restaud, and this morning I went 
 to call upon her." 
 
 " You must have been very much in her way," re- 
 marked Madame de Beauseant. 
 
 "Indeed I was. I am an ignoramus who will set 
 everybody against him if you refuse to help me. I 
 think it must be difficult in Paris to find a young, beau- 
 tiful, rich, and elegant woman who is not already occu- 
 pied by the attachment of some man. I need one who 
 will teach me what you women know far better than 
 we do, life. Unless you guide me I shall be forever 
 stumbling on some Maxime de Trailles. I have come 
 to ask you in the first place to solve a riddle and ex- 
 plain to me the nature of a blunder I have committed 
 at Madame de Restaud's. I mentioned a Pere " 
 
 "Madame la Duchesse de Langeais," said Jacques, 
 cutting short Eugene's words. He made a gesture as 
 if greatly annoyed by the interruption.
 
 Pere G-oriot. 91 
 
 " If you wish to succeed in society," said Madame 
 de Beauseant, in a low voice, " you must begin by be- 
 ing less demonstrative. Ah, good morning, dear," 
 she cried, rising and going to meet the duchess, whose 
 hands she pressed tenderly, while the duchess responded 
 by fond little caresses. 
 
 "They are dear friends," thought Rastignac; "heart 
 answers to heart. I shall have two protectoresses, both 
 taking interest in my future." 
 
 " To what happy thought do I owe the pleasure of 
 seeing you to-day, dear Antoinette ? " said Madame de 
 Beauseant. 
 
 "I saw Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pinto going into Mon- 
 sieur de Rochetide's, and I knew that I should find 
 you alone." 
 
 Madame de Beauseant did not bite her lips, nor 
 blush, nor did the expression of her face change ; on 
 the contrary her bi'ow seemed to clear as Madame de 
 Langeais uttered the fatal words. 
 
 " If I had known you were engaged " added the 
 duchess, glancing at Eugene. 
 
 " Monsieur is Monsieur Eugene de Rastignac, one of 
 my cousins," said Madame de Beauseant. " Have you 
 heard," she continued, " of General Montriveau lately ? 
 Serizy told me yesterday that no one sees him now. 
 Has he been with you to-day ? " 
 
 People said that the Marquis de Montrivean had 
 broken with Madame de Langeais, who was deeply in 
 love with him. She felt the intended stab, and blushed 
 as she answered, He was at the Elysee yesterday." 
 
 " On duty ? " asked Madame de Beauseant. 
 
 " Clara, of course you know," said the duchess, spite
 
 92 Pere Goriot. 
 
 gleaming in her eyes, " that to-morrow the banns are 
 to be published between Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pinto and 
 Mademoiselle de Rochefide." 
 
 This blow struck home. The viscountess grew pale, 
 but she answered, laughing, 
 
 "That is merely a piece of gossip set afloat by 
 people who know nothing. Why should Monsieur 
 d'Adjuda-Pinto ally one of the noblest names in Por- 
 tugal with that of the Rochefkles ? Their title dates 
 from yesterday." 
 
 " They say Berthe will have two hundred thousand 
 francs a year." 
 
 " Monsieur d'Adjuda is too rich to marry for money." 
 
 "But, my dear Clara, Mademoiselle de Rochefide is 
 charming." 
 
 Ah ! " 
 
 " He dines there to-day ; the settlements are drawn ; 
 I am astonished that no one has told you." 
 
 " What was that blunder you were telling me about, 
 Monsieur ? " said Madame de Beauseant, turning to 
 Eugene. " Poor Monsieur de Rastignac has so re- 
 cently entered the gay world, dear Antoinette," she 
 continued, " that he cannot understand our conversa- 
 tion. Be good to him, and put off all you have to say 
 about this news until to-morrow. To-morrow we shall 
 know it officially, and you can be just as officious then, 
 you know." 
 
 The duchess gave Eugene one of those ineffable 
 looks which envelop a man from head to foot, strike 
 him flat, and let him drop to zero. 
 
 " Madame," he said, " without knowing what I was 
 about, I seem to have plunged a dagger into the heart
 
 Pere G-oriot. 93 
 
 of Madame de Restaud. Had I done this on purpose 
 I might not have been in disgrace ; my fault lay in not 
 knowing what I was doing." Eugene's natural clever- 
 ness made him conscious of the bitterness underlying 
 the affectionate words of the two ladies. " People," 
 he added, " do not break with the friend who inten- 
 tionally wounds them, though they may fear him for 
 the future. But he who wounds unconsciously is a 
 poor fool, a man of too little tact to turn anything 
 to profit, and every one despises him." 
 
 Madame de Beauseant gave the student a look that 
 expressed her gratitude, and yet was full of dignity. 
 This glance was balm to the wound inflicted by the 
 duchess when she looked him over and over with the 
 eye of a detective. 
 
 "About my blunder you must know," resumed 
 Eugene, "that I had succeeded in securing the good- 
 will of Monsieur de Restaud, for " turning to the 
 duchess with a manner partly humble, partly mischiev- 
 ous, " I ought to inform you, Madame, that I am as 
 yet only a poor devil of a law-student, very lonely, 
 very poor " 
 
 " Never say so, Monsieur de Rastignac ; we women 
 do not value that which is not valued by others." 
 
 " But," said Eugene, " I am only twenty-two, and I 
 must learn to put up with the natural misfortunes of 
 my age. Besides, I am making my confession : could 
 I kneel in a more charming confessional ? Here we 
 commit the sins for which we receive penance in 
 the other." 
 
 The duchess listened to these irreligious remarks with 
 studied coldness, and marked her sense of their bad
 
 94 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 taste by saying to the viscountess : " Monsieur has 
 just arrived ? " 
 
 Madame de Beauseant laughed heartily both at her 
 cousin and at the duchess. " Yes," she said, " he has 
 just arrived in Paris, my dear, in search of a precep- 
 tress to teach him taste and manners." 
 
 " Madame la duchesse," said Eugene, " is it not per- 
 missible to try to possess ourselves of the secrets of 
 those who charm us ? There ! " he said to himself ; 
 "now I am talking just like a hair-dresser " 
 
 "But I have heard that Madame de Restaud is a 
 pupil of Monsieur de Trailles," said the duchess. 
 
 " I did not know it, Madame," resumed the student ; 
 " and like a fool I broke in upon them. However, I 
 was getting on very well with the husband, and the 
 wife had apparently made up her mind to put up with 
 me, when I must needs tell them that I recognized a 
 man whom I had just seen leave their house by a bnck 
 door, and who kissed the countess at the end of the 
 passage " 
 
 " Who was it?" exclaimed both ladies at once. 
 
 " An old man, who lives for two louis a month in the 
 Faubourg Saint-Marc,eau, where I, a poor student, live 
 myself ; a forlorn old man, whom we all ridicule and 
 call Pere Goriot." 
 
 "Oh, child that you are !" exclaimed the viscount- 
 ess ; " Madame de Restaud was a Mademoiselle 
 Goriot." 
 
 "Daughter of a man who makes vermicelli," said 
 the duchess; "a person who was presented at court 
 on the same day as a pastry-cook's daughter. Don't 
 you remember, Clara ? The king laughed, and said a
 
 Pere Goriot. 95 
 
 good thing in Latin about flour people how was 
 it ? People " 
 
 u JEjusdem farince" suggested Eugene. 
 
 " That was it ! " said the duchess. 
 
 " And so he is really her father ? " exclaimed the 
 student, with a gesture of disgust. 
 
 " Just so ; the man had two daughters, and was 
 quite foolish about them. Both of them have since 
 cast him off." 
 
 " The youngest," said Madame de Beauseant, ad- 
 dressing Madame de Langeais, " is married, is she not, 
 to a banker with a German name, a Baron de Nu- 
 cingen ? Is not her name Delphine, a fair woman, 
 who has a side box at the opera, and who comes to 
 the Bouffons, and laughs a great deal to attract 
 attention ? " 
 
 The duchess smiled as she answered, "My dear, 
 you astonish me. Why do you care to know about 
 such people ? A man must be madly in love, as they 
 say Restaud was with Mademoiselle Anastasie, to 
 powder himself with flour. Ah ! but he made a poor 
 bargain! She has fallen into Monsieur de Trailles' 
 hands, and he will ruin her." 
 
 "Did you say that they have cast off their father?" 
 asked Eugene. 
 
 " Yes, indeed ; their father, the father, a father," 
 cried the viscountess ; " a good father, who gave these 
 daughters all he had, to each of them seven or 
 eight hundred thousand francs, that he might secure 
 their happiness by great marriages, and kept for him- 
 self only eight or ten thousand francs a year ; thinking 
 that his daughters would remain his daughters, that
 
 96 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 he would have two homes in his old nge, two families 
 where he would be adored and taken care of. Before 
 three years were over, both sons-in-law cast him out 
 as if he had been the veriest wretch living 
 
 Tears gathered in the eyes of Eugene de Rastignac, 
 who had recently renewed the pure and sacred ties of 
 home, and still clung to the beliefs of his boyhood. 
 He was making his first encounter with the world on 
 the battle-field of Parisian civilization. Real feeling 
 is contagious ; and for a moment all three looked at 
 each other in silence. 
 
 " Good heavens ! " said Madame de Langeais ; " it 
 seems horrible ; and yet we see the same thing every 
 day. And why? My dear Clara, have you never 
 thought what it would be to have a son-in-law? A 
 son-in-law is a man for whom we may bring up you 
 or I a dear little creature to whom we should be 
 bound by a thousand tender ties ; who for seventeen 
 years would be the darling of the family, 'the white 
 soul of her home,' as Lamartine says, and who might 
 end by becoming its curse. When the man for whom 
 we brought her up takes her away, he will use her love 
 for him as an axe to cut her free from every tie that 
 binds her to her family. Yesterday our little daugh- 
 ter was our own, and we were all in all to her ; to- 
 morrow she will seem to be our enemy. Don't we 
 see such tragedies around us every day? The daugh- 
 ter-in-law coolly impertinent to the father who has 
 sacrificed everything for her husband, the son-in-law 
 thrusting his wife's mother out of doors ? I hear peo- 
 ple say that there is nothing dramatic now-a-days in 
 society. Why, this drama of the son-in-law is horrible,
 
 Pere Goriot. 97 
 
 not to speak of o\ir marriages, which have become 
 sad follies, to say the least. I perfectly recollect the 
 history of that vermicelli man, Foriot " 
 
 " Goriot, Madame." 
 
 "Yes, true; JVIoribt was president of his section 
 during the Revolution. He was behind the scenes, 
 and when the great scarcity was at hand he made his 
 fortune by selling flour for ten times what it cost him. 
 My grandmother's bailiff sold him wheat to an im- 
 mense amount. Goriot no doubt divided his profits 
 as all those people did with the Committee of Pub- 
 lic Safety. I recollect the bailiff saying to my grand- 
 mother that she might feel quite safe at Grandvilliers, 
 because her crops were an excellent certificate of citi- 
 zenship. Well ! this Loriot, who sold flour to the men 
 who cut our heads off, had but one passion, he adored 
 his daughters. He contrived to perch the eldest in 
 the Restaud family, and graft the other on the Baron 
 de Nucingen, a rich banker who pretends to be a 
 Royalist. You understand that during the Empire 
 the sons-in-law did not so much mind having the old 
 Jacobin of '93 under their roof : under Bonaparte 
 what did it signify ? But when the Bourbons came 
 back, the old man was a great annoyance to Monsieur 
 de Restaud, and still more so to the banker. The 
 daughters, who for aught I know may have been fond 
 of their father, tried to 'run with the hare and hold 
 with the hounds,' as we say. They asked Goriot to 
 their houses when they had nobody there ; invented, 
 I have no doubt, pretty pretexts : ' Oh, do come, 
 papa ! It will be so pleasant : we shall have you all 
 to ourselves,' and so on. My dear, I always main-
 
 98 Pere Goriot. 
 
 tain that real feeling is sharp-sighted ; if so, poor old 
 '93's heart must have bled. He saw that his daughters 
 were ashamed of him, and that if they loved their 
 husbands he was injuring them. He saw the sacrifice 
 which was required of him, and he made it, made 
 it as only a father can. He sacrificed himself ; he 
 banished himself from their homes ; and when he saw 
 his daughters happy he was satisfied. Father and 
 daughters were accomplices in this crime against pa- 
 ternity. We see this sort of thing every day. You 
 can well imagine Pere Doriot to have been like a spot 
 of cart-grease in his daughters' drawing-rooms. He 
 would have felt it himself, and suffered from it. What 
 happened to him as a father, my dear, happens to the 
 prettiest woman in the world with the man she loves 
 best. If her love wearies him he will go elsewhere, 
 and will treat her like a coward to get away. That is 
 the upshot of all extravagant attachments. The heart 
 is a treasury : empty it all at once, and you will find 
 yourself ruined. We think just as little of those who 
 expend all their love as we do of a man who flings 
 away his last penny. This father gave his all. For 
 twenty years he had lavished his love, his life, on these 
 two girls ; his fortune he gave them in one day. The 
 lemon was squeezed, and the daughters flung the rind 
 into the gutter." 
 
 " The world is infamous 1 " said the viscountess, 
 fringing her ribbon and not looking up, for Madame 
 de Langeais' allusions to herself as she told the story 
 cut her to the quick. 
 
 "Infamous? No," replied the duchess. "The 
 world goes on its own way, that is all. I only want
 
 Pere G-oriot. 99 
 
 to prove to you that I am not its dupe. Yes, I think 
 as you do," she added, taking the viscountess's hand, 
 " if the world is a slough, let us stand upon high ground 
 and keep ourselves out of the slime." 
 
 She rose and kissed Madame de Beauseant on the 
 forehead, saying, " You are lovely at this moment, 
 dear heart ; you have the prettiest color I ever 
 saw," and she left the room with a slight bow to the 
 student. 
 
 "Pere Goriot is sublime!" cried Eugene, remember- 
 ing how he had seen him destroy his pieces of silver 
 in the night-time. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant did not hear him; she was 
 thinking deeply. A few moments passed in silence, 
 and our poor youth, in a stupor of shyness, dared 
 neither go nor stay, nor speak to her. 
 
 "The world is wicked it is cruel," said the vis- 
 countess at last. " When misfortune overtakes us 
 there is never a friend wanting to tell it in our ear ; to 
 probe our heart with a dagger and ask us to admire 
 the hilt. Already sarca'sm ! already the mocking 
 tongues ! Ah ! I will defend myself!" She lifted her 
 head, like the grande dame (the great lady) that she 
 was, and her eyes flashed. " Ah !" she exclaimed, see- 
 ing Eugene, " you here ? " 
 
 " Still here," he answered humbly. 
 
 " Monsieur de Rastignac," she said, " learn to treat 
 society as it deserves. You wish to succeed in it ; I 
 will help you. You will find out how deep is the cor- y 
 ruption among women ; how wide the range of the ' 
 contemptible vanity of men. I thought myself well 
 read in the book of the world ; I find pages hitherto
 
 100 Pdre Groriot. 
 
 unknown to me. Now I know all. The more cold- 
 blooded your purpose the surer you will be of success. 
 Strike without pity, and the world will fear you. Treat 
 men and women as post-horses : never mind if you 
 founder them, so long as they get you to the next relay. 
 In the first place, you will make no progress unless 
 you find some woman to take you up and be interested 
 in you. She must be young, rich, and elegant. But 
 if you really care for her, hide your feelings ; don't let 
 her suspect them, or you are lost : instead of being the 
 executioner, you will be the victim. If you love, keep 
 your own secret. Never reveal it until you know well 
 the friend to whom you bare your heart. Learn to 
 mistrust the world. Let me tell you, Miguel [she did 
 not notice her mistake], there is something in those 
 Goriot sisters even more shocking than their neglect 
 of their father, whom they wish dead. I mean their 
 rivalry to each other. Restaud is of ancient family ; 
 his wife has been adopted by his relatives and pre- 
 sented at court. But her sister, her rich sister, the 
 beautiful Madame Delphine de Nucingen, though the 
 wife of a man made of money, is dying with envy, 
 the victim of jealousy. She is a hundred leagues lower 
 in society than her sister. Her sister is no longer her 
 sister; they renounce each other as they both re- 
 nounced their father. Madame de Nucingen would 
 lap up all the mud between the Rue Saint-Lazare and 
 the Rue de Grenelle to gain admittance to my salon. 
 She thought deMarsay could arrange it for her, and she 
 has been the slave of de Marsay, and bored people with 
 de Marsay. De Marsay cares very little for her. My 
 cousin, here is your opportunity. If you present her
 
 Pert Goriot. 101 
 
 to me she will adore you, and lavish everything upon 
 you. You may adore her if you can, but at any rate 
 make use of her. I will let her come here to two or 
 three balls, but only to balls, with the crowd; I will 
 never receive her in the morning. I will bow to her, 
 and that will be quite enough. You have shut her 
 sister's doors against you by pi-onouncing the name 
 of Pere Goriot. Yes, my dear cousin, you may call 
 twenty times at Madame de Kestaud's, and twenty 
 times you will be told that she is out. Orders have 
 been given to refuse you admission. Well, make Pere 
 Goriot introduce you to her sister ; wear the colors 
 of the handsome Madame Delphine de Nucingen ; let 
 it be known that you are the man she distinguishes, 
 and other women will go distracted about you. Her 
 rivals, her friends, her dearest friends, will try to 
 win you from her. Some women prefer a man who is 
 the property of another woman, just as women of the 
 middle class think they acquire our manners when they 
 copy our millinery. You will succeed ; and in Paris 
 success is everything, it is the key to power. If wo- 
 men think you clever, men will believe you so unless 
 you undeceive them. From this point you may aim at 
 what you will, you have your toot upon the ladder. 
 You will fiud out that society is a mixture of dupes 
 and cheats. Try to be neither the one nor the other. 
 My cousin, I give you my name, like the clew of Ari- 
 adne, to lead you into the heart of the labyrinth. Do 
 not disgrace it," she added, turning to him with the 
 glance of a queen ; " give it back to me unsullied. Now 
 leave me. Women have their battles to fight as well 
 as men."
 
 102 Pere Croriot. 
 
 " If you need a man ready to fire a mine for you " 
 began Eugene. 
 
 What if I should ? " she cried. 
 
 He laid his hand upon his heart, smiled in answer to 
 her smile, and went out. 
 
 It was five o'clock ; he was very hungry and half 
 afraid he should not get home in time for dinner. This 
 fear made him appreciate the advantages of whirl- 
 ing along in his glass coach. The fast motion made 
 his mind run on the new thoughts that assailed him. 
 When a youth of his age meets with a rebuff' he loses 
 his temper, he grows furious, shakes his fist at socie- 
 ty, and vows to be revenged ; but at the same time 
 his confidence in himself is shaken. Rastignac was 
 overwhelmed by the words still ringing in his ears, 
 " You have closed the doors of the countess against 
 you." 
 
 " I will 'call there again and again," he cried ; "and 
 if Madame de Beauseant is right, if she has given 
 orders not to admit me, I Madame de Restaud 
 shall meet me at every house she visits I will make 
 myself a sure shot ; I will kill her Maxime." 
 
 " But how about money ? " cried a voice within 
 him. " Where will you get it ? You need money for 
 everything." 
 
 At this thought, the wealth that shone round Ma- 
 dame de Restaud glittered before his eyes. He had 
 seen her lapped in luxury that was doubtless dear to 
 a demoiselle Goriot ; gilded and costly ornaments lay 
 strewn about her salons with the unmeaning profusion 
 that betrays the taste of a parvenue and her passion 
 for squandering money. The fascinations of mere
 
 Pere Goriot. 103 
 
 costliness had been effaced by the grandeur of the 
 Hotel Beauseant. His imagination now whirled him 
 to the summits of Parisian life, and suggested thoughts 
 which seared his heart, while they stimulated his in- 
 telligence and widened his perceptions. He saw the 
 world in its true colors. He saw wealth triumphant 
 over morality, triumphant over law and order. He 
 saw in riches the ultima ratio mundi. " Vautrin is 
 right," he cried, " luck makes the difference between 
 vice and virtue." 
 
 Having reached the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, 
 he ran rapidly to his room and returned bringing ten 
 francs for his coachman, and then entered the sicken- 
 ing dining-room where the eighteen guests sat eating 
 their food like animals at a manger. The sight of their 
 collective poverty and the dinginess of the place were 
 horrible to him. The transition from the wealth and 
 grace and beauty he had left was too abrupt, too com- 
 plete, not to excite beyond all bounds his growing am- 
 bition. On the one hand fresh and lovely images of 
 all that was elegant in social life, framed in marvels of 
 art and luxury, and passionate" with poetical emotion ; 
 on the other, a dark picture of degradation, sinister 
 faces where passions had blighted all but the sinews 
 and the mere mechanism. The advice wrung from 
 Madame de Beauseant in her anguish, and her tempting 
 offers to his ambition came back to his memory, and the 
 misery about him was their commentary. He resolved 
 to open two parallel trenches, law and love; and 
 to win fortune by his profession and as a man of the 
 world. Child that he was ! these lines are geometric 
 aliens, asymptotes that never touch.
 
 104 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " You are solemn, Monsieur le marquis," said Vau- 
 trin, giving him one of those keen glances by which 
 this singular man seemed to catch the hidden thoughts 
 of those around him. 
 
 " I am not disposed to permit jokes from people who 
 call me Monsieur le marquis," Eugene replied. "To 
 be a marquis in Paris requires an income of a hundred 
 thousand francs, and those who live in the Maisou 
 Vauquer are not exactly favorites of fortune." 
 
 Vautrin looked at Rastignac with a patronizing air, 
 which seemed to say contemptuously, " You young 
 brat ! I could gobble you up at a mouthful ; " but he 
 answered, " You are in a bad humor because you have 
 not succeeded with the beautiful countess." 
 
 " She has shut her doors against me for saying that 
 her father dined here with me at this table," cried 
 Eugene angrily. 
 
 All present looked at one another. Pere Goriot 
 looked down and turned aside to wipe his eyes. 
 
 " You have blown your snuff into my face," he said 
 to his neighbor. 
 
 " Whoever annoys Pere Goriot will answer for it to 
 me," cried Eugene, looking at the man who sat next 
 to the old paste-maker. "He is better than any of 
 us. I don't include the ladies," he added, bowing to 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer. 
 
 This speech brought the matter to a conclusion, for 
 Eugene had uttered it in a way to silence all the others 
 except Vautrin, who said sarcastically, " If you are 
 going to take up Pere Goriot and make yourself re- 
 sponsible for all lie says and does, you will have to 
 learn to use a sword and fire a pistol."
 
 Pere Groriot. 105 
 
 " I mean to," said Eugene. 
 t " You declare war then ?" 
 
 " Perhaps I do," replied Rastignac ; " but I owe no 
 man an account of my conduct, especially as I don't 
 try to find out what other people are doing in the 
 middle of the night." 
 
 Vautrin shot a side-glance at him. 
 
 " My young friend," said he, " those who don't want 
 to be deceived at a puppet-show had better go into the 
 booth and not try to peep through holes in the curtain. 
 That 's enough for the present," he added, seeing that 
 Eugene was about to reply ; " we will have a little talk 
 by ourselves whenever you like." 
 
 The rest of the dinner passed in silence. Pere 
 Goriot, absorbed by the pang of hearing Eugene's re- 
 mark about his daughter, was not conscious that a 
 change had taken place concerning him in the opinion 
 of others, and that a young man able to put his perse- 
 cutors to silence had taken up his defence. 
 
 " Can it be possible," said Madame Vauquer, in a 
 whisper, " that Pere Goriot is really the father of a 
 countess ? " 
 
 "And of a baroness, too," said Eugene. 
 
 " The father is all there is of him," said Bianchon to 
 Rastignac. " I have felt his head. It has run to one 
 bump, philoprogenitiveness, the bump of paternity. 
 He is all father Eternal Father, I should say." 
 
 Eugene was too preoccupied to laugh. He was con- 
 sidering how to profit by Madame do Beauseant's ad- 
 vice, and in what way he could provide himself with 
 money. He was silent and self-absorbed as he saw 
 the rich plains of high society stretching afar as in a
 
 106 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 vision. The others rose and left him alone when 
 dinner was over. 
 
 "You have seen my daughter?" said Goriot in a 
 voice which betrayed emotion. 
 
 Startled from his meditation, Eugene took the old 
 man by the hand and said, as he looked at him almost 
 tenderly, 
 
 "You are a good and honorable man. "We will talk 
 by and by about your daughters," and without allow- 
 ing Pere Goriot to say more he went to his room and 
 wrote the following letter to his mother : 
 
 MY DEAR MOTHER, See if you cannot provide for your 
 grown-up son out of your own breast as you did for him in 
 his infancy. I am in a position which may speedily lead to 
 fortune. I want twelve hundred francs, and 1 must have them 
 at any price. Do not speak of this to my father. He might ob- 
 ject ; and if I cannot get this money I shall be in such despair 
 as to be almost ready to blow my brains out. I will tell you all 
 about it when I see you, for I should have to write volumes 
 if I tried to explain to you the situation. I have not gambled, 
 dear mother, and I have no debts ; but if you want to preserve 
 the life you gave me, you must manage to find me this money. 
 I have been to visit the Vicomtesse de Beauseant, who takes 
 me under her protection. I have to go into society, and I have 
 not a sou to buy gloves to wear. I would willingly eat noth- 
 ing but bread, and drink nothing but water ; I could live on 
 almost nothing if necessary, but I cannot do without my tools 
 to work with, tools which cultivate the vines in tbis part of 
 the world. I must either make my way or stay in a mud-hole. 
 I know what hopes you have placed on me ; and I want as 
 soon as possible to realize them. Dearest mother, sell some 
 of your old jewels ; before long I will give them back to you. 
 I know the situation of our family well enough to appreciate
 
 Pere Goriot. 107 
 
 such sacrifices, and you may be sure that I would not ask you 
 to make them in vain, if I did I should be a monster. I 
 beseech you to see in this request a cry of imperative necessity. 
 Our future depends on this loan, with which I can open my 
 campaign, tor this life of Paris is a ceaseless battle. If 
 to make up the sum there is no other resource than to sell my 
 aunt's old lace, tell her I will hereafter send her some far more 
 beautiful, etc. 
 
 He wrote also to his sisters, begging them to send 
 him all their little savings ; and as it was necessary 
 that this sacrifice (which he knew they would make 
 gladly for his sake) should not come to the ears of his 
 parents, he enlisted their delicacy by touching those 
 chords of honor which ring so true in the hearts of 
 innocent young girls. 
 
 After writing these letters, he was assailed by doubts 
 and fears ; he panted and trembled. His ambitious 
 young heart knew the pure nobleness of those tender 
 souls hidden away in the country solitudes ; he knew 
 what privations he was bringing on the sisters, yet 
 with what joy they would welcome his request. He 
 could hear them whispering in the distant fields of the 
 "dear, dear brother ;" he saw them counting over their 
 little hoard, inventing girlish devices to send it to him 
 secretly, practising a first deception for his sake. 
 His conscience leapt to the light. " A sister's heart is 
 like a diamond," he said to himself; " a running stream 
 of tenderness, clear and pure." 
 
 He was ashamed of what he had written. How 
 they would pray for him ! How they would lift their 
 souls to Heaven for his success ! With what passion- 
 ate delight they would sacrifice themselves for his
 
 108 Pere Goriot. 
 
 advantage ! How grieved his mother would be if she 
 could not send him the whole sum ! And all this good- 
 ness, all these sacrifices, were to serve him ns a ladder 
 to mount into the favor of Delphine de Nucingen ! A 
 few tears grains of incense flung for the last time 
 on the sacred altar of his home dropped from his 
 eyes. He walked up and down the room in a state of 
 agitation and despair. Pere Goriot seeing him thus, 
 for the door of his room was left ajar, came in and 
 asked, 
 
 " Is anything the matter, Monsieur ? " 
 
 " Ah ! my good neighbor," Eugene replied ; " I am 
 a son and a brother, even as you are a father. You 
 may well tremble for the Countess Anastasie. She is 
 in the power of Monsieur de Trailles, and he will be 
 her ruin." 
 
 Pere Goriot drew back to his own room, muttering 
 a few words whose meaning was not intelligible. 
 
 The next morning Rastignac went out and posted 
 his letters. He hesitated up to the last moment ; but 
 as he flung them into the box he cried, " I will suc- 
 ceed ! v So says the gambler; so says the great com- 
 mander. Superstitious words, that have ruined more 
 men than they have ever saved !
 
 Pere Croriot. 109 
 
 VIII. 
 
 A FEW days later Eugene went again to call on 
 Madame de Restaud, and was not received. Three 
 times he tried her door, and three times he found it 
 closed against him, though he chose hours when he 
 knew Monsieur Maxime de Trailles was not there. 
 Madame de Beauseant was right : he was to visit her 
 no more. 
 
 Our student now ceased to study. He went to 
 the Law School merely to answer at roll-call ; when 
 that was. over he decamped. He had persuaded him- 
 self, as students often do, that he might as well put 
 off study until it was time to prepare for the exam- 
 inations. He resolved to take his second and third 
 terms together, and to study law with all his might at 
 the last moment. He could thus count on fifteen 
 months of leisure in which to navigate the ocean of 
 Paris, to try what women's influence might do for him, 
 and find the way to fish for fortune. 
 
 During this week he called twice on Madame de 
 Beauseant, taking care not to go till he had seen the 
 carriage of Monsieur d'Adjuda-Pinto driven out of the 
 courtyard. For a little while this distinguished woman, 
 the most poetic figure in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, 
 remained mistress of her field of battle. She broke 
 off for a time the engagement of Monsieur d'Adjuda-
 
 110 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Pinto to Mademoiselle de Rochefide ; but these last 
 days of intimacy, made feverish by fears that she must 
 finally lose her friend, only served to precipitate the 
 catastrophe. Both the marquis and the Rochefides 
 looked on the estrangement and reconciliation as for- 
 tunate circumstances. They hoped that Madame de 
 Beauseant would gradually grow reconciled to the 
 marriage, and by sacrificing the daily visits hitherto 
 so dear to her, permit the marquis to fulfil the destiny 
 that belongs to every man. He himself was playing a 
 part, notwithstanding his protestations to the contrary 
 made daily to Madame de Beauseant. She, meantime, 
 though not deceived, liked his efforts to deceive her. 
 "Instead of bravely jumping out of the window, she 
 has preferred to roll down stairs step by step," said 
 her best friend the Duchesse de Langeais. Still, these 
 final moments lasted long enough to let the viscountess 
 launch her young relative, to whom she had taken an 
 almost superstitious fancy, upon the Paris world. He 
 had shown himself full of feeling for her at a time 
 when women find small pity or sympathy from others ; 
 if a man utters tender words at such a time, he usually 
 does it on speculation. 
 
 For the purpose of knowing his ground before lay- 
 ing siege to Madame de Nucingen, Eugene tried to 
 learn all he could about the early history of Pere 
 Goriot ; and he gathered certain accurate information, 
 which may briefly be given here. 
 
 Jean Joachim Goriot had been, before the Revolu- 
 tion, a journeyman vermicelli-maker; skilful, frugal, 
 and sufficiently successful to buy up the business of his 
 master when the latter was killed by chance in the first
 
 P$re Goriot. Ill 
 
 insurrection of 1789. His place of business was in 
 the Rue Jussienne, near the Halle aux Bles (Corn- 
 market) ; and he had the sound good sense to accept 
 the office of president of the section, and thus secure 
 for his business the protection of the persons who had 
 most influence in those dangerous times. This fore- 
 sight laid the foundation of his fortune, which began 
 in the time of the great scarcity, real or pretended, 
 in consequence of which flour went up to enormous 
 prices in Paris. People trampled each other to death 
 at the shops of the bakers, while others quietly bought 
 the Italian pastes without difficulty from the grocers. 
 That year Citizen Goriot acquired capital enough to 
 carry on his future business with all the advantages of 
 a man who has plenty of ready money. During the 
 worst days of the Revolution he escaped through a 
 circumstance which he shared with other men of lim- 
 ited capacity, his mediocrity saved him. Moreover, 
 as he was not known to be rich until the danger of 
 being so was at an end, he excited no envy. The 
 flour market seemed to have absorbed all his faculties. 
 In any matter that had to do with wheat, flour, or 
 refuse grain, whether it were to sample their various 
 qualities or know where they could best be bought ; to 
 keep them in good order or foresee the markets ; to 
 prophesy the results of a harvest, bad or bountiful, 
 and buy breadstuffs at the right moment or import 
 them from Sicily or southern Russia, Fere Goriot 
 had not his equal. To see him at his desk explaining 
 the laws that regulate the importation of grain, ex- 
 posing their influence upon trade, and pointing out 
 their deficiencies, he might have been thought fit for
 
 112 Pre G-oriot. 
 
 a cabinet minister. Patient, active, energetic, alwnys 
 on hand, quick to seize an advantage in business, he 
 had the eye of an eagle in his trade. He foresaw 
 everything, provided for everything, knew everything, 
 and kept his own counsel. Diplomatist in laying his 
 plans, he was a general in executing them. But take 
 him away from his specialty, from his little dark 
 shop, on the threshold of which he spent his leisure 
 moments leaning against the post of its street door, 
 and he fell back into a mere journeyman, rough, stu- 
 pid, incapable of understanding an argument, insensi- 
 ble to mental enjoyment ; a man who would go to 
 sleep at the theatre, and whose only strong point was 
 his dense stupidity. 
 
 Men of this type are always much alike ; in nearly 
 all of them you will find one deep feeling hidden in 
 their souls. The heart of the old paste-maker held 
 two affections; they absorbed its juices just as the 
 grain-market absorbed his brain. His wife, the only 
 daughter of a rich farmer at Brie, was the object of 
 his fervent admiration ; his love for her was unbounded. 
 In her nature, fragile yet firm, sensible and sweet, he 
 found a happy contrast to his own. If there is any 
 sentiment inborn in the heart of man, it is one of pride 
 in protecting a being weaker than himself. Add love 
 to this and the gratitude that simple natures feel to- 
 wards one who is the fount of all their happiness, and 
 you will comprehend various moral singularities other- 
 wise inexplicable. After seven years of married life 
 without a cloud, Goriot, unhappily for himself, lost his 
 wife. She was beginning to acquire a strong influence 
 over him beyond the simple range of his affections.
 
 Pere Goriot. 113 
 
 Had she lived, she might have cultivated his sluggish 
 nature and roused it to some knowledge of life and the 
 world about him. Left to himself, fatherhood became 
 his absorbing passion, and it developed under his lonely 
 circumstances until it passed the bounds of reason. 
 His affections, balked by death, were now concentrated 
 on his daughters, who for a time satisfied to the full 
 his need of love. 
 
 Though many prosperous marriages were proposed 
 to him by mei'chants and fanners who would gladly 
 have given him their daughters, he persisted in remain- 
 ing a widower. His father-in-law, the only man for 
 whom he had ever felt a liking, declared that Goriot 
 had promised his wife never to be faithless even to her 
 memory. The frequenters of the Halle aux Bles, 
 incapable of understanding so refined a folly, jested 
 roughly on his fidelity. The first who did so in his 
 hearing received a sudden blow on the shoulder from 
 the paste-maker's strong fist, which sent him head fore- 
 most on the curbstone of the Rue Obi in. The blind 
 devotion, the sensitive and nervous affection which 
 Goriot gave to his daughters was so well known, that 
 one day at the Halle a rival in the market, wishing 
 to get him out of the way for a short time, told him 
 that his daughter Delphine had been run over by a 
 cabriolet. Pale as a ghost he left the Halle. On 
 reaching home he found the story false, but was ill 
 for several days from the agitation it had caused him. 
 This time he did not punish with a blow the man 
 who played the trick, but he hunted him from the 
 markets, and forced him at a critical moment into 
 bankruptcy.
 
 114 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 The education of his daughters was, naturally, inju- 
 dicious. As he had sixty thousand francs a year, and 
 spent about twelve hundred francs upon himself, he 
 had enough to satisfy every girlish caprice. The best 
 masters were employed to teach them those accomplish 
 ments which are thought to make a good education. 
 They had a dame decompagnie who, happily for them, 
 was a woman of sense and spirit. They rode on horse- 
 back ; they drove in carriages ; they lived in luxury 
 If they expressed a wish, no matter what the cost, 
 their father was eager to grant it ; all he asked in re- 
 turn was a caress. He ranked them with the angels, 
 far above himself in every way. Poor man, he loved 
 even the pain they caused him. When they were of 
 age to be married he permitted them to choose their 
 husbands. Each was to have for dowry half her 
 father's fortune. Anastasie, the eldest, had aristocratic 
 tastes, and was courted by the Comte de Restaud for 
 her beauty. She left her father's house to enter an 
 exalted social sphere. Delphine loved money. She 
 married Nucingen, a banker of German origin and a 
 baron of the Holy Empire. Goriot remained a ver- 
 micelli-maker. His daughters and sons-in-law were 
 ashamed that he continued this business, although the 
 occupation was life itself to him. After resisting their 
 appeals for five years he consented to retire on the 
 profits of these last years. This capital, as Madame 
 Vauquer ascertained when he first went to live with 
 her, yielded an income of from eight to ten thousand 
 francs. It was despair that drove him to the Maison 
 Vauquer ; despair at the discovery that his daugh- 
 ters were forced by their husbands not only to refuse
 
 Pere G-oriot. 115 
 
 him a home, but even to receive him openly in their 
 houses. 
 
 Such was the substance of the information given to 
 Rastignac by a Monsieur Muret, who had purchased 
 the business from Godot. The account given by the 
 Duchesse de Langeais was thus confirmed, and here 
 ends the introduction to an obscure but terrible 
 Parisian tragedy. 
 
 Towards the end of the first week in December 
 Rastignac received letters from his mother and his eld- 
 est sister. Their well-known handwriting made jjis 
 heart beat fast, partly with relief and partly with appre- 
 hension. Those slender papers held the sentence of 
 life or death to his ambition. If he dreaded failure as 
 he thought of his parents' poverty, he knew their love 
 for him too well not to tremble lest they might grant 
 his prayer at the cost of their Life's blood. His mother's 
 letter was as follows : 
 
 MY DEAR CHILD, I send you what you ask for. Make 
 good use of this money, for if your life depended on it I could 
 not raise so large a sum again without speaking to your 
 father, and that would cause trouble for our family. To get 
 it we should be obliged to mortgage our property. I cannot 
 judge of the value of plans that I know nothing about ; but 
 what can they be if you are afraid to tell them to me ? An 
 explanation would not require volumes ; we mothers under- 
 stand our children at a word, and that word would have saved 
 me some sharp pangs of doubt and anxiety. I cannot bide 
 from you the painful impression made upon me by your letter. 
 My dear son, what is it that has led you to make me so uneasy ? 
 You must have suffered iu writing that letter, for I have suffered 
 so much in reading it. What project have you for the future ?
 
 116 Pre G-oriot. 
 
 Does your life, your happiness, as you say, depend upon 
 appearing what you are not ; upon entering a world where you 
 cannot live without spending money which you cannot afford ; 
 nor without losing time most precious for your studies? 
 
 My own Eugene, believe your mother when she tells you 
 that crooked paths cannot lead to noble ends. Patience and 
 self-sacrifice are the virtues which young men in your position 
 must cultivate. But I am not reproaching you ; I would not 
 mar our offering by a bitter word. I speak as a mother who 
 trusts her son, even though she cautions him. You know 
 your duty, and I know the purity of, your heart and the loyalty 
 of your intentions. Therefore I do not fear to say, If all is 
 right, my dearest, follow out your plans. I tremble because 
 I am your mother ; but every step you make in life will have 
 my prayers and blessing. You will need to be good and to 
 be wise, for the future of five beings near and dear to you is 
 in your hands. Yes, our prosperity is bound up in your pros- 
 perity, as your happiness is our joy. We pray God to be with 
 you in aD your undertakings. 
 
 Your aunt Marcillac has been unspeakably kind in this 
 affair; she even understood and sympathized with what you 
 said of your gloves. " But, then," as she said laughing, " I 
 have always had a soft spot in my heart fur the eldest son." 
 My Eugene, be grateful to your aunt. I will not tell you what 
 she has done for you until you have succeeded ; if I did, the 
 money might scorch your fingers. Ah ! you children little 
 know what a pang it is to part with souvenirs ; but what would 
 we not do for you! She begs me to say that she sends a kiss, 
 and wishes her kiss could give you strength to prosper. Dear, 
 good woman ! she would have written herself but she has 
 gout in her fingers. Your father is well. The grape harvest 
 of 1819 proves better than we expected. Good-by, my dear 
 boy. I say nothing about the sisters, for Laure is writing to 
 you. I leave her the pleasure of telling all the little gossip of 
 the family. Heaven grant you may do well ! Ah, prosper,
 
 G-oriot. 117 
 
 my Eugene ! Thou hast made me too anxious I could not 
 bear it a second time. I know at last what it is to be poor, 
 and to long for money that I might give it to my child. 
 
 Well ! adieu. Write to us constantly ; and take the kiss 
 thy mother sends thee. 
 
 When Eugene had read this letter he was in tears. 
 He was thinking of Pere Goriot destroying his porrin- 
 ger and selling it to pay his daughter's note of hand. 
 "My mother has given her jewels," he cried, turning 
 fiercely on himself. " My aunt must have wept as she 
 sold her family relics. What right have I to con- 
 demn Anastasie ? I have done for self what she did 
 for her lover ! Which is the worst, she or I ? " His 
 whole being was wrung with intolerable remorse. He 
 would relinquish his ambition, he would not touch 
 the money. He was seized by one of those noble 
 secret returns of conscience so little comprehended by 
 men as they judge their fellows ; so often, we may 
 believe, taken into the great account when the angels 
 receive the sinners condemned by the justice of the 
 world. Rastignac opened his sister's letter, and its 
 innocent, tender trustfulness fell like balm upon his 
 spirit : 
 
 Your letter came just at the right moment, dear brother. 
 Agathe and I had debated so long what to do with our money, 
 and we had thought of so many ways of spending it, that we 
 could not decide upon anything. You are like the servant of the 
 King of Spain when he threw down all his master's watches, 
 you have made us agree. Really and truly, we were always 
 disputing which of our fancies we should follow ; but, dear 
 Eugene, we never thought of this, which exactly suits us both. 
 Agathe jumped for joy. In fact, we were all day in such high
 
 118 Pere Goriot. 
 
 spirits u on sufficient grounds" (aunt's style) that mamma put 
 on her severe manner and said, "Young ladies, what is the 
 matter with you ? " If she had scolded us a little bit, I do be- 
 lieve it would have made us happier still. Surely women must 
 enjoy making sacrifices for those they love. But I was sad in 
 the midst of my joy. I am afraid I shall make a bad wife, I 
 am so extravagant. I had just bought myself two sashes, and 
 a stiletto to punch eyelets in my corsets, mere foolishness ! 
 and so I had less money than that fat Agathe, who is 
 economical and hoards her five-franc pieces like a magpie. 
 She had two hundred francs ; while I, O dear Eugene, had 
 only a hundred and fifty! I was well punished for my extrava- 
 gance. I wanted to fling my sash into the well. I know I 
 shall never have any pleasure in wearing it ; I shall feel as if 
 I had stolen it from you. Agathe was so kind : she said, 
 " Let us send the three hundred and fifty all together." But I 
 feel as if I must tell you just how it was. Do you want to 
 know how we managed so as not to let any one suspect what 
 we were doing ? as you said we must keep the secret. We 
 took our precious money and went out for a walk. When we 
 got to the high-road we ran as fast as we could to Ruffee. 
 There we gave all the money to Monsieur Gritnbert at the 
 Messageries-Royales coach office. We flew home like swal- 
 lows, so fast because we were so light-hearted, Agathe 
 said. We said lots of things to each other which I should not 
 like to repeat to you, Monsieur le Parisien. They were all 
 about you. Oh ! dear brother, we love you there ! it is all 
 in those three words. 
 
 As for keeping the secret, naughty little girls, as aunt calls 
 us, can do anything, even keep silent ! Mamma went to 
 Angouleme mysteriously with aunt the other day, and they 
 would not tell us a word about the high and mighty purposes 
 of the expedition. They have held long private conferences ; 
 but we are sent out of the room, and even Monsieur le baron 
 is not admitted. Great affairs occupy all minds in the king-
 
 Pere Goriot. 119 
 
 dorn of Rastignac. The muslin dress, embroidered in satin- 
 stitch by the infantas for the queen, her majesty, is getting on, 
 though they can only work at it in the utmost secresy. There 
 are now only two breadths to finish. It has been decided to 
 build no wall toward Verteuil ; there is to be a hedge. This 
 will deprive the natives of wall-fruit, but offers a fine view to 
 foreigners. If the heir-presumptive wants any handkerchiefs, 
 he is hereby informed that the dowager-countess de Marcillac, 
 turning over the treasures in her trunks (excavations in Her- 
 culaneum and Pompeii), came upon a lovely piece of linen cam- 
 bric, which she did not know she had. The princesses Laure 
 and Agathe put their thread, needles, and fingers the latter, 
 alas ! a little too red at his highness's orders. The two 
 young princes, Don Henri and Don Gabriel, keep at their old 
 tricks, gorging themselves with grapes, worrying their sisters, 
 learning nothing, bird's-nesting, making a racket, and cut- 
 ting, in defiance of the laws of the State, willow twigs for 
 switches. The Pope's nuncio, commonly called Monsieur le 
 cure", threatens to excommunicate them if the sacred canons 
 of grammar are neglected for popguns. 
 
 Adieu, dear brother. Never did a letter carry deeper wishes 
 for your happiness, nor so much grateful love. How many 
 things you will have to tell us when you come home! You 
 will tell me all, I know, I am the eldest. Aunt threw out 
 a mysterious hint of success in the great world : 
 
 " A lady's name she whispered, but, hush ! for all the rest," 
 a word to the wise, you know, we understand each other ! 
 
 Tell me, Eugene, would you like shirts instead of hand- 
 kerchiefs? We can make them for you. Answer this at 
 once. If you want some fine shirts, very nicely made, we 
 must set to work immediately. And if there are any new 
 ways of making them in Paris which we do not know here, 
 send us a pattern, particularly for the cuffs. Adieu, adieu. 
 I kiss you over your left eyebrow, for that spot belongs exclu- 
 sively to me. I leave the other page for Agathe, who has
 
 120 Pere Goriot. 
 
 promised not to look at what I have written ; Lut to make 
 sure, I shall stay behind her till she has finished. 
 Thy sister who loves thee, 
 
 LAURE DE RASTIGNAC. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! '' cried Eugene : " yes ! fortune at any 
 price ! No treasures could repay them for their devo- 
 tion. I will shower upon them every happiness. Fif- 
 teen hundred francs ! " he added, after a pause. " Every 
 five-franc piece must do its work. Laure is right ; my 
 shirts are all too coarse. A young girl becomes as cun- 
 ning as a thief when she plans for others. Innocent 
 herself, far-sighted for me! She is like the angels, 
 who forgive the human faults they cannot share." 
 
 The world was all before him ! Already a tailor had 
 been called, sounded, and selected. When Eugene first 
 beheld Monsieur de Trailles, he became conscious of 
 the enormous influence tailors exert over the lives of 
 young men. A man's tailor must be either his mortal 
 enemy or his trusted friend. Eugene's choice fell upon 
 a man who took a fatherly position towards his patrons, 
 and considered himself a link between the present and 
 the future of young men who aspired to get on in the 
 world. Rastignac showed his gratitude, and made the 
 man's fortune by one of those clever sayings for which 
 he became celebrated in after years. " I have known 
 him make two pairs of trousers which made two mar- 
 riages of forty thousand francs a year," he said.
 
 Pere Goriot. 121 
 
 IX. 
 
 FIFTEEN hundred francs and all the clothes he needed ! 
 Our ardent son of the south flung his hesitations to the 
 wind, and went down to breakfast with that indefinable 
 air which a youth puts on when he is conscious of pos- 
 sessing money. The moment that a student jingles 
 coin in his pocket he feels that he is leaning on a pillar 
 of sti-ength. His step becomes assured ; his lever has a 
 fulcrum to work on ; he looks ahead ; he sees his way ; 
 his very movements grow alert. Yesterday, timid and 
 despondent, he could hardly resent an injury; to-day 
 he is ready to offer one to the chief of state. A curi- 
 ous transformation is at work within him. He wants 
 all things, feels himself capable of all things ; his desires 
 rush forth at random ; he is gay, generous, and open- 
 hearted, the fledgling has found his wings. As a 
 penniless student he had been content to snatch a scrap 
 of pleasure as a dog steals a bone, cracks it, sucks the 
 marrow furtively, and runs away. But the young man 
 who rattles money in his breeches pocket can afford to 
 linger over his enjoyments; he can suck their juice at 
 leisure; he floats in summer air; for him the harsh 
 word poverty no longer has a meaning, all Paris be- 
 longs to him. In youth how these th ings glitter ! how 
 they sparkle and flame! Age of glad strength, by 
 which few profit, either men or women ; age of debts
 
 122 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 and anxieties which enhance the joys ! He who has 
 never haunted the left bank of the Seine between the 
 Rue Saint-Jacques and the Rue dss Saint-Peres knows 
 little of the comedy, or the tragedy, of human life. 
 
 " Ah ! if the women of Paris did but know ! " 
 thought Eugene, as he devoured Madame Vauquer's 
 baked pears at a farthing apiece, " they would want 
 me to love them." 
 
 At this moment a messenger from the Messageries- 
 Royales came into the dining-room, having rung at 
 the gate-bell. He asked for Monsieur Eugene de Ras- 
 tignac, for whom he brought two bags of silver coin 
 and the register for signature. 
 
 Vautrin threw a glance round Rastignac as keen and 
 sharp as the lash of a whip. 
 
 " You will be able to pay for your fencing lessons," 
 he said, " and your pistols too." 
 
 " The galleons have come in," said Madame Vauquer, 
 glancing at the bags. 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau dared not cast her eyes 
 at them, fearing to show her covetousness. 
 
 " You have a good mother," said Madame Couture. 
 
 "> Monsieur has a good mother," repeated Poiret. 
 
 " Oh, yes ! Mamma has bled herself," said Vautrin, 
 " and now you may take your fling if you like ; go into 
 the world and fish for dots, or dance with countesses 
 and peach-blossoms. But take my advice, young man, 
 stick to the pistol-gallery." 
 
 Vautrin put himself in the attitude of taking aim at 
 an adversary. Rastignac felt in his pocket for a pour- 
 boire to the messenger, but found nothing ; Vautrin 
 put his hand in his, and flung the man a franc.
 
 Pere aoriot. 123 
 
 " Your credit is good," he observed, looking at the 
 student. 
 
 Rastignac was forced to thank him, although since 
 the sharp words they had exchanged after his first visit 
 to Madame de Beauseant the man had become intoler- 
 able to him. For a week Eugene and Vautrin had not 
 spoken, and each had silently watched the other. The 
 student in vain asked himself the reason. There is no 
 doubt that ideas strike with a force proportionate to the 
 vigor of their conception ; they hit the mark at which 
 they are aimed by some such mathematical law as that 
 which guides the shell when it leaves the mouth of the 
 cannon. The effects are various. There are tender 
 natures which ideas penetrate and blast to ashes ; there 
 are vigorous natures, skulls of iron, from which the 
 thoughts and wills of other men glance off like bullets 
 flattened as they strike a wall ; others, again, are soft 
 and cottony, and into them ideas sink dead, like can- 
 non-balls that bury themselves in the earth-works of a 
 fortification. 
 
 Rastignac's nature was a powder-flask ready to ex- 
 plode at a touch. He had too much youthful vitality 
 not to be open to this imposition of ideas, this mag- 
 netism of mind upon mind, whose capricious phenomena 
 affect us on all sides without our being aware of it. 
 His moral perceptions were as clear as his eyes, keen 
 as those of a lynx. Mentnlly and physically he had 
 that mysterious power to take and give impressions at 
 which we marvel in men of superior calibre : skilful 
 swordsmen quick to know the weak places in every 
 breastplate. During the past month Eugene's finer 
 qualities had developed in common with his defects.
 
 124 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 His defects were nourished by his entrance into the 
 great world, and by some slight accomplishment of his 
 ambitious dreams. Among his finer qualities may be 
 counted that southern vivacity of spirit which compels 
 a man to go straight at a difficulty and master it, and 
 will not suffer him to be baffled by uncertainty. This 
 quality northern people regard as a defect. To their 
 minds, if it was the cause of Murat's rise, it was also the 
 cause of his death : from which we may conclude that 
 when a man unites the trickery of the north to the au- 
 dacity of the region south of the Loire, he has reached 
 perfection and may aspire to be king of Sweden. Ras- 
 tignac could not, therefore, long remain passive under 
 Vautrin's fire without making up his mind whether the 
 man was his friend or his enemy. From time to time 
 he was certain that this strange being penetrated his 
 motives, divined his passions, and read his heart ; hold- 
 ing guard at the same time over his own secrets with 
 the impassiveness of the sphinx .who sees and knows 
 all, and reveals nothing. His pockets being now full 
 of money, Eugene mutinied. 
 
 " Do me the favor to wait," he said to Vautrin, who 
 had risen to leave the room after drinking the last 
 drops of his coffee. 
 
 " Why ? " asked the latter, putting on his broad- 
 brimmed hat, and picking up his cane. This cane was 
 loaded with iron, and he was fond of twirling it about 
 his head with the air of a man who thought himself a 
 match for half-a-dozen robbers. 
 
 " I wish to return your money," replied Rastignac, 
 unfastening one of his bags and counting out a hun- 
 dred and forty francs for Madame Vauquer. "Short
 
 Pere Goriot. 125 
 
 accounts make long friends," he said to the widow. 
 " Now I have paid up to the last day of December. 
 Can you change me this five-franc piece ? " 
 
 " Long friends make short accounts," echoed Poiret, 
 looking at Vautrin. 
 
 " Here are your twenty sous" said Rastignac, hold- 
 ing out a franc to the sphinx in a wig. 
 
 " One would think you were afraid to owe me any- 
 thing," cried Vautrin, plunging his divining glance into 
 the very soul of the young man, and giving him one of 
 those mocking Diogenistic smiles which Eugene had 
 again and again been on the point of resenting. 
 
 " Well yes," said the student, lifting his bags and 
 preparing to go upstairs. 
 
 Vautrin went out of the door that led into the salon; 
 the student passed through that leading to the staircase. 
 
 " Do you know, Monsieur le Marquis de Rastignaco- 
 rama, that what you said to me just now was not ex- 
 actly polite ? " said Vautrin, coming through the door 
 leading from the salon into the passage, and speaking 
 to the student, who looked at him coolly. 
 
 Rastignac shut the dining-room door, and drew Vau- 
 trin to the foot of the staircase, in the little square 
 space that separated the dining-room from the kitchen. 
 In this passage there was a glass door opening upon 
 the garden, the glass of which was protected by iron 
 bars. There the student said, before Sylvie, who was 
 coming out of her kitchen, 
 
 " Monsieur Vautrin, I am not a marquis, and my 
 name is not Rastignacorama." 
 
 "They are going to fight," said Mademoiselle Mi- 
 chonneau in a tone of indifference.
 
 126 P2re Goriot. 
 
 " Fight a duel," repeated Poiret. 
 
 " Oh, no," said Madame Vauquer, fingering her pile 
 of five-franc pieces. 
 
 " Oh, see ! They have gone down under the lin- 
 dens," cried Mademoiselle Victorine, getting up and 
 looking into the garden. " And he was in the right 
 that poor young man ! " 
 
 " Let us go to our rooms, my dearest," said Madame 
 Couture, "these things do not concern us." 
 
 As Madame Couture and Victorine turned to leave 
 the room they met Sylvie in the doorway, who barred 
 their passage. 
 
 " What 's the matter ? " she cried. " Monsieur Vautrin 
 said to Monsieur Eugene, ' Let us have an explanation,' 
 and he took him by the arm, and there they are, tramp- 
 ling down our artichokes." 
 
 At this moment Vautrin re-appeared. " Madame 
 Vauquer," he said, smiling, " don't be afraid ; I am 
 going to try my pistols under the trees yonder." 
 
 " Oh ! Monsieur," cried Victorine, clasping her hands, 
 " why do you wish to kill Monsieur Eugene ? " 
 
 Vautrin made a step backward and looked at her. 
 
 " Oh ! ho ! a new story," he cried, with an amused air 
 which brought a blush to her pale cheek. " He is very 
 nice, is n't he? A charming young man! You have given 
 me an idea. I '11 make you both happy, my little girl." 
 
 Madame Couture had taken her charge by the arm 
 and now drew her away hastily, saying in an under- 
 tone, " Vietorine ! what has come over you to-day? " 
 
 "I beg you will fire no pistols in my garden," said 
 Madame Vauquer. " Don't go and frighten the whole 
 neighborhood, and bring the police upon us."
 
 Pre Qoriot. 127 
 
 " Oh, keep calm, Mamma Vauquer," replied Vautrin. 
 " There, there it 's all right. We will go to the 
 pistol-gallery." 
 
 He went back to Rastignac and took him familiarly 
 by the arm : " If I prove to you that at thirty-six paces 
 I can put a bullet five times through the ace of spades, 
 it won't take away your courage. You look to me 
 like a man who would balk at nothing when his blood 
 was up, and get himself killed as soon as not like a 
 simpleton." 
 
 " You wish to back out of it," said Eugene. 
 
 " Don't provoke me," replied Vautrin. " Come and 
 sit down yonder," he added, pointing to the benches 
 painted green ; " it is not cold, and nobody can over- 
 hear us there. You are a good fellow, to whom I wish 
 no harm. I like you, on the honor of Tromp thunder ! 
 honor of Vautrin ; and I '11 tell you why I like you. 
 In the first place, I know you inside and out, just as 
 well as if I had made you ; and I will prove it to you. 
 Put your bags down there," he added, pointing to the 
 round table. 
 
 Rastignac put his money on the table and sat down, 
 devoured by curiosity as to this sudden change in a 
 man who having just proposed to kill him, now as- 
 sumed to be his protector. 
 
 " You want to know who I am, what I have done, 
 and what I am doing," resumed Vautrin. " You are too 
 inquisitive, young man stop, stop ! be calm ! you have 
 more of that to hear. I have had misfortunes. Listen 
 to me first ; you can talk afterwards. Here is my past 
 life in three words : Who am I ? Vautrin. What do 
 I do ? Just what I please Pass on. Do you want to
 
 128 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 know my character ? Good to those who are good to 
 me ; whose heart answers to mine. From them I '11 
 take anything. They may kick me on the shins if 
 they like, I won't even say, * Take care ! ' But, nom 
 cTune pipe, I 'm as wicked as the devil to those who 
 annoy me, or those I don't like. It is as well to let 
 you know at once that I don't mind killing a man any 
 more than that ! [spitting before him.] Only, I en- 
 deavor to kill him properly, and when it can't be helped. 
 I am what you may call an artist. I have read the 
 memoirs of Benvenuto Cellini, and read them in 
 Italian too, which may surprise you. I learned from 
 that man bold, determined fellow that he was ! to 
 imitate the ways of Providence, who kills at random, 
 and to love the beautiful wherever I see it. And, after 
 all, is n't it a fine thing to stand single-handed against 
 the world, with the luck on our side ? 
 
 " I have reflected deeply on the forces that govern 
 your social order or disorder. My lad, duels are 
 child's play, absurdities. When in the course of 
 human events one of two living men has to disappear, 
 they must be idiots to leave anything to chance. A 
 duel ! heads or tails ! that 's what it is. I can put 
 five balls running through the same hole in the ace of 
 spades, and at thirty-six paces, to boot. When any 
 one is gifted with that little talent, he might be sup- 
 posed to be certain of killing his man. "Well, for all 
 that, I 've fired at a man at twenty paces, and missed 
 him ; and the scoundrel had never pulled a trigger in 
 his life ! See," he continued, opening his shirt and 
 showing a breast as shaggy as a bear's back, with long 
 hair like the mane of a wild animal, which caused a
 
 Pere Goriot. 129 
 
 sickening sensation of fear and repulsion ; " that green- 
 horn scorched me," he added, catching Rastignac's 
 'hand and putting his finger into the scar. 
 
 " But in those days I was a youngster ; only twenty- 
 one, just your age ; and I still believed in something, 
 woman's love, for instance, and a heap of nonsense 
 into which you are just plunging. We might have 
 fought, and you might have killed me, just now. 
 Suppose I was underground, where would you be? 
 Obliged to fly to Switzerland and live on papa's 
 money, only he has n't got any. Now, I am going 
 to put before you the position in which you stand ; 
 and I shall do it with the authority of a man who has 
 looked into things in this lower world, and knows that 
 there are but two paths open to us, blind obedience 
 or revolt. I don't obey, take that for granted. Now, 
 do you know what you need, at the pace you are 
 going? A million of francs, immediately. If you 
 don't get them, with your excitable temperament 
 you'll be wandering with your feet in the nets at 
 Saint-Cloud and your head in the air looking for the 
 Supreme Being, before long. I '11 give you your 
 million." 
 
 He paused and looked at Eugene. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! We are getting friendly to Papa Vau- 
 trin. When he offers us a million, we are like a young 
 girl to whom the lover says, ' To-night,' and she begins 
 to prink like a little cat licking her fur when she has 
 lapped her milk. All right! Well, then, between 
 ourselves, this is how it is with you, young man. 
 Down yonder in the country there 's papa and mamma, 
 and our great-aunt, and two sisters (seventeen and
 
 130 Pere Goriot. 
 
 eighteen years of age), and two little brothers (ten 
 and fifteen). There 's the whole ship's company. The 
 aunt teaches the sisters, the cure imparts Latin to the 
 boys. The family eat more boiled chestnuts than 
 wheat bread ; papa tries not to wear out his breeches ; 
 mamma can hardly buy herself a new gown summer or 
 winter ; the sisters get along as they can. I know it 
 all, I've lived in the south of France. Somehow 
 they manage to send you twelve hundred francs a 
 year, though the property only brings in three thou- 
 sand. We keep a cook and a man-servant for the 
 sake of appearances : papa is a baron, you know. As 
 for ourself, we are ambitious. We have the Beauseants 
 for allies ; but we have to go afoot, which does not 
 please us. We want a fortune, and we haven't a sou. 
 We eat Mamma Vauquer's messes, but we long for 
 the feasts in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. We sleep 
 on a pallet, but we dream of a mansion. I don't blame 
 you. You are ambitious. It is not every one, my 
 brave boy, who is blessed with ambition. Ask women 
 what sort of men they like best, ambitious men. 
 Their blood has more iron in it, their hearts are 
 warmer. 
 
 " I 've summed up your wants as a preface to a 
 question. Here it is. We are as hungry as a wolf ; 
 our milk-teeth are very sharp ; how are we going to 
 fill the pot ? Shall we stay our appetite on law ? 
 Studying law is dull work ; and, besides, it teaches 
 nothing. However, call it the best we can do, for 
 we must do something. So be it, then. Well, we 
 graduate ; and by and by we get an appointment as 
 judge in some petty criminal court, and send off poor
 
 Pere Goriot. 131 
 
 devils better than ourselves with T F branded on 
 their shoulders, that rich men may sleep in peace. 
 Small fun in that ! and besides, it is long in coming. 
 In the first place, two years of weary waiting, look- 
 ing at the sugarplums we long for, but cannot have. 
 It is hard to be always craving, never getting what we 
 want. If you were a poor, pale mollusk of a man, 
 there would be nothing to fear ; but, no ! we have the 
 blood of a lion in our veins, and the capacity for com- 
 mitting twenty follies a day. You will never bear the 
 trial ; you will sink under it ; it is the worst torture 
 that we have yet heard of in the hell of a good God. 
 But suppose you are irreproachable, that you drink 
 milk and write hymns. After all your privations, 
 enough to drive a dog mad, not to speak of a generous 
 young fellow like you, you will have to begin by tak- 
 ing another man's place in some hole of a town where 
 the Government will pay you a thousand francs a year, 
 just as they fling a bone to the watch-dog. Bark at 
 the robbers, win the cause of the rich, and send to the 
 guillotine men of heart and pluck ? No, thank you ! 
 If you have no one to push your fortunes, you will rot 
 in your petty judgeship. When you are thirty you 
 will be promoted to twelve hundred francs per an- 
 num, unless by that time you have flung your 
 gown to the nettles. At forty you will marry a mil- 
 ler's daughter, with six thousand francs a year for 
 her portion. 
 
 " To all this you say, Never ! Well, if you have in- 
 fluence you may possibly at thirty get to be procureur 
 du roi [prosecuting attorney], with five thousand 
 francs a year, and marry the mayor's daughter. If
 
 132 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 you have the luck to do any little meanness for the 
 Government, such as reading the name of Villele 
 from the register, instead of Manuel, you may at 
 forty become procureur-general, and rise to be a dep- 
 uty. But take notice, my young friend, that by this 
 time we shall have torn some big rents in our con- 
 science ; we shall have had twenty years of weary 
 waiting and bitter poverty, and by that time the 
 sisters auront coiffe Saint -Catherine [will have 
 turned into old maids]. I have also the honor to 
 point out to you that there are only twenty procu- 
 reurs-generaux in France ; and that twenty thou- 
 sand young aspirants are standing in line, among 
 whom you will find fellows who would sell their 
 own families to advance a step. 
 
 " If this prospect seems unpleasant, let us turn to 
 something else. Would the Baron de Rastignac like 
 to become an avocat a barrister ? Delightful ! In 
 that case he will earn nothing for ten years, spend a 
 thousand francs a month, need a law-library and an 
 office, kiss the robe of an attorney to get briefs, and 
 lick up the law courts with his tongue. If all this 
 would lead to anything it might be very well. But 
 find me six barristers in Paris who at fifty years of 
 age earn fifty thousand francs a year. Bah ! sooner 
 than belittle my soul like that I'd take to piracy. 
 Well, then, how else can we make money? These 
 prospects are certainly not brilliant. There 's another 
 resource; and that's a wife's fortune. But if you 
 marry, you tie a stone round your neck for life ; and 
 if you marry for money, what becomes of our fine sen- 
 timents about noblesse and honor ? You might as well
 
 PeVe Goriot. 133 
 
 not put off your revolt against the conventional ideas 
 of humanity. To make such a marriage you would 
 have to wriggle like a snake at some woman's feet, and 
 lick her mother's shoes, and humiliate yourself to things 
 that would disgust a pig pah ! And, after all, you 
 need n't expect happiness. You would wear out like 
 the stones of a drain through continual dropping, if you 
 married a wife in this way. Better fight with men 
 than try your strength against a woman. Here you 
 are, young man, at the cross-roads of your life. Choose 
 your path. You have chosen ? You have been to see 
 our cousin de Beauseant, and you have breathed the 
 atmosphere of luxury. You have been to visit Madame 
 de Restaud, daughter of Pere Goriot, and you have 
 scented the Parisienne. You came home from those 
 visits with a word written on your forehead. I read 
 it, it was success! success at any price. Bravo! 
 I said, that 's the fellow to suit me. You wanted 
 money. You cast about to see how you might get 
 it. You bled your sisters : all brothers sponge more 
 or less upon their sisters. And now that you have 
 got your fifteen hundred francs, squeezed Heaven 
 knows how ! out of a land where chestnuts are more 
 plentiful than five-franc pieces, you will find them dis- 
 appear like soldiers on a forage. 
 
 " What next ? Will you set to work again ? The 
 sort of work that you call work at present leads in old 
 age to a bed-room in a pension like Madame Vauquer's, 
 fit for chaps like Poiret. At this very moment fifty 
 thousand young men, situated just as you are, are re- 
 volving in their minds how to make a rapid fortune. 
 You are a unit among fifty thousand. Make your
 
 134 Pre Goriot. 
 
 estimate of the chances and the fierceness of the fight 
 before you. The fifty thousand will have to eat each 
 other up, like spiders in a jug; for of course there 
 are not fifty thousand good positions, one apiece all 
 round ! Do you know how to win a first place in the 
 struggle ? I will tell you. By the highest genius, or 
 the lowest corruption. You must either rend a way 
 for yourself through the crowd like a cannon-ball, or 
 you must creep through it silently like a pestilence. 
 Honesty and uprightness won't help you. People 
 bend beneath the power of genius, but they hate it. 
 Genius is calumniated because it takes what it can get 
 and never shares its takings ; but the world bows 
 before its strength. In other words, the world wor- 
 ships on its knees those whom it cannot smother in 
 the mud. Corruption is also strength. Genius is 
 rare. It follows that corruption is the resource of 
 the great commonplace majority ; and you will find 
 it evei'ywhere. You will see women whose husbands' 
 pay is six thousand francs at most, spending ten thou- 
 sand upon their toilettes. You will see employes who 
 have a salary of twelve hundred francs acquiring 
 landed property. You will see women prostituting 
 themselves to drive to Longcharaps in the carriage 
 of the son of a peer of France which has a right to 
 the middle highway. You have seen that poor fool 
 of a Pere Goriot obliged to pay the note indorsed 
 by his daughter, whose husband has sixty thousand 
 francs per annum. I defy you to walk two steps in 
 Paris without stumbling on some infernal perfidy. 
 I 'd bet my head to one of those old salad stumps 
 that you will stick your nose into a wasp's-nest the
 
 Pere Goriot. 135 
 
 first time you fall in love with any woman, no mat- 
 ter how wealthy, or young, or handsome she may be. 
 All women of fashion walk in crooked ways ; all are 
 at variance with their husbands. If I were to tell 
 you what things are done for lovers and for frippery, 
 for children and for show, and above all for vanity, I 
 should never have done. Not much that is virtuous 
 you may be sure. An honest man is deemed a com- 
 mon enemy. But where can we find an honest man ? 
 In Paris, honor and honesty consist in refusing to go 
 shares, and holding one's tongue. I am not speaking 
 now of those poor Helots who stick to honesty and 
 virtue without expecting any recompense for their 
 labors in this world, the Brotherhood of the Old 
 Shoes of the Good Lord, I call them. Of course they 
 are the flower of virtuous foolishness, but they are 
 always poor. I c:m imagine the blank faces of that 
 saintly crowd if Heaven were to play us such a joke 
 as to omit the Day of Judgment. 
 
 " Now, it follows that if you wish to get on quickly 
 you must either be rich or make believe to be so. To 
 grow rich you must play a strong game, not a trum- 
 pery cautious one ; no ! no ! If in the hundred profes- 
 sions a man can choose from he makes a rapid fortune, 
 the world says he must have done it dishonestly. 
 Draw your own conclusions. Such is life. It is no 
 better than a kitchen full of bad smells. If you have 
 fish to fry, you must soil your hands in frying them ; 
 only be sure to wash them when you have done your 
 cookery. That is the moral of the times we live in. 
 I own that in speaking to you thus I know myself to 
 have wrongs to avenge upon society. Do you think I
 
 136 Pre Goriot. 
 
 blame it for its enmity to me ? Not at all ; it is nat- 
 ural. Moralists will make no radical changes, depend 
 upon it, in the morality of the great world. Human 
 nature is imperfect. Every man is a hypocrite, and ac- 
 cording as he is more or less of one fools will cry out 
 that he is better or worse. I don't say that the rich 
 are any worse than the poor. Man is the same at the 
 top or at the bottom or in the middle of society. You '11 
 find ten bold fellows in every million of such cattle who 
 dare to set things at defiance including your laws. 
 I am one of them. If you feel yourself to be a man 
 superior to other men, you may walk a straight line 
 possibly and hold your head high. But you will have 
 to struggle with envy, calumny, and mediocrity, in 
 short, against the world. Napoleon came near being 
 sent off to the colonies by a minister of war named 
 Aubry. Put yourself to the proof, see if you can 
 get up every morning with more energy than you felt 
 the day before. There 's a test. 
 
 " Now, in view of all these circumstances, I am 
 going to make you a proposition that I think no man 
 in your position should refuse. Listen ! I myself 
 cherish an ideal. My ideal existence is that of a patri- 
 arch dwelling upon a vast estate say a hundred 
 thousand acres in one of the Southern States of 
 North America. I should like to be a planter, to own 
 slaves, and amass a few millions by selling my cattle, 
 my tobacco, and timber. There, living like a king, 
 with every creature round me subject to my will, I 
 should lead a sort of life not conceived of in this 
 country, where people crowd themselves in streets of 
 stucco. I am a poet, only my poems are not made
 
 Pere Groriot. 137 
 
 in verse ; they have their rise in sentiment, and I 
 turn them into action. I possess at this moment about 
 fifty thousand francs, which would barely buy me 
 forty negroes. I want two hundred thousand francs, 
 because I need two hundred negroes to carry out 
 my dreams of patriarchal existence. You see, negroes 
 are ready-made children ; you may do whatever you 
 please with them, without any inquisitive procureur 
 du roi pouncing down upon you with questions. 
 With this black capital, in ten years I should make 
 three or four millions. If I succeed, no man will 
 ask 'Who are you?' I shall be Monsieur Quatre- 
 Millions, citizen of the United States. I shall be 
 fifty by that time, still in my prime, and eager to 
 amuse myself. In two words, if I get you a dot 
 of a million, will you give me two hundred thousand 
 francs ? Twenty per cent commission, fiein ? is 
 that too dear ? You will win the affection of your 
 little wife. When you have been married a few- 
 weeks you can let her see that you have something 
 on your mind ; you can seem disquieted, uneasy. 
 Then, some night, between two kisses, you can own 
 that you are in debt, two hundred thousand francs 
 in debt, darling ! This farce is acted every day, by 
 young men of good family. No young wife will refuse 
 her money to the man she loves. Do you think you 
 will be the poorer ? Not at all. You can easily get 
 back your two hundred thousand francs in a good 
 speculation. With your money and your enterprise, 
 you will make as large a fortune as heart could wish. 
 Ergo, in six months I shall have made your happiness 
 and that of a sweet little wife. And happiest of all
 
 138 Pere Goriot. 
 
 will be Papa Vautrin ; to say nothing of your own 
 family, who are now blowing their fingers to keep 
 warm, for lack of fire-wood. You need not be aston- 
 ished at what I offer, nor at what I ask. Out of sixty 
 good matches made in Paris, forty-seven o\ve their 
 origin to a similar understanding. The Chambre des 
 Notaires obliged Monsieur " 
 
 " But what is there to be done on my part ? " asked 
 Eugene, eagerly interrupting Yautrin. 
 
 " Almost nothing," replied the other, letting a sound 
 escape him like the click of satisfaction given by an 
 angler when he feels the fish at the end of his line. 
 " Listen. The heart of a young girl used to neglect 
 and poverty is a sponge ready to absorb any affection 
 offered to her, a dry sponge, which begins to swell 
 as soon as a drop of love falls upon it. To make love 
 to a young girl under such circumstances, a poor, 
 lonely, and dispirited girl, a girl who knows nothing of 
 the prospect of great wealth that is in store for her, 
 damn it! it is like holding quinte and quatorze at 
 piquet ; it is like putting into a lottery when you know 
 the numbers ; it is like buying into the funds when 
 you 've found out the secrets of diplomacy. You are 
 building on a sure foundation. If the young girl 
 inherits millions, she will pour them at your feet as if 
 they were pebble-stones. She will say, ' Ah ! take 
 them, dearest ! ' Take them, Alfred, Adolphe, Eugene ! 
 especially if Adolphe, Alfred, or Eugene have had 
 the sense to make sacrifices for her. By sacrifices I 
 mean such as selling an old coat that he and she may 
 go together to the Cadran-Bleu and eat mushroom 
 toast, or to the Ambigu-Comique, or else pawning
 
 PZre Goriot. 139 
 
 your watch to buy her a new shawl. I say nothing 
 about love-scribbling, and all the stuff and nonsense 
 women make so much of, such as sprinkling water 
 on your letter to make it look like tears, when you are 
 parted from her. I fancy you know all that ar.got of 
 the heart well enough already. Paris is like a forest 
 peopled by twenty different tribes of red Indians, 
 Iroquois, Hurons, and the like, who all live by hunt- 
 ing the prosperous classes. You are bent on bagging 
 millions. Your trapping will require snares, decoys, 
 and bird-lime. There are many ways of going after 
 that kind of game. Some hunt for dots / others grow 
 rich by bankruptcy ; others angle for consciences, and 
 sell their victims bound hand and foot. He who comes 
 home with a good bag is congratulated, feted, and re- 
 ceived in good society. Let us do justice to the hos- 
 pitality of Paris ; it is the easiest city to get on in in 
 the world. Though the proud aristocracy of every 
 other capital in Europe may decline to countenance a 
 rascally millionnaire, Paris will open her arms to him, 
 rush to his parties, eat his dinners, and hob-nob with 
 him and his infamy." 
 
 " But where can I find such a girl ? " said Eugene. 
 
 " She is here ; close at hand." 
 
 " Mademoiselle Victorine ? " 
 
 " Precisely." 
 
 " But how can that be ? " 
 
 " She loves you already, your little Baronne de 
 Rastignac." 
 
 " She has not a sou ! " cried Eugene in amazement. 
 
 " Ah ! now we are coming to the point. Two words 
 more," said Vautrin, " and then you will understand
 
 140 Pere Goriot. 
 
 me. Papa Taillefer is an old rascal, who is said to 
 have murdered his best friend during the Revolution. 
 He is one of those fellows I spoke of, who are not tied 
 down by scruples or conventionalities. He is a banker, 
 head of the house of Frederic Taillefer & Co. He 
 has one son, to whom he intends to leave his whole 
 fortune and disinherit Victorine. I object to such in- 
 justice. I am like Don Quixote, I delight in taking 
 the part of the weak against the strong. If it pleased 
 a wise Providence to kill his son, old Taillefer would 
 take back his daughter. He would want some kind 
 of an heir, for that is a folly common to human na- 
 ture ; and he won't have any more children, I know. 
 Victorine is pretty and amiable ; she will soon work 
 her way into his favor, and spin him round like a 
 whipping top ; her whip will be the liking he will take 
 for her. She will be too grateful to you for loving her 
 when she was poor to throw you over when she is rich, 
 and you will marry her. Well, I take upon myself 
 the duty of a wise Providence, I will play the part 
 of Destiny. I have a friend for whom I have done 
 much, very much, a colonel in the army of the 
 Loire, who has lately come to Paris to enter the 
 Garde Royale. He has taken my advice and become 
 an ultra-royalist : he is not one of those fools who 
 stick to their opinions. I may as well give you an- 
 other bit of advice, my friend. Don't keep your opin- 
 ions any more than your promises. When people 
 need them, sell them. When a man boasts that he 
 holds fast to one opinion, he pledges himself to walk a 
 straight line, and is one of those ninnies who believe 
 in infallibility. There are no such things as principles,
 
 Pere Goriot. 141 
 
 there are events. Neither are there laws, only 
 circumstances. A wise man grasps circumstances and 
 events, and guides them. If there were essential prin- 
 ciples or fundamental laws, the populations could not 
 change them, as they now change them, like a shirt. 
 A man is not bound to be wiser than his generation. 
 The man of all others whose political career has been 
 of least service to France is now an ancient fetich, 
 adored because he was a red republican. He is good 
 for nothing, now* but to be shelved in a Museum and 
 ticketed La Fayette ; while Talleyrand, at whom 
 everybody casts a stone, and who despises mankind so 
 utterly that he will spit back into the world's face any 
 promises it may require of him, hindered the dismem- 
 berment of France at the Congress of Vienna. He 
 ought to be honored with crowns; but the world flings 
 mud at him. Oh, I know how things work ! I have 
 many a man's secret in my keeping. Enough of this. 
 I shall begin to hold fixed opinions on the day when 
 I find any three men agreeing on the practical applica- 
 tion of a principle. I expect to wait a good while. 
 You can't find three judges in accord on a question 
 of law. To come back to my man. He would sell 
 his soul it belongs to me if I asked him. If 
 Papa Vautrin speaks the word, he will pick a quarrel 
 with that young blackguard who never sends a five- 
 franc piece to his poor sister, and then 
 
 Here Vautrin rose, put himself on guard, and made 
 a pass as if with a sword " To the shades ! " he 
 added. 
 
 " Monstrous ! " cried Eugene ; " you must be joking, 
 Monsieur Vautrin."
 
 142 Pere G or tot. 
 
 " There, there, keep calm ! " replied the other, " don't 
 be a baby. Still, if it will do you any good, get angry, 
 furious ; tell me I am a wretch, a villain, a scoundrel, 
 a robber, anything you like, except cheat or spy. 
 Go on ; speak ; fire your broadside, I '11 forgive you. 
 It is natural at your age ; I did the same in my time, 
 even I. But remember this, you will do worse than 
 that some day. You will win some pretty woman 
 and accept her money. You have thought of it al- 
 ready," said Vautrin ; " how else do you expect to 
 succeed if you don't turn her to advantage? Virtue, 
 my dear student, is not a thing you can have by halves. 
 It is or it is not. We are told to repent of our sins. 
 Another pretty system, that lets a man get rid of his 
 crimes by a mere act of contrition ! To plan a woman's 
 infamy that you may mount the social ladder; to put a 
 strain of illegitimacy among the children ; to be guilty 
 of cruelties and wrongs for your own pleasure and ad- 
 vantage, are those what you call works of faith, hope, 
 and charity ? Why should a man of fashion be lightly 
 dealt with for defrauding the rightful heir of half his 
 fortune, while the poor devil who steals a thousand- 
 franc note goes to the galleys? But such is law. 
 Every enactment may be stretched to an absurdity. 
 Between what I propose to you and what you will do 
 some day there is no difference. You believe that there 
 are certain principles as fixed as Fate in this world. 
 Study men, and see how many loop-holes there are 
 through which they set laws and principles at defiance. 
 The secret of a great fortune made without apparent 
 cause is soon forgotten, if the crime is committed in a 
 respectable way."
 
 Pere Goriot. 143 
 
 " Silence, Monsieur ! I will hear no more. You will 
 make me doubt myself, and my only guide is the in- 
 stinct of my own heart." 
 
 " As you please^ bel enfant ! I thought you stronger 
 than I find you," said Vautrin. "I will say no more 
 yes, a last word." He looked steadily at the student, 
 " You have my secret," he said. 
 
 "A young man who declines your offer will know 
 how to forget it." 
 
 " That is well said ; I am glad you have said it. 
 Some one, you know, may be less scrupulous. Think 
 over what I have wished to do for you. I will give you 
 two weeks. Take my offer or leave it as you will." 
 
 " Man of iron ! " thought Rastignac, as he watched 
 Vautrin walk leisurely away with his cane under his 
 arm. " He told me bluntly what Madame de Beauseant 
 said in more ambiguous words. He has torn my heart 
 with his steel claws. Why am I going to Madame de 
 Nucingen's? He guessed my motives, guessed them 
 as soon as I conceived them. This brigand has told 
 me in two words more about virtue than books or men 
 have ever taught me. If there is no compromise with 
 virtue, then I have robbed my sisters," he cried, push- 
 ing the money-bags away from him and sitting down 
 at the table. His thoughts bewildered him. " To be 
 faithful to virtue," he said to himself, " is it to suffer 
 martyrdom ? Bah ! every one believes in virtue, but 
 who is virtuous ? Nations take liberty for their idol, 
 but is there upon earth one nation free? My youth 
 is still unsullied as the blue of heaven. If I resolve to 
 be rich and great, must I bring myself to stooping, ly- 
 ing, grovelling, threatening, flattering, deceiving ? Shall
 
 144 Pere Goriot. 
 
 I make myself the lacquey of those who lie and crawl 
 and deceive ? Before I become their accomplice shall 
 I be forced to do them service ? No ! I will not ! I 
 will toil nobly in the fear of God ; I will labor night 
 and day. I will owe my fortune to myself, and my- 
 self only. It may be slow in coming, but each night I 
 shall lay my head upon my pillow without a shameful 
 thought. What can be more blessed than to look back 
 upon one's life, and see it pure and stainless as a lily ? 
 My life and I are like a bride and her lover Ah ! 
 Vautrin showed me what comes to pass after ten years 
 of marriage. God ! My head swims I will not 
 reason ; the heart is my true guide "
 
 Pere Goriot. 145 
 
 X. 
 
 EUGENE was awakened from his reverie by the voice 
 of Sylvie announcing the arrival of his tailor. He went 
 in to meet him, carrying his bags of money, a trifling 
 circumstance which gave him pleasure. After trying 
 on his evening suit, he put on the morning one which 
 transformed him completely. "I am quite up to Mon- 
 sieur de Trailles," he said to himself complacently. 
 "At last I look like a gentleman." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Pere Goriot, coming into Eugene's 
 chamber, " you asked me if I knew to whose house 
 Madame de Nucingen was going." 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " Well, next Monday she is going to a ball at the 
 Marechale Carigliano's. If you are there you will tell 
 me how my daughters enjoyed themselves, how they 
 were dressed, and all about them?" 
 
 "How did you find it out, my good Pere Goriot?" 
 said Eugene, making him sit down by the fire. 
 
 " Her maid told me. I know all they do through 
 Therese and Constance," he said gleefully. The old 
 man was like a lover, still boyish enough to be de- 
 lighted with a stratagem which put him in communi- 
 cation with the object of his adoration without her 
 knowing it. 
 
 " And you will be there to see them ! " he said in a 
 tone of mixed envy and suffering. 
 10
 
 146 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " I don't know yet," replied Eugene. " I am going 
 to call on Madame de Beauseant, and I shall ask her 
 to introduce me to the Marechale." He was thinking 
 with inward joy of showing himself to the viscountess 
 in his new clothes, and looking as he intended to look 
 for the rest of his days. What moralists call great 
 crises in the human heart are commonly the offspring 
 of deceptive and involuntary movements of self-interest. 
 Sudden changes of purpose hard to understand, unac- 
 countable reversals of a first desire, spring generally 
 from some calculation in favor of self-indulgence. 
 When Rastignac beheld himself well dressed, well 
 gloved, well booted, he forgot his virtuous resolutions. 
 The young dare not look at themselves in the glass of 
 conscience when it reveals them as they should be and 
 not as they would be ; older men have the nerve to 
 see themselves reflected undisguised. In this lies the 
 difference between the ages. 
 
 For some days past Eugene and Pere Goriot had be- 
 come close friends. Their intimacy had its origin in 
 the same psychological mystery which produced the 
 opposite effect upon the student in his relations with 
 Vautrin. The bold philosopher who seeks to show 
 the influence of mind upon our material being may ob- 
 tain many a proof by observing the relations between 
 man and animals. What physiognomist is so quick to 
 discern character as a dog is to know whether a stranger 
 likes or dislikes him ? Les atonies crochus (elective 
 affinities) is an expression which has passed into a pro- 
 verb, and contains one of those facts permanently im- 
 bedded in language as a protest against the stupidity 
 of those who make it their business to winnow out of
 
 Ptre Goriot. 147 
 
 our speech its primitive words. 1 We feel ourselves 
 beloved. The feeling stamps itself on everything, and 
 ignores space. A letter holds beneath its seal a human 
 soul. It is so faithful an echo of the voice that speaks 
 too far away for us to hear, that the heart prizes 
 written words as among the richest treasures in the 
 gift of love. Pere Goriot, raised by his instinctive sen- 
 timent to the sublimest heights attainable by canine 
 nature, had guessed intuitively the compassion, the 
 friendly admiration, and the fresh young sympathy 
 which moved the heart of the student towards him. 
 But this understanding had as yet led to no confidence 
 between them. Though Eugene had expressed a wish 
 to see Madame de Nucingen, it was not because he ex- 
 pected to be introduced to her by her father ; he merely 
 hoped that through him something might turn up to 
 aid his plans. Pere Goriot had said nothing to him 
 about his daughters, except in connection with what 
 had passed in public on the day of his visit to the 
 countess. 
 
 " My dear Monsieur," the old man had remarked the 
 next morning, " how could you think that Madame de 
 Restaud was displeased with you for mentioning my 
 name ? My daughters both love me dearly. I am a 
 very happy father ; only my sons-in-law have not be- 
 haved well to me. I did not wish to make my two 
 dear children suffer because of my misunderstandings 
 with their husbands ; so I prefer to see them secretly. 
 This mystery gives me many enjoyments, such as fathers 
 
 1 Atomes crochus (hooked atoms), atoms supposed to be 
 hooked, according to the system of Democritus and Epicurus, so 
 that they catch and hold each other when they meet. Littre.
 
 148 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 never feel who can see their daughters at an)' moment. 
 I cannot always you understand. If I do not see 
 them at their homes I go to the Champs-Elysees, 
 after finding out from their maids whether they are 
 going out that day. I wait to see them pass. How 
 my heart beats when I see their carriages ! When 
 they come near I admire their toilettes, and they 
 give me a pretty laugh as they drive by, which gilds 
 the world around me like a ray of sunshine. Then I 
 stay about till they return. I see them again. The 
 fresh air has done them good ; they have a color in 
 their cheeks. I hear people saying, 'There goes a 
 beautiful woman,' and my heart leaps for joy. Are 
 they not mine? my own flesh and blood? I love 
 the very horses in their carriages. I should like to be 
 the lap-dog lying on their knees. I live in their happi- 
 ness. Everybody has his own way of loving, mine 
 does no harm to any one. Why should people trouble 
 themselves about me? I am happy after my own 
 fashion. No law forbids my standing in the street to 
 see my daughters when they come out of their houses 
 to go to a ball. Ah ! what a disappointment if I get 
 there too late, and the porter says, ' Madame is gone.' 
 Once I waited till three in the morning to see my 
 Nasie : I had not seen her for two days. Please never 
 speak as if my daughters were not kind to me. They 
 want to give me all manner of presents ; but I will 
 not let them. I always say, ' Keep your money ; what 
 could I do with it ? I don't want for anything.' In- 
 deed, my dear Monsieur, what am I but an old car- 
 cass whose soul is with his daughters all the time? 
 When you have seen Madame de Nucingen you must
 
 Pere Goriot. 149 
 
 tell me which of the two you like better," added the 
 old man after a moment's silence, watching Eugene, 
 who was making ready to go to the Tuileries and 
 lounge away the time until he could call on Madame 
 de Beauseant. 
 
 That lounge was fatal to our student. He was so 
 young, so handsome, and so well dressed that several 
 women took notice of him. When he felt himself the 
 object of their admiring glances he forgot the sisters 
 and the aunt whom he had despoiled, and all his virtu- 
 ous repugnance to crooked paths. Satan, that fallen 
 angel, still angelic to the eye, passed in the air 
 about him floating on prismatic wing ; that fatal an- 
 gel who scatters rubies, wraps women in purple, wings 
 golden arrows at the gates of palaces, and sheds a false 
 radiance upon thrones once in their origin so simple. 
 He gave ear to this demon of vain glory, whose tinsel 
 is the symbol of its power. The words of Vautrin, 
 cynical as they were, had lodged in his heart and seared 
 their way. 
 
 After idling about till five o'clock, Eugene presented 
 himselt at Madame de Beauseant's, and received one 
 of those sharp checks against which young hearts are 
 defenceless. Up to this time he had always found the 
 viscountess full of the gracious honeyed courtesy which 
 is attainable only through aristocratic training, though 
 it is never in perfection unless it springs from the 
 heart. 
 
 When he entered, Madame de Beauseant made a 
 chilling gesture, and said coldly, "Monsieur de Ras- 
 tignac, I cannot possibly see you to-day ; certainly not 
 at this moment I am occupied."
 
 150 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Rastignac had now become a quick observer. The 
 words, gesture, look, the tone of voice, were all signs 
 of the habits and character of her caste. He perceived 
 the iron hand within the velvet glove, the personality 
 and the egoism beneath the manner, the grain of the 
 wood below the polish. He heard the Moi, le Hoi 
 (" I, the King"), which begins at the throne, but echoes 
 from every well-born gentleman and gentlewoman. 
 Eugene had trusted too implicitly to the generous im- 
 pulses of women. He had signed in good faith the 
 charming covenant whose first article proclaims the 
 equality of all noble hearts. Kindness given and 
 received aright, and knitting two hearts into one, is 
 a thing of heaven, as rare in this world as a perfect 
 love; both are the overflow of only very rare and 
 beautiful souls. 
 
 Rastignac was bent on going to the ball of the 
 Duchesse de Carigliano, and therefore he swallowed 
 his mortification. 
 
 " Madame," he said in a low voice, "were it not that 
 I had something to ask I would not trouble you. Be 
 so gracious as to let me see you later. I will wait." 
 
 " Well, come and dine," she said, rather sorry for 
 the harshness with which she had treated him ; for at 
 heart she was kind as well as stately. 
 
 Though somewhat touched by this sudden relenting, 
 Rastignac said to himself as he left the courtyard, 
 "Crawl, if you must; bear everything. What can 
 other women be, if in a moment the best among them 
 forgets her promises of friendship and casts me aside 
 like an old shoe? Well, each man for himself! It is 
 true her house is not a shop where I have the right to
 
 Pere G-oriot. 151 
 
 buy the things I want. I do wrong to have need of 
 her. As Vautrin says, one should be a cannon-ball, 
 and make one's way accordingly." 
 
 Thus, by a sort of fatality, even the trifling events 
 of his life conspired to push him into a career where, 
 as the terrible sphinx- of the Maison Vauquer warned 
 him, he must slay to escape being slain, deceive lest 
 he should be deceived, lay down heart and conscience 
 at the threshold, put on a mask, use men for his pur- 
 poses without pity, and, like the Spartan boy, snatch 
 fortune unperceived, if he wished to wear the crown. 
 
 When he went back to dinner at the Hotel Beause- 
 ant he found its mistress full of the gracious kindness 
 she had hitherto shown him. They went together into 
 the dining-room, where Monsieur de Beauseant was 
 awaiting his wife, and where Eugene saw for the first 
 time all that table luxury which, as every one knows, 
 was carried under the Restoration to the highest pitch 
 of perfection. Monsieur de Beauseant, like other men 
 wearied with the pleasures of the world, cared for lit- 
 tle now but good eating. His taste in cookery was 
 of the school of Louis XVIII. and the Due d'Escars. 
 His table offered a double luxury to his guests, in the 
 perfection of its service and the perfection of its menu. 
 Nothing of the kind had ever come into the experi- 
 ence of Eugene, who was dining for the first time in 
 one of those great houses where domestic splendor is 
 an hereditary tradition. Fashion had done away with 
 the suppers that formerly wound up the balls of the 
 Empire, and as yet Eugene had only been invited to 
 balls. The aplomb (social self-possession) for which 
 he subsequently became so distinguished, and which
 
 152 Pere Goriot. 
 
 began to show itself even at this early stage of his ca- 
 reer, prevented him from betraying his wonder. But 
 the sight of all that glittering silver and the thousand 
 refinements of a sumptuous table, the pleasure enjoyed 
 for the first time of being served noiselessly and with- 
 out confusion, made it natural for a youth of lively 
 imagination to contrast this elegance with the life of 
 privation he had declared himself willing to embrace 
 only a few hours before. His thoughts went back for 
 a moment to the pension ; and such horror of it filled 
 his mind that he swore under his breath to leave it on 
 the 1st of January, as much to find himself a better 
 lodging as to escape Vautrin, whose huge hand he 
 seemed always to feel upon his shoulder. 
 
 If we remember .the thousand shapes that vice takes, 
 disguisedly or undisguisedly, in Paris, a man of sense 
 must wonder what aberration of mind has led the Gov- 
 ernment to place schools and colleges within the city, 
 and to collect in the very heart of it a vast assemblage 
 of young men. But when we come to discover how 
 seldom crimes, or even misdemeanors, are committed 
 by students, with what respect must we regard these 
 patient sons of Tantalus, who nearly always come off 
 conquerors in their combat with temptation. This 
 struggle of the student against the world of Paris, if 
 it could be painted by the hand of a great master, 
 would be the most dramatic subject for art in our 
 modern civilization. 
 
 Madame de Beauseant now looked inquiringly at 
 Eugene, expecting him to explain what he had to 
 ask of her ; but Eugene would say nothing before the 
 viscount.
 
 Pere Groriot. 153 
 
 " Shall you take me to-night to the opera? " asked 
 the viscountess of her husband. 
 
 " You cannot doubt the pleasure it would give me 
 to be at your disposal," he replied, with an elaborate 
 gallantry, of which the student was the dupe ; " but I 
 have promised to join some one at the Varietes." 
 
 " His mistress ! " she said to herself. 
 
 " Is not d'Adjuda coming this evening?" he asked. 
 
 " No," she replied shortly. 
 
 " Well, if you are really in need of an escort, here is 
 Monsieur de Rastignac." 
 
 The viscountess looked at Eugene with a smile. 
 
 " It may seriously compromise you," she said. 
 
 " ' A Frenchman courts danger, if it leads to glory,' 
 as Monsieur de Chateaubriand says," replied Eugene, 
 with a bow. 
 
 A few moments later he was driving rapidly with 
 Madame de Beauseant to the fashionable theatre, and 
 felt himself in fairy-land as he entered a box facing 
 the stage, and perceived how many opera-glasses were 
 levelled at himself and the viscountess, whose toilette 
 that evening was particularly charming. Our poor 
 student passed from one enchantment to another. 
 
 " You had something to say to me ? " said Madame 
 de Beauseant. " Ah ! stay, there is Madame de 
 Nucingen, three boxes from ours. Her sister and 
 Monsieur de Trailles are on the other side of the 
 house." 
 
 As she said this, the viscountess was looking at the 
 box where she expected to see Mademoiselle de 
 Rochefide ; not finding Monsieur d'Adjuda there, her 
 face brightened exceedingly.
 
 154 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " She is pretty," said Eugene, after having looked 
 at Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " She has white eyebrows." 
 
 " But what a pretty waist ! " 
 
 " She has large hands." 
 
 " Fine eyes." 
 
 " Her face is too long." 
 
 " A long face is said to give distinction." 
 
 " That is lucky for her, then. See how she picks up 
 her opera-glass and puts it down ! You can see the 
 Goriot in every movement," said the viscountess, much 
 to the amazement of Eugene. 
 
 The truth was, Madame de Beauseant, while appar- 
 ently looking over all parts of the house and paying 
 no attention to Madame de Nucingen, did not lose a 
 single one of her movements. The audience was re- 
 markably elegant that night, and Delphine de Nu- 
 cingen was not a little pleased to perceive that she 
 engrossed the attention of Madame de Beauseant's 
 handsome cousin, who seemed to single her out for 
 observation. 
 
 " If you continue to look at her you will create a 
 scandal, Monsieur de Rnstignac," said the viscountess. 
 "You will never succeed if you fling yourself head- 
 long at people in that way." 
 
 " My dear cousin," said Eugene, " you have already 
 taken me under your protection. If you would now 
 complete your work, I will only ask you to do me one 
 more favor. It will not hurt you, and it will be of the 
 greatest help to me. Do you know, I have taken a 
 fancy to her." 
 
 "Already?"
 
 Pere Ooriot. 155 
 
 Yes." 
 
 " That woman ! " 
 
 "Would my devotion be acceptable elsewhere?" he 
 asked, with a keen glance at his cousin. After a pause 
 he resumed, 
 
 " Madame la Duchesse de Carigliano is attached to 
 the household of Madame la Duchesse de Berri. You 
 know her, of course. Do me the kindness to introduce 
 me to her, and take me to her ball next Monday. I 
 shall meet Madame de Nucingen there, and make my 
 first essay." 
 
 " Willingly," she said ; " if you really fancy her, you 
 will get on easily. There is de Marsay in Princess 
 Galathionne's box. Madame de Nucingen can hardly 
 contain herself for spite. There could not be a better 
 moment for making your way with a woman, especially 
 a banker's wife. Those Chaussee d'Antin ladies dearly 
 love revenge." 
 
 " What would you do under similar circumstances ? " 
 
 " Suffer, and make no sign." 
 
 At that moment the Marquis d'Adjuda came into 
 the box. "I have dispatched my business very badly 
 that I might be in time to join you," he said. " I tell 
 you this, because if it seems a sacrifice in your eyes 
 it is no longer one to me." 
 
 The light that broke over her face taught Eugene 
 the difference between a real affection and the shams 
 of coquetry. He admired his cousin. He grew silent, 
 and yielded his place to Monsieur d'Adjuda with a 
 sigh. " What a noble creature such a woman is ! " 
 he thought ; " and this man gives her up for a wax 
 doll!"
 
 156 Pere Croriot. 
 
 He felt as angry as a boy. He would have liked to 
 fall down at Madame de Beauseant's feet and offer her 
 an unlimited devotion, and he looked at Madame de 
 Nucingen with a revulsion of feeling, as a man looks 
 at an adversary. 
 
 The viscountess turned her head and thanked him 
 for his consideration with a little motion of the eyelids. 
 The first act was now over. 
 
 " Do you know Madame de Nucingen well enough 
 to introduce to her Monsieur de Rastignac?" she said 
 to the Marquis d'Adjuda. 
 
 " She will be charmed to know Monsieur," said the 
 marquis. 
 
 The handsome Portuguese rose, took the student by 
 the arm, and in a moment they were in the box of 
 Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " Madame la baronne," said the marquis, " I have 
 the honor to present to you the Chevalier Eugene de 
 Rastignac, a cousin of Madame de Beauseant. You 
 have made so great an impression on him that I am 
 delighted to complete his happiness by bringing him 
 into the presence of his divinity." 
 
 These words were said with a slight tone of irony, 
 which made the speech a little impertinent. But this 
 tone skilfully applied is not altogether displeasing to 
 women. Madame de Nucingen smiled and offered 
 Eugene her husband's seat, the baron having just left 
 the box. 
 
 " I dare not propose to you to remain with me, Mon- 
 sieur," she said ; " when any one has the happiness to 
 be placed near Madame de Beauseant his first wish is 
 to remain there."
 
 Pere GorioL 157 
 
 " But, Madame," said Eugene, lowering his voice, 
 " it seems to me that if I wish to please my cousin I 
 shall stay here. Before Monsieur le marquis came into 
 her box we were talking of you," he said aloud, " and 
 of your air of distinction." 
 
 Monsieur d'Adjuda retired. 
 
 "Are you really going to remain with me, Monsieur?" 
 said the baronne ; " shall we at last make acquaintance 
 with one another? Madame de Restaud has given me 
 a great wish to know you." 
 
 " She is very insincere then. She has shut her doors 
 against me." 
 
 "How is that?" 
 
 " Madame, I will tell you plainly the reason ; but I 
 must ask your indulgence if I do so. I am the neigh- 
 bor of Monsieur, your father, our rooms adjoin. I 
 did not know that Madame de Restaud was his daugh- 
 ter. I had the want of tact to speak of him, most inno- 
 cently but in a way that offended Madame de Restaud 
 and her husband. You cannot imagine how much 
 Madame la Duchesse de Langeais and my cousin con- 
 demn the want of filial feeling on the part of your 
 sister. I told them the story, and they laughed at my 
 blunder. It was then that, comparing you with your 
 sister, Madame de Beauseant spoke most warmly of 
 you, and told me how kind you are to my neighbor 
 Monsieur Goriot. How indeed could you help loving 
 him ? He adores you so passionately that I feel jeal- 
 ous already. We were talking of you two hours this 
 morning. This evening, as my mind dwelt on what 
 he had told me, I said to my cousin with whom I 
 was dining, that I did not believe you could be as
 
 158 Pere Goriot. 
 
 beautiful in person as you were amiable in heart. 
 Willing no doubt to favor my admiration, Madame de 
 Beauseant brought me with her this evening, telling 
 me, in her gracious way, that I should certainly see 
 you here." 
 
 "Ah ! Monsieur, do I owe you gratitude already?" 
 said the banker's wife ; " a little more and we shall be 
 old friends." 
 
 " Friendship must be a noble sentiment when in- 
 spired by you," said Rastignac ; " but I shall never ask 
 for your friendship." 
 
 Such stereotyped nonsense in the mouths of debu- 
 tants seem to please women, and are only absurd when 
 written down in cold blood. The gesture, the tone, 
 and the glance of a young man lends to such speeches 
 a certain charm. Madame de Nucingen was delighted 
 with Eugene. Then, as she could say nothing in reply 
 to such sentiments, she responded to another part of 
 his speech : 
 
 " Yes, my sister does herself harm by the way she 
 neglects our poor father, who has been a pei-fect Provi- 
 dence to both of us. Monsieur de Nucingen was 
 obliged to give me peremptory orders not to receive 
 my father among my other guests before I would yield 
 the point to him. It has made me very miserable ; I 
 have wept over it. His violence on this subject, joined 
 to other conjugal unkindness, has greatly troubled my 
 domestic happiness. I may be a fortunate woman in 
 the eyes of Paris, but I consider myself one of the 
 most pitiable. You will think me mad to speak to you 
 in this way. But since you know my father I cannot 
 feel to you as a stranger."
 
 Pere Goriot. 159 
 
 " Indeed, you could meet no one," cried Eugene, 
 "more desirous of doing you service. What are all 
 women striving for ? Is it not happiness ? And if 
 happiness for a woman is," he added, in a low voice, 
 " to be loved, adored ; to possess a friend in whom 
 she may unhesitatingly confide her desires, her fan- 
 cies, her griefs, her joys, before whom she can lay 
 bare her heart with all its excellences and all its 
 weaknesses, and know that her confidence will never 
 be betrayed, then, believe me, such a friend can 
 only be found in a young man full of illusions, who 
 knows nothing of the world, nor ever will know, 
 because you will be all the world to him. You will 
 laugh at my naivete when I tell you that I have just 
 come up from the country, that I am new to the world, 
 that I have never known any one who was not good 
 and true. I thought I should live without love here 
 in Paris; but I have been thrown with my cousin, who 
 has deeply touched my feelings ; she has let me see into 
 her heart, and I have guessed at treasures of affection. 
 Like Cherubin, I am the lover of all women until I 
 may devote myself to one. When I saw you to-night 
 for the first time, I felt as if I were floated towards 
 you by the force of a current. I had been thinking of 
 you so much ! But in my dreams you were not as 
 beautiful as you are in reality. Madame de Beauseant 
 ordered me not to fix my eyes upon you. She could 
 not understand the attraction of your sweet lips, your 
 lovely color, your soft eyes. I, too, am talking madly, 
 but suffer me to say these things to you." 
 
 Nothing pleases some women more than to hear 
 such honeyed words. The strictest among them will
 
 160 Pere Goriot. 
 
 listen, even though she does not respond. Having 
 thus begun, Rastignac ran on with more of the same 
 kind, telling his beads of coquetry in a low and vi- 
 brant voice ; while Madame de Nucingen encouraged 
 him by her smiles, all the while keeping an eye upon 
 de Marsay, who was still in the box of the Princess 
 Galathionne. 
 
 Rastignac stayed with Madame de Nucingen till her 
 husband came to take her home. 
 
 " Madame," said Eugene, " I shall have the honor of 
 calling upon you before the ball of the Duchesse de 
 Carigliano." 
 
 " If Matame bresents you there," said the baron, a 
 fat Alsatian, whose round face showed signs of danger- 
 ous cunning, "so vill you be veil receifed." 
 
 " I am getting on apace," thought Eugene. " She 
 was not the least angry when I said, * Could you love 
 me ? ' I have bridled my mare ; now let me ride her." 
 So thinking, he went to Madame de Beause"ant's box 
 to make his bow. She was leaving with Monsieur 
 d'Adjufla. Our inexperienced student little knew 
 that Madame de Nucingen had not listened to half 
 that he said to her. Her mind was occupied by a 
 letter she was expecting from de Marsay, that would 
 decide her fate. Charmed, however, with his im- 
 aginary success, Eugene accompanied the viscountess 
 to the vestibule, where all were waiting for their 
 carriages. 
 
 " Your cousin does not seem like himself," said the 
 Portuguese, laughing, when Eugene had quitted them. 
 " He has the air of a fellow who means to break the 
 bank. He is as supple as an eel, and I think he will
 
 Pere Croriot. 161 
 
 get on. It was clever of you to pick out for him a 
 woman in need of consolation." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Madame de Beauseant ; " but all de- 
 pends, you know, on whether she loves the man who 
 is forsaking her." 
 
 Eugene walked back from the theatre to the Rue 
 Neuve Sainte-Genevieve with his head brimful of 
 visions. He had noticed the attention with which 
 Madame de Restaud observed him when in the box 
 of the viscountess, and also in that of Madame de 
 Nucingen ; and he argued that her doors would not 
 long be closed against him. Already he had made 
 four important acquisitions in the great world of 
 Paris ; for he took it for granted that he should win 
 the good graces of the Marechale. Without pre- 
 cisely settling how to carry out his plans, he was 
 intuitively conscious that in the game he had to 
 play among so many complicated interests, he would 
 do well to attach himself to some one chariot that 
 would whirl him onward, conscious that he was 
 strong enough, when his end was gained, to put on 
 the brakes. 
 
 " If Madame de Nucingen is interested in me," he 
 thought, " I will teach her to manage her husband. 
 The baron makes money hand over hand : he might 
 help me to some stroke of fortune." 
 
 He did not say this bluntly ; the notion was but a 
 light cloud floating above the verge of his horizon ; he 
 was not as yet sufficiently advanced to sum up possibili- 
 ties and make his calculations, but his ideas, though 
 they had not the crude ugliness of Vautrin's, would 
 scarcely, if tested in the crucible of conscience, have 
 11
 
 162 Pere GrorioL 
 
 shown much that was pure. It is by a course of 
 mental compromises of this kind that men reach the 
 stage of relaxed morality which characterizes our 
 epoch, an epoch when it is rare, rarer than in any 
 other age of the world's history, to find men of high 
 principle, men with a sturdy sense of right and wrong, 
 firm wills that never bow the knee to evil, natures to 
 whom the smallest deviation from the straight path 
 seems a sin. Such interpretation of virtue has given 
 to the world two masterpieces, one, the Alceste of 
 Molijre; the other, Jeannie Deans and her father, by 
 Sir Walter Scott. Perhaps the same subject seen 
 from its other side a picture of the shifts and wind- 
 ings of a man of the world ; an ambitious man, with 
 no fixed conscience, who seeks to pick his way along 
 the edge of wickedness, and yet save appearances 
 while he gains his end may be neither less useful, 
 less moral, nor less dramatic. 
 
 By the time Rastignac reached his own door he had 
 worked himself into a sham passion for Madame de 
 Nucingen. He thought her graceful as a swallow ; he 
 admired the enchanting softness of her eyes, the deli- 
 cate and silky texture of her skin tinged with the 
 blood that flowed beneath it, the music of her voice, 
 and her abundant fair hair, he remembered every 
 particular ; and perhaps his walk, which had quickened 
 his pulses, added to the fascination. He knocked 
 sharply at Pere Goriot's door. 
 
 "My neighbor," he said, "I have seen Madame 
 Delphine." 
 
 ' Where ? " 
 
 "At the opera."
 
 Pere Goriot. 163 
 
 " Did she enjoy herself? Come in," said the old 
 man, who got out of bed in his shirt and opened his 
 door, and then went back to bed again. " Tell me all 
 about her," he said. 
 
 Eugene, who found himself for the first time in 
 Pere Goriot's chamber, could not repress a start of 
 amazement at the wretchedness in which the father 
 lived, comparing it with what he knew of the luxury 
 of his daughters. 
 
 The window had no curtain; the paper had peeled 
 in strips from the damp wall, showing the plaster yel- 
 iow with smoke and age. The old man lay upon a 
 wretched bed, with one thin blanket and a wadded 
 quilt made out of scraps of Madame Vauquer's old 
 gowns. The tiles of the floor were damp, and their 
 crevices were filled with dust and dirt. Against the 
 wall, opposite to the window, stood an old bureau with 
 a swelled front and brass handles representing grape- 
 shoots intertwined with leaves and flowers, and a 
 wooden stand on which was a water-jug in its basin, 
 and a number of shaving utensils. In one corner of 
 the room a heap of shoes ; at the bed's head a dilapi- 
 dated night-stand without a door. Beside the fire- 
 place, where there were no traces of fire, stood the 
 square walnut table which had enabled Pere Goriot to 
 destroy his porringer. A miserable writing-desk with 
 the old man's hat upon it, an arm-chair stuffed with 
 straw, and two smaller chairs made up the wretched 
 furniture. The pole of the bedstead, fastened by a 
 rag to a hook in the ceiling, upheld a coarse curtain of 
 red checked gingham. The poorest errand-boy in a 
 garret was surely not so miserably lodged as Pere
 
 164 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Goriot at Madame Vauquer's. The aspect of the 
 room chilled and wrung the heart ; it was desolate as 
 the condemned cell of a prison. 
 
 Fortunately, Pere Goriot could not see the expres- 
 sion on Eugene's face as he put his candlestick on the 
 table at the head of the bed. The old man turned 
 towards him, and lay covered up to the chin. 
 
 " Well, which do you like better ? " he asked, 
 "Madame de Restaud or Madame de Nucingen?" 
 
 " I prefer Madame Delphine," replied the student, 
 "because she loves you best." 
 
 As Eugene said these words warmly, Pere Goriot 
 put his arm out of bed and pressed his hand. 
 
 " Thank you, thank you ! " he cried eagerly. " What 
 did she say about me ? " 
 
 The student repeated the words of the baronne, 
 adding some affectionate touches of his own, the old 
 man listening as if to a voice from heaven. 
 
 " Dear child ! " he said. " Yes, yes, she loves me 
 dearly. But you must not believe what she told you 
 of Anastasie. The sisters are a little jealous of each 
 other. It is another proof of their affection. Madame 
 de Restaud loves me dearly too ; I know it. A father 
 is to his daughters what the good God is to all. He 
 sees into their hearts, he knows their springs of action. 
 Both are affectionate. Oh ! if I had had good sons-in- 
 law I should have been a happy man! I suppose there 
 is no perfect happiness on earth. If I had been able 
 to live with them, to hear their voices, to know them 
 near me, to see them as they went out and came in, 
 as I did before they married, my heart might not have 
 borne such joy. Were they well-dressed ? "
 
 Pere Goriot. 1G5 
 
 " Yes," said Eugene. " But, Monsieur Goriot, how is 
 it that with daughters so wealthy as yours, you live 
 in this wretched lodging? " 
 
 " Oh ! " said the old man carelessly, " what better do 
 I want ? I cannot explain everything to you ; I never 
 could put words together. It is all here ! " he added, 
 striking his breast. " My life is bound up in my daugh- 
 ters. If they enjoy themselves, if they are well-dressed, 
 and have carpets under their feet, what matters it 
 what kind of coat I wear, or what sort of a place 
 I sleep in ? I am not cold if they are warm ; I am 
 not dull if I know they laugh ; I have no sorrows but 
 theirs. When you have children you will say, as you 
 watch the little creatures prattling round you, ' They 
 are part of myself, of my flesh and my blood, the 
 flower of my own being.' Yes, I live anew in their 
 bodies ; I move with their limbs ; I hear their voices 
 answering to mine. One look of theirs, if they are sad, 
 chills my blood. Some day you will know that it 
 is better to be happy in our children's happiness than 
 in our own. I cannot explain it. There are wells of 
 inward joy that nourish life. I live three lives, my 
 own and theirs. Shall I tell you a strange thing ? 
 When I became a father I comprehended God. He is 
 present in all things, because all Nature has proceeded 
 from him. Monsieur, I am so with my daughters ; 
 only I sometimes think our world, such as it is, cannot 
 seem so beautiful to God as my girls are to me. My 
 heart has such strange connection with all concerning 
 them that I know what is happening to them. I knew 
 that you would see them this evening. Ah, me ! if any 
 one would make my little Delphine happy, I would
 
 166 Pere Goriot. 
 
 black his boots and do his errands. How could she 
 have brought herself to marry that dull log of an 
 Alsatian?- They ought to have had noble young hus- 
 bands, manly and amiable and good, but they chose 
 for themselves ! " 
 
 Pere Goriot was stirred out of himself. Never till 
 now had Eugene seen him thus lighted up by the pas- 
 sion of paternity. We may here remark on the in- 
 filtrating, transforming power of an over -mastering 
 emotion. However coarse the fibre of the individual, 
 let him be held by a strong and genuine affection, and 
 he exhales, as it were, an essence which illuminates 
 his features, inspires his gestures, and gives cadence to 
 his voice. It happens sometimes that the dullest soul 
 under the lash of passion attains to such eloquence of 
 thought, if not of language, that it seems to move in lu- 
 minous air. As the old man spoke, his voice and man- 
 ner had the magnetic power of noble acting. Are not 
 our loftiest emotions the poetry of the human will ? 
 
 " I am to see Madame Delphine to-morrow," said 
 Eugene, " and I am to meet her at the ball of the 
 Duchesse de Carigliano on Monday." 
 
 " Ah ! how I should love you, my young friend, if 
 you could shed a ray of brightness on her life ! You 
 are good yourself, and kind. But I forget, this room 
 is too cold for you. Mon Dien, you heard her voice ! 
 What message did she give you for me ? " 
 
 "None at all," thought Eugene; but he said aloud, 
 " She told me to tell you that she sent you a daughter's 
 kiss." 
 
 " Adieu, my friend. Sleep sound ; dream pleasant 
 dreams ; mine will be perfect with that kiss to think
 
 Pere Goriot. 167 
 
 of. You have been to me to-night like a blessed angel. 
 The fragrance of my daughter hangs about you still." 
 
 "Poor man!" sighed Eugene as he went to bed. 
 " What he says would touch a heart of stone. His 
 daughter no more thought of him than she did of the 
 Grand Turk." 
 
 After this conversation, Pere Goriot and his young 
 neighbor became intimate friends. Between them ex- 
 isted the sole link that could have bound the old man 
 to a human being. Strong passions never miscalculate. 
 Pere Goriot saw in Rastignac a means of communica- 
 tion with his daughters and the possibility of drawing 
 nearer to them if the student became intimate with 
 the baronne. Eugene was, to use his own expression, 
 the most engaging young fellow he had ever seen ; 
 and the old man admitted him to his friendship and 
 encouraged an intercourse which alone has made it 
 possible for us to relate circumstantially the develop- 
 ment of this tale.
 
 163 Pere Goriot. 
 
 XL 
 
 THE next morning at breakfast the interest with 
 which Pere Goriot looked at Eugene as he took his 
 place beside him at the breakfast table, the few words 
 that were exchanged between them, and the great 
 change in the old man's face, usually as dull as a lump 
 of plaster, surprised the other guests. Vautrin, who 
 saw the student for the first time since their conference, 
 tried to read his soul. During the night-watches Eu- 
 gene, far too restless to sleep, had surveyed the fields 
 before him, and having naturally thought of Mademoi- 
 selle Taillefer and her dot, now looked at her as the 
 most virtuous young man in the world looks at a rich 
 heiress. It happened that their eyes met. The poor 
 girl thought Eugene charming in his new clothes. 
 The glance they exchanged was significant enough to 
 show him that he was the object of those confused 
 desires which come into the hearts of all young girls 
 and attach themselves to the first comer who proves 
 attractive. A voice within him cried, " Eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs ! " Then, with a look at Vautrin, 
 he went back to recollections of the opera, and fancied 
 that his sham passion for Madame de Nucingen would 
 be the antidote to involuntary thoughts of evil. 
 
 "They gave us Rossini's 'Barber of Seville' last 
 night," he said. "I never heard such delicious music.
 
 Pert Goriot. 169 
 
 Dear me! how delightful it must be to have a box at 
 the opera 1 " 
 
 Pere Goriot snatched at this speech like a dog 
 snapping at a morsel flung from his master's hand. 
 
 *' Ali ! you men live in clover," cried Madame 
 Vauquer ; " you can have anything you wish for." 
 
 " How did you get home? " asked Vautrin. 
 
 " On foot," said Eugene. 
 
 " For my part," said the tempter, ' I don't like half 
 pleasures. I should prefer to drive to the opera in my 
 own carriage, sit in my own box, and come home 
 comfortably. All or nothing, that's my motto." 
 
 " And a very good one," said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " Perhaps you will see Madame de Nucingen to- 
 day," said Eugene in a low voice to Pere Goriot. 
 " She will receive you with open arms ; she will like 
 to hear some particulars about me. I have heard that 
 she wishes to be invited to my cousin's, Madame de 
 Beauseant. Don't forget to tell her how much I 
 admire her, and that I hope to have the pleasure of 
 procuring her the invitation." 
 
 Then Rastignac rose and went off to his lecture, 
 not caring to spend a moment more than he could help 
 in that odious pension. He loitered about the streets 
 nearly all day with the fever of youth and its first 
 hopes coursing through his veins. He was pondering 
 the conditions of social life as revealed by Vautrin's 
 chain of reasoning when he met Bianchon in the 
 gardens of the Luxembourg. 
 
 " What makes you so grave, old fellow ? " said the 
 medical student, taking his arm as they walked along 
 the front of the palace.
 
 170 P3re Goriot. 
 
 " I am tormented by evil thoughts." 
 
 "What sort of evil thoughts? Tell me; thoughts 
 can be ourc'l." 
 
 "How?" 
 
 " By giving in to them." 
 
 " You don't know what you are laughing at. Did 
 you ever read Rousseau ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 "Do you remember where he asks the reader what 
 he would do if he could make himself rich by killing 
 an old mandarin in China by simply willing it in 
 Paris?" 
 
 "Yea." 
 
 ** Well, I want your opinion. What would you do? " 
 
 "Pooh ! I 've got to my thirty-third mandarin." 
 
 " Don't joke ; be serious. Suppose it was proved to 
 you that such a thing was possible, and that it only 
 needed just a nod from you, would you do it?" 
 
 "Is the mandarin very old? But, bah! young 
 or old, well or paralyzed, Heavens and earth! 
 the deuce ! Well, then No ! " 
 
 " You are a good fellow, Bianchon. But suppose 
 you loved a woman well enough to turn your soul 
 wrong-side out for her; and if she wanted money, 
 lots of money, for her toilette, her carnage, her 
 whims " 
 
 *' You bewilder my faculties, and then you want me 
 to reason ! " 
 
 " Well, see here ! Bianchon, I am mad. I want 
 you to cure me. I have two sisters who are angels of 
 beauty and goodness, and I want thorn to be happy. 
 How can I, between now and five years hence, get
 
 P2re Goriot. 171 
 
 two hundred thousand francs for their dot? There 
 are circumstances you know in which one must play 
 high and not waste one's luck in winning pennies." 
 
 ** But that 's the very question that stands upon the 
 threshold of every man's life; and yon want to cut the 
 Gordian knot with the sword ! To do this, my dear 
 fellow, one must be Alexander, or else we commit 
 gome crime and are sent to the galleys. For my part, 
 I am quite content with the life which I expect to lead 
 in the provinces, where I shall succeed my father in a 
 commonplace way. After all, a man's affections can 
 be as fully satisfied in a little round as in a vast cir- 
 cumference. Napoleon could not eat two dinners a 
 day. A man's happiness lies between the soles of his 
 feet and the crown of his head. Whether that happi- 
 ness costs a million of francs a year, or a hundred louts, 
 our intrinsic perception of it is the same. So I go in 
 for letting the mandarin alone." 
 
 "Thank you, you have done me good, Bianchon. 
 Let us always be friends." 
 
 "Look here!" resumed the medical student, as they 
 left the Cours de Cuvier in the Jardin des Plantes, 
 '* I have just seen old Michonneau and Poiret on a 
 bench talking with a man whom I saw during the 
 troubles of last year in the neighborhood of the 
 Chamber of Deputies. He looks to me like a police- 
 spy disguised as a respectable bourgeois living on 
 his income. Let us watch that couple. I will tell 
 you why later. Adieu, I must be off to the four- 
 o'clock (all.'" 
 
 When Eugene returned to Madame Vauquer's, he 
 found Pere Goriot waiting for him.
 
 172 P$re G-oriot. 
 
 "See," said the old man, "here is a note from her. 
 Hein / what pretty writing ! " 
 
 Eugene broke the seal and read : 
 
 MONSIEUR, My father tells me that you are fond of 
 Italian music. I should be happy if you would do me the 
 pleasure to accept a seat in my hox on Saturday next. We 
 shall have Fodor and Pellegrini ; I am sure therefore that 
 you will not refuse my invitation. Monsieur de Nucingen 
 joins me in begging you to dine with us on that day without 
 ceremony. If you accept, you will render him grateful to be 
 released from his conjugal duty of escorting me to the opera. 
 Do not reply, but come. Accept my compliments. 
 
 D. de N. 
 
 "Let me look at it," said Pere Goriot to Eugene 
 when he had read the letter. " You will certainly go, 
 won't you? " he added, putting his cheek to the paper. 
 *' How good it smells ! Her lingers have touched it !" 
 
 " A woman does not fling herself at a man without 
 some motive," said the student to himself. " She 
 must want to make use of me to get de Mai-say back 
 again. Nothing but spite could account for her send- 
 ing me such a letter." 
 
 " Well," said Pere Goriot, " what are you thinking 
 of?" 
 
 Eugene knew nothing of a social delirium that 
 possessed the women of the Chaussee d'Antin at that 
 period. He was not aware that the wife of a banker 
 in that quarter would do almost anything that might 
 open her way into the salons of the Faubourg Saint- 
 Germain. At that period fashion was just beginning 
 to exalt above all other women those who composed 
 the society of the old nobility, known by the name of
 
 Pere G-oriot. 173 
 
 Les Dames du petit Ohdteait. Among them Madame 
 de Bcauseant, her friend the Duchesse de Langeais, and 
 the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse held the first rank. Ras- 
 tignac was the only man with an entree to these houses 
 who was not aware of the eagerness of the Chaussee 
 d'Antin ladies to enter that superior sphere and shine 
 among its constellations. But his mistrustfulness be- 
 friended him on this occasion. It made him receive the 
 invitation very coldly, and gave him the poor power of 
 doing a favor instead of accepting one. 
 
 " Yes, I will go," he said. 
 
 Thus the chief motive that took him to Madame de 
 Nucingen's was curiosity ; had she shown indifference, 
 he might have been influenced by passion. Never- 
 theless, he looked forward to the meeting with some 
 impatience, and enjoyed, as he dressed for dinner, 
 all those little satisfactions which young people are 
 ashamed to speak of for fear of ridicule, but which 
 pleasantly stimulate their self-love. Pie thought as 
 he arranged his hair how the eyes of a pretty woman 
 would linger among the black curls; he played the 
 little tricks and vanities of a young girl dressing for 
 her first ball, and smiled at the reflection of his slim 
 figure as he smoothed out the folds of his new coat, 
 and turned himself about before the glass. 
 
 " One thing is very certain," he said complacently ; 
 " it is not every man who is well-made." 
 
 He went downstairs at the moment when the house- 
 hold were sitting down to dinner, and laughed as he 
 received a broadside of nonsensical remarks on his 
 elegant appearance. The excitement produced by any 
 attention to the toilet is a trait of manners peculiar to
 
 174 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 pensions bourgeoises, where every one has a word to 
 say on the unaccustomed appearance of a new dress or 
 a new coat. 
 
 " Kt, kt, kt, kt ! " cried Bianchon, clicking his tongue 
 as if exciting a horse. 
 
 " Duke and peer of France!" said Madame Vauqner. 
 
 "Monsieur is arrayed for conquest," observed Ma- 
 demoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 " Cock-a-doodle-doo ! " crowed the painter. 
 
 " My compliments to your wife," said the employe 
 at the museum. 
 
 " Has Monsieur a wife ? " asked Poiret. 
 
 " A wife in compartments that will go in the wa- 
 ter warranted fast colors at all prices from twenty- 
 five to forty the most fashionable patterns in plaids 
 sure to wash very pretty wear half thread, half 
 cotton, half wool cures the toothache and all other 
 maladies under the patronage of the Academy of 
 Medicine excellent for children better still for 
 head-ache, plethora, and other affections of the stomach, 
 ears, and eyes! " cried Vautrin, with the intonation 
 and volubility of an auctioneer. " How much do you 
 bid for this wonder, gentlemen? Two sous! What 
 did you say? Nothing? It is the last article made 
 for the Great Mogul, which all the Reigning Sov- 
 ereigns of Europe, including the Gr-r-r-r-r-rand Duke 
 of Baden, have been on the look-out for. Walk in ; 
 keep straight before you ; pass into the inner office. 
 Strike up the music! Brooum, la, la, trinn ! la, la, 
 bourn, bourn ! Monsieur the clarionet, you are out 
 of tune," he went on in a hoarse voice ; " I '11 rap you 
 over the knuckles ! "
 
 Pere G-oriot. 175 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! how agreeable that man can make 
 himself!" said Madame Vauquer to Madame Couture, 
 " I should never have a moment's ennui if I lived with 
 him." 
 
 In the midst of the laughter and the jokes led off 
 by this absurdity, Eugene intercepted a furtive glance 
 of admiration from Mademoiselle Taillefer, who whis- 
 pered a few words in her aunt's ear. 
 
 *' The cabriolet is here," announced Sylvie. 
 
 "Where does he dine?" asked Bianchon. 
 
 " With Madame la Baronne de Nucingen." 
 
 " Pere Goriot's daughter," added the student. 
 
 At these words everybody looked at the old man, 
 who was gazing at Eugene with envy in his eyes. 
 
 Rastignac found the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare 
 one of those flimsy buildings, with slim pillars and fan- 
 ciful porticos, which in Paris are classed as pretty; a 
 banker's house, in short, overloaded with costly orna- 
 ment and stucco, the halls and staircase-landings inlaid 
 with marbles. Madame de Nucingen received him in 
 a small room filled with Italian pictures and decorated 
 in the style of a restaurant. She seemed to be in 
 trouble, and the efforts which she made to conceal her 
 feelings affected Eugene all the more because they 
 were evidently genuine. He came expecting to charm 
 her by his presence ; he found her the image of des- 
 pair, and the disappointment piqued his self-love. 
 
 " I have little claim to your confidence, Madame," 
 he said, after bantering her slightly on her preoccupa- 
 tion, "and if I am in your way I count upon your 
 kindness to tell me so frankly."
 
 176 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " No, stay," she said ; " I should be alone if you left 
 me. Nucingen dines out to-day, and I do not wish to 
 be alone. I need something to interest me." 
 
 " What troubles you ? " 
 
 " You are the last person I could tell it to," she 
 cried. 
 
 "But you must tell me. Have I anything to do 
 with it?" 
 
 " Perhaps But, no ! " she resumed, " it is one of 
 those family quarrels that ought to be hidden from 
 other eyes. Did I not tell you the other evening that 
 I am far from happy? A chain of gold is the heaviest 
 to bear." 
 
 When a woman tells a young man that she is not 
 happy, and when the young man is clever, handsome, 
 well-dressed, and has fifteen hundred francs worth of 
 leisure in his pocket, he will probably think all that 
 Rastignac now thought, and speak as he did, like a 
 coxcomb. 
 
 " What can you lack ? " he said. " You are young, 
 beautiful, wealthy, and beloved! " 
 
 "Do not let us talk of myself," she cried, arresting 
 him with a gesture. " We will dine together tete-a-tete, 
 and then go and hear some delicious music. Do you 
 like me in this dress?" she continued, rising and dis- 
 playing a robe of white cashmere embroidered with 
 Persian designs, very elegant and costly. 
 
 " I would you Were altogether mine ! " cried Eugene. 
 " You are lovely ! " 
 
 " You would have a melancholy possession," she said 
 with a bitter smile. " Nothing about me indicates 
 unhappinees, and yet in spite of appearances I am
 
 Pere Goriot. 177 
 
 wretched. I cannot sleep for thinking of my troubles. 
 I am growing ugly " 
 
 " Oh, that can never be ! " cried the student. " Tell 
 me, what troubles have you that my devotion cannot 
 cure ? " 
 
 " Ah ! if I told you, you would turn and leave me," 
 she said ; " your love for me is only the conventional 
 gallantry that men affect towards women. If you 
 really loved me, and I were to tell you my troubles 
 you would fall into despair. So you see I must not 
 tell you. For pity's sake," she added, " let us talk of 
 other things. Come and see my apartments." 
 
 " No, let us stay here," said Eugene, seating himself 
 on a low couch near the fire beside Madame de Nucin- 
 gen, and taking her hand with assurance. She allowed 
 him to do so, and even pressed his fingers with the ner- 
 vous grasp that betrays strong emotion. 
 
 " Listen ! " said Rastignac, " if you have griefs, con- 
 fide them to me. Let me prove how much I love you. 
 Either speak, and tell me these troubles and let me help 
 you, I am capable of killing six men for your sake, 
 or I will leave this house never to return." 
 
 " Well, then ! " she exclaimed, moved by an impulse 
 which made her strike her forehead with her hand, '* I 
 will put you to the proof at once. Yes," she added, 
 " there is no other way." 
 
 She rang the bell. 
 
 " Is Monsieur's carriage waiting ? " she said to the 
 servant. 
 
 " Yes, Madame." 
 
 " I will take it. You can give him mine and my 
 horses. You need not serve dinner till seven o'clock." 
 12
 
 178 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Now, come," nhe said to Eugene, who found himself 
 as in a dream sitting beside her in Monsieur de Nucin- 
 gen's coupe. 
 
 " To the Palais-Royal," she said to the coachman, 
 " and stop near the Theatre Franqais." 
 
 As they drove on she seemed greatly agitated, and 
 would not answer Eugene, who knew not what to 
 think of the mute obtuse resistance she opposed to his 
 inquiries. 
 
 " In another moment she may escape me," he said to 
 himself. 
 
 When the carriage stopped, she looked at him with 
 an expression which silenced the foolish speeches he 
 was beginning to utter. 
 
 "Do you love me then so very much ? " she asked. 
 
 " Yes," he replied, concealing his uneasiness. 
 
 "You will think no evil of me whatever I ask of 
 you ? " 
 
 " No." 
 
 " Will you obey me ? " 
 
 Blindly." 
 
 " Did you ever go to a gambling-house ? " and her 
 voice trembled. 
 
 " Never." 
 
 "Ah! then I breathe. You will have luck. Here 
 is my purse. Take it," she said, " yes, take it. There 
 are one hundred francs in it, all the money owned 
 by this wealthy and fortunate woman ! Go into 
 some gambling-room. I do not know where they 
 are, but I know there are many in the Palais-Royal. 
 Stake these hundred francs at a game they call rou- 
 lette, and either lose them all or bring me back six
 
 Pere Croriot. 179 
 
 thousand francs. I will tell you my troubles when 
 you return." 
 
 " The devil take me if I understand what you wish 
 me to do, but I am ready to obey you," he said, reflect- 
 ing with satisfaction that she was thus putting herself 
 in his power. 
 
 He took the pretty purse and hastened to Number 
 Nine, after obtaining from a neighboring shopkeeper 
 the direction of the nearest gambling-house. He went 
 upstairs, permitted an attendant to take his hat, and 
 entered the room, where he asked to be shown the 
 roulette. All present looked astonished as the man in 
 attendance took him to a long table. Eugene, who 
 was followed by the whole company, asked, without 
 the least embarrassment, where he was to place his 
 money. 
 
 " If you put one louis on any of these thirty-six num- 
 bers and it comes up, you will win thirty-six louis" said 
 a respectable-looking old man with white hair. 
 
 Eugene placed the whole hundred francs on the 
 number of his own age, twenty-one. A cry of aston- 
 ishment broke from every one before he knew himself 
 what had happened. He had won. 
 
 " Take up your money," said the old gentleman ; 
 " people do not win twice in that way." 
 
 Eugene took a rake which the speaker handed to 
 him, and drew in three thousand six hundred francs. 
 Once more, knowing nothing of the game, he placed 
 his money on the red. The bystanders looked at him 
 with envy, seeing that he played on. The wheel turned, 
 he won again ; and the croupier threw him another 
 three thousand six hundred francs.
 
 180 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " You have won seven thousand two hundred francs," 
 whispered the old gentleman. " Tnke my advice and 
 go away. The red has come up eight times. If you 
 are kind-hearted, you will acknowledge my good ad- 
 vice and have pity on the poverty of an old prefect 
 of Napoleon, who is penniless." 
 
 Rastignac, bewildered, suffered the old man with the 
 snow-white hair to help himself to ten louis, and then 
 went downstairs with his seven thousand francs, under- 
 standing nothing of the game, and stupefied by his 
 good fortune. 
 
 "Ah, faf where will you take me now?" he said, 
 showing the seven thousand francs to Madame de Nu- 
 cingen as soon as the carriage door was shut. 
 
 Delphine threw her arms about him and kissed him 
 effusively, but without passion. 
 
 "You have saved me!" she cried. Tears flowed 
 down her cheeks. " I will tell you all, my friend, 
 for you are my friend, are you not ? You see me 
 rich and prosperous. I want for nothing so it seems 
 to you ? Well, then, I must tell you that Monsieur de 
 Nucingen does not give me a single penny to spend as 
 I choose. He pays for everything, for the household, 
 for rny carriages, even my opera-box. He allows me 
 a sum insufficient for my toilette ; he has reduced me 
 to secret poverty. I am too proud to beg for money. 
 Do you ask why, when I brought him seven hundred 
 thousand francs, I have suffered myself to be thus 
 despoiled? Through pride, through indignation! A 
 girl is so young, so easily deceived, when she is first 
 married. To have asked my husband for money then 
 would have scorched my mouth ; I dared not. I lived
 
 Pere Q-oriot. 181 
 
 on what I had saved, and on what I could get from my 
 poor father. Then I ran in debt. My marriage from 
 first to last has been a horrible deception ; I cannot 
 speak of it. We live apart ; I would rather fling my- 
 self from a window than be reconciled to him. When 
 I was forced to tell him of my debts, for jewelry and 
 various whims and trifles (my poor father had accus- 
 tomed ns to every indulgence), I suffered martyrdom. 
 At last I took courage and made my confession had 
 I not brought him a fortune ? Nucingen was furi- 
 ous. He said I should ruin him Oh ! he said such 
 horrible things! I wished myself a hundred feet 
 under ground. He paid my bills on that occasion be- 
 cause he had possession of my dot ; but he stipulated 
 that in future I should take a fixed annual allowance 
 for my personal expenses. I agreed, for the sake of 
 peace. Since then I have been anxious to do credit 
 to one whom you know of," she continued. " He has 
 not been true to me, but I must not cease to do justice 
 to the nobleness of his character. He has cruelly for- 
 saken me. Oh ! no one should forsake a woman, es- 
 pecially when they have flung her a pile of money in 
 the day of her distress oh ! they ought to love her 
 always. You, with the nobility of youth, pure and 
 fresh, you may well ask me how a woman could take 
 gold from a man in that relation ! But is it not natu- 
 ral to have all things in common with those to whom 
 we owe our happiness? Money has no importance 
 in itself, none, until love grows cold. Do we not 
 fancy that love will last a lifetime ? Who calculates 
 on separation? Shall those who have vowed to be 
 true eternally set up divided interests? I can never
 
 182 Pere Goriot. 
 
 tell what I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to 
 give me six thousand francs, less than he gives each 
 month to his mistress, a danseuse at the opera! I 
 longed to kill myself : I envied my own waiting-maid. 
 Ask my father for money ? it would be madness. 
 Anastasie and I have ruined him. My poor father 
 would sell himself for either of us, if any one would 
 pay six thousand francs for him. I should drive him 
 to despair in vain. You have saved me from shame, 
 from death ! I was frantic in my wretchedness. Ah ! 
 Monsieur, I owe you this explanation. I have been 
 beside myself this evening, let that be my excuse. 
 When you left me, when I lost sight of you, I had an 
 impulse to jump from the carriage and flee away on 
 foot, I knew not whither. Such is the life led by half 
 the women of Paris, luxury without, and bitter cares 
 within. I know poor creatures more wretched than I 
 am. There are women who get their creditors to send 
 in false accounts, and rob their husbands. Some men 
 believe that cashmeres worth two thousand francs are 
 sold for five hundred ; others that a shawl worth five 
 hundred francs costs a thousand. There are women 
 who even starve their children ; women who will com- 
 mit any meanness to get enough to buy a gown. I 
 am pure at least from such deceptions. Ah! to-night 
 Monsieur de Marsay will no longer have the right to 
 think of me as a woman he has paid ! " She dropped 
 her face between her hands that Eugene might not 
 see her tears; but he drew them away and looked 
 at her. 
 
 " To mix up money with love ! is it not horrible ?" 
 she said. " You can never think well of me ! "
 
 Pere Goriot. 183 
 
 This union of good feelings and acquired faults, 
 faults forced upon her by the corrupt society in which 
 she lived, overcame Eugene, who said soft words of 
 consolation as he gazed at the beautiful creature so 
 naively imprudent in the excitement of her grief. 
 
 " You will not turn this confession against me ? 
 Promise me that you never will," she said. 
 
 "Ah, Madame, I am incapable of doing so." 
 
 She took his hand and placed it on her heart, with a 
 gesture full of grace and gratitude. " Thanks to you 
 I am free and happy. I was pressed to earth by an 
 iron hand. I am free ; I will live simply from this 
 moment ; I will spend little. You will like me as I am, 
 will you not? as I am, my friend. Keep this," she 
 added, retaining six notes of a thousand francs, and 
 offering Rastignac the seventh. " In "strict justice I 
 owe you half, for I consider that we are partners." 
 
 Eugene protested with a sense of shame, till Madame 
 de Nucingen exclaimed, " I shall regard you as my 
 enemy if you refuse to be my accomplice." 
 
 " Then I will hold it in reserve in case of future ill- 
 luck," he said, as he took the note. 
 
 " Ah ! that is what I feared," she said, turning pale. 
 " If you wish me to be your friend, promise me 
 swear to me that you will never return to the gam- 
 bling table. Alas, alas ! think of my corrupting you ! 
 I ought to perish sooner ! " 
 
 Thus they reached the house in the Rue Saint-Lazare. 
 The contrast of its opulence with the poverty of its 
 mistress stunned the student, in whose ears the words 
 of Vautrin re-echoed as with fatal ty-uth. 
 
 " Sit there," said Madame de Nucingen, pointing to
 
 184 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 a sofa near the fire, when they entered her room. " I 
 have to write a trying letter. Give me your advice." 
 
 " Do not write at all," said Eugene. " Put the notes 
 in an envelope, address it merely, and send the letter 
 by your waiting-maid." 
 
 "Oh! you are too delightful!" she cried. "See, 
 Monsieur, what it is to have been brought up in the 
 traditions of good breeding. Ceci est du Beauseant 
 tout pur" she added, smiling. 
 
 " She is charming," thought Eugene, pleased with 
 the flattery. He looked round the room, which was 
 arranged with a meretricious taste better suited, he 
 thought, to the quartier Breda. 
 
 "Do you like it?" asked Madame de Nucingen, 
 ringing for her maid. " Therese, take this letter to 
 Monsieur de Marsay. Give it into his own hand. If 
 you do not find him, bring it back." 
 
 As Therese left the room she threw an inquisitive 
 glance at Eugene. Dinner was now served, and 
 Rastignac gave his arm to Madame de Nucingen, who 
 led him into a gorgeous dining-room where he again 
 found all the table luxury he had admired at his 
 cousin's. 
 
 " On the nights of the Italian opera you must 
 always dine with me," she said, " and escort me to the 
 theatre." 
 
 " I could soon accustom myself to so delightful a 
 life if it would only last," he answered ; " but I am 
 a poor student, with my fortune to make." 
 
 " It will make itself," she said laughing ; " you see 
 how things come to pass. I little expected to be so 
 happy."
 
 Pere Goriot. 185 
 
 It is the nature of women to argue the impossible 
 from the possible, and to destroy facts by building on 
 presentiments. 
 
 When Madame de Nucingen and Rastignac entered 
 their box at the opera she was so beautiful in her 
 recovered peace of mind that people began to whisper 
 those trifling calumnies against which women are 
 defenceless, however false may be the premises on 
 which they are based. Those who know Paris well 
 are careful to believe nothing that they hear, and also 
 to tell nothing that they know. Eugene took the 
 hand of his companion, and they silently communicated 
 to each other by pressure the sensations with which 
 the music flooded their souls. The evening was full of 
 enchantment, and when they left the Opera House 
 Madame de Nucingen insisted on taking Eugene as 
 far as the Pont-Neuf, disputing with him on the way 
 another of those kisses which she had given him of her 
 own accord in the Palais-Royal. Eugene reproached 
 her for the inconsistency. 
 
 "No then" she said, "it was gratitude for an 
 unexpected deliverance ; now it would be a pledge " 
 
 " And you will not grant me that pledge," he said, 
 half angrily. She made a gesture of impatience and 
 gave him her hand to kiss, which he took with an ill 
 grace that completely charmed her. 
 
 " Monday at the ball," she said as they parted. 
 
 Eugene walked home in the brilliant moonlight 
 with his mind full of serious reflections. He was 
 pleased and yet dissatisfied: pleased at an adventure 
 which threw him into the closest intimacy with one of 
 the prettiest and most fashionable women of Paris ;
 
 186 P$re Goriot. 
 
 dissatisfied at seeing his projects for the future over- 
 thrown, for he now perceived how much he had 
 really built upon the vague visions of the day before. 
 Want of success increases rather than diminishes the 
 strength of our wishes. The more Eugene tasted the 
 pleasures of Parisian life, the less he liked the prospect 
 of toil and poverty. He fingered the bank-note in his 
 pocket, and thought of a hundred reasons to justify 
 him in keeping it. As he reached the Rue Neuve 
 Sainte-Genevieve and ran upstairs, he saw a light on 
 the landing. Pere Goriot had left his door ajar and 
 his rush-light burning, that the student might not 
 forget to come in and relate to him his daughter, as he 
 expressed it. Eugene told him everything. 
 
 "What!" cried Pere Goriot, in a transport of 
 jealous despair, "do they think me ruined? I have 
 still an income of thirteen hundred francs. JJbn 
 Dieu! my poor darling, why did she not come to me? 
 I could have sold out my stocks. I could have given 
 her what she wanted from the capital, and bought an 
 annuity with the rest. Why did you not come and 
 tell me, my good neighbor? How could you have had 
 the heart to risk her poor little hundred francs. It 
 breaks my heart This is what it is to have sons- 
 in-law! And she wept you say she wept? my 
 Delphine, who never wept before when she was my 
 own little one ! By her marriage contract she is 
 entitled to her money. I shall see Derville the law- 
 yer, to-morrow. I shall insist on the separate invest- 
 ment of her fortune. I know the law. I am an old 
 wolf yes ! and I shall get the use of my teeth 
 again ! "
 
 Pere Goriot. 187 
 
 " See, pere, here are a thousand francs which she 
 insisted on giving me out of our winnings. Keep 
 them for her." 
 
 Goriot looked at Eugene and grasped his hand, on 
 which the old man dropped a tear. 
 
 " You will succeed in life," he said. "God is just, 
 you know. I know what honesty is, and I tell you 
 few men would have done as you have done. My son, 
 go now ; go and sleep. You can sleep, for you are 
 not yet a father Oh, she wept ! While I was 
 quietly eating my dinner, dull fool that I am, she was 
 suffering! I who would sell my soul to save them 
 from unhappiness ! " 
 
 " On my honor," said Eugene, as he laid his head 
 on his pillow, " I will be an honest man as long as I 
 live. There is great happiness in following the in- 
 spirations of one's conscience." 
 
 Perhaps none but those who believe in a good God 
 can do good in secret. Eugene was a believer still. 
 
 On the evening of the ball Rastignac went to 
 Madame de Beauseant's, who took him with her and 
 presented him to the Duchesse de Carigliano. He had 
 a gracious reception from the Marechale, and found 
 Madame de Nucingen already there. Delphine, who 
 had dressed with the intention of pleasing others that 
 she might the better please Eugene, waited impatiently 
 to catch his eye, though carefully concealing her im- 
 patience. For one who can read a woman's heart 
 such a moment is full of charm. What man does not 
 delight in making a woman wait eagerly for his 
 judgment, disguising his own pleasure that he may
 
 188 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 win this signal of her preference, enjoying her uneasi- 
 ness as he plays upon the fears he can set at rest by a 
 smile ? 
 
 As the evening advanced, Rastignac began to per- 
 ceive the full bearings of his position, and to under- 
 stand that he held rank among those around him as 
 the acknowledged cousin of Madame de Beauseant. 
 The conquest of Madame de Nucingen, with which he 
 was credited, placed him at once under observation ; 
 young men looked at him with envy, and as he caught 
 their glances he tasted the first sweets of gratified 
 social vanity. Passing from room to room and from 
 group to group, he heard his own praises ; ladies pre- 
 dicted his success ; and Delphine, afraid of losing him, 
 promised not to refuse the kiss she had denied him the 
 day before. He received several invitations during 
 the evening, and was presented by his cousin to a num- 
 ber of ladies noted for their elegance, whose houses 
 ranked among the most agreeable in the Faubourg. 
 Thus he found himself admitted into the inner circle 
 of the great world of Paris. This evening was for 
 him a brilliant debut, remembered to the last hour of 
 his life, as a young girl remembers the ball where she 
 won her first triumphs. 
 
 The next morning, at the breakfast-table, when he 
 began to relate his successes to Pere Goriot in pre- 
 sence of the other guests, Vautrin listened with diabol- 
 ical amusement to the tale. 
 
 " Now, do you really think," exclaimed that fierce 
 logician, " that a young man of fashion can continue to 
 live in the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, in the Maison 
 Vauquer? a. pension infinitely respectable in every
 
 Pere Goriot. 189 
 
 way, no doubt, but which assuredly is not fashiona- 
 ble. It is comfortable, it is cosey, delightful in its abun- 
 dance, proud of being temporarily the abode of a de 
 Kastignac ; but after all it is in the Rue Neuve Sainte- 
 Genevieve, and it boasts no luxury, being above all 
 things patriarchalorama. My young friend," contin- 
 ued Vautrin, with paternal irony, "if you hope to 
 make a figure in Paris, you must have three horses 
 and a tilbury for the morning, and a coupe for the 
 evening: nine thousand francs for the equipages alone. 
 You will fall shamefully below the requirements of 
 your destiny if you spend less than three thousand 
 with your tailor, six hundred with your perfumer, 
 and six hundred more between your bootmaker and 
 your hatter. As for your washerwoman, she will 
 cost you a thousand francs. Young men of fash- 
 ion are above all things bound to be irreproachable 
 in the matter of washing. Love and the Church 
 alike demand fine linen. Now, we have got up to 
 fourteen thousand. I don't count all that cards and 
 bets and presents will cost you, you certainly can't 
 do with less than two thousand francs a year for 
 pocket-money. I have led that life myself, and I 
 know how it goes. Now, add to these things which 
 are indispensable, mind you three hundred louis for 
 subsistence, and a thousand francs for rent. That 
 brings us up, my boy, to the pretty little sum of twen- 
 ty-five thousand francs a year, which we must have in . 
 hand, or over we go into the mud, with people laugh- 
 ing at us, and our future lost, including all our 
 youthful dreams of fortune and women ! Ah ! I forgot 
 the groom and the valet. Could Christophe carry
 
 190 Pere Goriot. 
 
 your lillets-doux? Shall you write them upon law- 
 paper? My dear boy, you would cut your throat. 
 Take the advice of an old man full of experience," he 
 concluded ; " either transport yourself into a virtuous 
 garret and wed toil, or choose some other way to 
 reach your end." 
 
 Here Vautrin glanced at Mademoiselle Taillefer, 
 with an eye that recalled and emphasized the seduc- 
 tive arguments he had already dropped into the stu- 
 dent's heart to breed corruption.
 
 Pere Goriot. 191 
 
 XII. 
 
 SEVERAL clays passed, and Rastignac led a dissipated 
 life. He dined constantly with Madame de Nu- 
 cingen, and accompanied her into the great world, 
 getting home at three or four o'clock in the morning. 
 He usually rose at midday and made his toilet ; after 
 which, if it were fine, he drove to the Bois with Del- 
 phine, idling away his days withoiit thought of their 
 value, and assimilating the lessons and seductions of 
 luxury with the eagerness of the female date-tree as it 
 absorbs the fecundating pollen from the atmosphere. 
 He played high, lost and Avon heavily, and soon accus- 
 tomed himself to the extravagant habits of the young 
 men around him. Out of the first money which he 
 won he sent fifteen hundred francs to his mother and 
 sisters, accompanying the restitution with some pretty 
 presents. Although he had given out his intention to 
 quit the Maison Vauquer, he was still there in the last 
 week of January, and did not well see how he could 
 get away. Young men are governed by a law that 
 seems at first sight inexplicable, but which springs 
 from their youth and from the species of madness with 
 which they fling themselves into the enjoyments of 
 life. Be they rich or be they poor, they never have 
 money enough for the necessities of living, though 
 they always find the wherewithal to spend on their 
 caprices. Lavish when they can buy on credit, stingy
 
 192 Pere Croriot. 
 
 as to all that they must pay for in hard cash, they 
 seem to indemnify themselves for the lack of what they 
 crave by squandering what they have. Thus, by 
 way of illustration, a student takes more care of his 
 hat than he does of his coat. The enormous profit of 
 the tailor makes it reasonable that he should wait for 
 his money ; but the small gains of a hatter render him 
 impervious to the question of credit. Though the 
 young man sitting in the balcon of a theatre may dis- 
 play to the opera-glasses of pretty women the most 
 magnificent of waistcoats, no one can be certain that 
 his socks would bear inspection : the hosier is one of 
 those who must be paid in ready money. Rastignac 
 had reached this point in his career. His purse, always 
 empty for Madame Vauquer, always full for the needs 
 of vanity, had its ups and downs, its ebbs and flows, 
 which by no means agreed with the natural demands 
 upon it. Before quitting that abject and evil-smelling 
 abode, where his new pretensions were daily humili- 
 ated, must he not pay a month's lodging to his land- 
 lady, and buy furniture fit for a man of fashion before 
 he could install himself in a new apartment? This 
 remained steadfastly the thing impossible. To get 
 money for the gambling-table, Rastignac had readily 
 found out how to buy watches and chains from his 
 jeweller at enormous prices, to be paid for out of his 
 winnings, and to be pawned as soon as bought with 
 that solemn and discreet friend of youth, the Mont-de- 
 Piete; but his ingenuity had failed to discover any 
 device whereby to pay Madame Vauquer, or to buy 
 the tools necessary to keep up his life of elegance and 
 fashion. Vulgar present necessity, or the debts con-
 
 Pere G-oriat. 193 
 
 tracted for past pleasures, gave him no inspiration. 
 Like most of those who lead this life of chance, he put 
 off as long as possible paying his current debts (which 
 are the most sacred in the eyes of plain people), after 
 the example of Mirabeau, who never paid his baker's 
 bill till it took the compelling form of a promissory note. 
 At this special time the last of January Rastignac 
 had been losing heavily, and was in debt. He was 
 beginning to see that he could not continue to lead 
 this kind of life without fixed resources. But sighing 
 over the difficulties of his precarious position did not 
 bring him to resign the pleasures of the great world ; 
 on the contrary, he felt incapable of the sacrifice, and 
 resolute to push on at any price. The chances on 
 which at first he had built his hopes of fortune he 
 now saw to be chimerical, while his real difficulties 
 grew greater every day. As he became familiar with 
 the domestic secrets of Monsieur and Madame de Nu- 
 cingen, he saw that to convert love into an instrument 
 of fortune it was necessary to drink the cup of shame 
 to the very dregs, and renounce forever all those noble 
 ideas which are the absolution of youthful errors. To 
 this life, outwardly splendid, inwardly gnawed by the 
 tcenias of remorse, and whose fugitive pleasures were 
 dearly paid for by persistent anguish, he was now 
 wedded. Like La Bruycre's absent-minded man, he 
 had made his bed in the slime of the ditch ; but, like 
 him again, he had as yet only soiled his clothes. 
 
 " Well ! have we killed the mandarin ? " said Bian- 
 chon one day as they rose from table. 
 
 " Xot yet," he answered, " but he is at his death- 
 rattle." 
 
 13
 
 194 Pere Goriot. 
 
 The medical student took this for a joke, but he was 
 mistaken. Eugene, who had dined that day at the 
 pension after a long absence, seemed thoughtful and 
 preoccupied. Instead of leaving after the dessert, he 
 remained in the dining-room sitting near Mademoiselle 
 Taillefer, on whom from time to time he threw reflect- 
 ing glances. Some of the guests still lingered at table 
 eating nuts ; others were walking up and down con- 
 tinuing their conversation. They left the room, as they 
 did every evening, each as he pleased, according to the 
 interest he took in the conversation or the amount of 
 rest required by his digestion. In winter the dining- 
 room was seldom empty before eight o'clock; after 
 which hour the four women remained alone and made 
 up for the silence imposed upon them by the masculine 
 majority. Struck by Eugene's preoccupation, Vautrin, 
 who at first had seemed in a hurry to get away, stayed 
 after the others had departed, and placed himself cau- 
 tiously just within the door of the salon, so that Eugene 
 could not see him, and might therefore believe him 
 gone. He read the mind of the student, and saw that 
 a crisis was at hand. 
 
 Rastignac was in fact in a difficult though perhaps 
 not uncommon position. Whether Madame de Nucin- 
 gen loved him or was trifling with him, she had made 
 him pass through the fluctuations of a real passion, 
 and had used against him all the resources at the 
 command of Parisian feminine diplomacy. Having 
 compromised herself in the eyes of the world to se- 
 cure the devotion of a cousin of Madame de Beause- 
 ant, she now repelled his advances and would go no 
 further. For a month she had coquetted with his
 
 Pere Goriot. 195 
 
 feelings, and had ended by gaining some power over 
 his heart. If in the first hours of their intimacy the 
 student had been master of the situation, Madame de 
 Nucingen was now the stronger of the two. She had 
 contrived by skilful management to excite in Rastignac 
 the varied feelings, good and bad, of the two or three 
 men who exist in a young Parisian. Was this from 
 calculation ? No, women are always true even in the 
 midst of their utmost falsity ; they are true, because 
 they are influenced by native feeling. Perhaps Del- 
 phine, alarmed at the power she had at first allowed 
 Eugene to assume over her, and at the unguarded con- 
 fidence she had shown him, was prompted by a feeling 
 of dignity to assume reserve. She may have hesitated 
 before her fall, and have sought to test the character 
 of the man to whom she was about to commit her 
 future, having already had good reason to distrust the 
 faith of lovers. Perhaps she had noticed in Eugene's 
 manner for his rapid success had greatly increased 
 his self-conceit a certain disrespect caused by the 
 singularities of their situation. Be this as it may, 
 whatever were her reasons, Eugene had made no pro- 
 gress with her since the first days of their intercourse. 
 He grew irritable, his self-love was deeply wounded ; 
 he was like a sportsman jealous for the honor of Saint- 
 Hubert if a partridge is not killed on the first day of 
 the sport. His angry self-conceit, his futile hopes, 
 were they false or real, and his daily anxieties bound 
 him more and more to this woman. Yet sometimes 
 when he found himself penniless and without prospects, 
 his mind turned, in defiance of his conscience, to the 
 chance Vautrin had held out to him through a marriage
 
 196 Pere Groriot. 
 
 with Mademoiselle Taillefer. There were days when 
 his poverty was so importunate that he yielded almost 
 involuntarily to the snare of the terrible sphinx whose 
 glance dominated him with a dangerous fascination. 
 
 "When Poiret and Mademoiselle Michonneau had 
 gone up to their rooms, Rastignac, believing himself 
 alone between Madame Vauquer and Madame Couture, 
 the latter of whom was knitting herself a pair of muf- 
 fetees and dosing by the stove, turned to Mademoiselle 
 Taillefer with a glance sufficiently tender to make her 
 eyes droop. 
 
 " Is anything troubling you, Monsieur Eugene ? " she 
 said, after a slight pause. 
 
 " Who is without trouble ? " he replied. " Yet per- 
 haps if we young men were sure of being truly loved, 
 with a devotion that would compensate us for the 
 sacrifices we are ready to make, we should have no 
 troubles." 
 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer for all answer gave him a 
 look whose meaning was unmistakable. 
 
 " Even you, Mademoiselle, who are so sure of your 
 heart to-day, can you be sure that you will never 
 change ? " 
 
 A smile played about the lips of the poor girl ; a ray 
 of sunshine from her heart lighted up her face with so 
 bright a glow that Eugene was frightened at having 
 called forth such a manifestation of feeling. 
 
 u What ! if to-morrow you were rich and happy, if 
 immense wealth came to you from the skies, would 
 you still love a poor young man who had pleased you 
 in the days of your own distress?" 
 
 She made a pretty motion of her head.
 
 Pere Goriot. 197 
 
 " A very poor unhappy man ? " 
 
 Another sign. 
 
 " What nonsense are you talking ? " cried Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " Never mind," said Eugene ; " we understand each 
 other." 
 
 " Ah ! an understanding ! a promise of marringe 
 between the Chevalier Eugene de Rastignac and Made- 
 moiselle Victorine Taillefer ! " said Vautrin in his bluff 
 voice, as he stood on the threshold of the dining-room. 
 
 " How you frightened me ! " cried Madame Vauquer 
 and Madame Couture together. 
 
 "I might make a far worse choice," said Eugene, 
 laughing. 
 
 The voice of Vautrin at that moment caused him 
 the most painful emotion he had ever yet known. 
 
 " No jests on that subject, if you please, gentlemen," 
 said Madame Couture. " My dear, let us go upstairs." 
 
 Madame Vauquer followed the two ladies, that she 
 might economize fire and lights by spending the even- 
 ing in their room. Eugene found himself alone and 
 face to face with Vautrin. 
 
 " I knew you would come to it," said the latter, with 
 his imperturbable sang-froid. u But, stay ! I can be 
 delicate and considerate as well as others. Don't make 
 up your mind at this moment ; you are not altogether 
 yourself ; you are in trouble, in debt. I don't wish 
 it to be passion or despair but plain common-sense 
 which brings you to me. Perhaps you want a few 
 thousands ? Here, will you have them ? " 
 
 The tempter took a purse from his pocket and drew 
 out three bank-notes of a thousand francs each, which
 
 198 Pere Goriot. 
 
 he fluttered before the eyes of the student. Eugene's 
 situation at this time was very harassing. He owed 
 the Marquis d'Adjuda and the Comte de Trailles a 
 hundred louis lost at cards. He had no money to pay 
 the debt, and dared not go that evening to Madame de 
 Restaud's where he was expected. It was one of those 
 informal parties where people drink tea and eat little 
 cakes, but lose their thousands at whist. 
 
 " Monsieur," said Eugene, striving to hide a convul- 
 sive shiver, " after what you have confided to me, you 
 ought to know that I cannot put myself under obliga- 
 tions to you." 
 
 " Well," said Vautrin, " I should be sorry to have 
 you say otherwise. You are a handsome young fellow, 
 and sensitive ; proud as a lion and gentle as a little 
 girl. You would be a fine morsel for the Devil : I like 
 the strain. A little more study of men and morals, 
 and you will see the world in its true light. A man 
 of your stamp generally relieves his conscience by 
 playing a few scenes of virtuous indignation and self- 
 sacrifice, highly applauded by the fools in the pit. 
 In a few days you will be one of us. Ah ! if you be- 
 come my pupil, I will make you anything you please. 
 You could not form a wish but it should be gratified, 
 were it for honor, fortune, or the love of women. 
 All civilization should be turned into ambrosia for 
 you. You should be our spoiled child, our Benjamin ; 
 we would lay down our lives for you with pleasure. 
 Every obstacle in your path should be swept away ! 
 If you are still scrupulous, I suppose you take me for 
 a scoundrel ? Let me tell you that a man who was 
 quite as high-minded as you can pretend to be, Mon-
 
 Pere Q-oriot. 199 
 
 sieur de Turenne, had his little arrangements with 
 the brigands of his day without thinking himself at 
 all compromised by it. You don't want to be under 
 obligations to me, hein ? That need not hinder," he 
 said with a smile ; " take the notes, and write across 
 this," he added, pulling out a stamped paper, " Ac- 
 cepted for the sum of three thousand. Jive hundred 
 francs, payable in twelvemonths ; sign it, and add the 
 date. The five hundred francs interest is enough to 
 relieve you of all scruples. You may call me a Jew if 
 you like, and consider yourself entirely released from 
 gratitude. I have no objection to your despising me 
 now, for I am certain you will come to me in the end. 
 You will find in me the unfathomable depths and the 
 vast concentrated emotions which ninnies call vices; 
 but you will never find me false or ungrateful. I 'm 
 not a pawn, nor a knight I 'm a castle, a tower 
 of strength, my boy ! " 
 
 " Who are you ? " cried Eugene. tf Were you created 
 to torment me ? " 
 
 " No, no; I am a kind man, willing to get splashed 
 that you may be kept out of the mud for the rest of 
 your life. I have startled you a little with the chimes 
 of your Social Order, and by letting you see, perhaps 
 too soon, how the peal is rung. But the first fright 
 will pass, like that of a recruit on the battlefield. You 
 will get accustomed to the idea of men as well as of 
 soldiers dying to promote the good of others who have 
 crowned themselves kings and emperors. How times 
 have changed ! Formerly we could say to a bravo, 
 ' Here are a hundred crowns ; go kill me So-and-so,' 
 and eat our suppers tranquilly after sending a man
 
 200 Pere Goriot. 
 
 to the shades by a yes or a no. To-day I propose to 
 give you a handsome fortune ; and yet you hesitate, 
 when all you have to do is to nod your head, a thing 
 which cannot compromise you in any way. The age 
 is rotten!" 
 
 Eugene signed the paper, and exchanged it for the 
 bank-notes. 
 
 " Come, let us talk sense," resumed Vautrin. " I 
 want to start for America in a few months and plant 
 my tobacco. I will send you the cigars of friendship. 
 If I get rich I will help you. If I have no children 
 (and that is probable, for I am not anxious to propa- 
 gate myself), I will leave you all my fortune. Don't 
 you call that being a friend? But I have a passion 
 for devoting myself to others I have sacrificed 
 myself before now in my life. I live in a sphere 
 above that of other men ; I look on actions as means 
 to ends, and I make straight for those ends. What is 
 the life of a man to me ? not that ! " he added, click- 
 ing his thumb-nail against a tooth. " A man is all, 
 or nothing. Less than nothing when he is Poiret : 
 one may crush such a man as that like a bed-bug, 
 he is flat and empty, and he stinks. But a man gifted 
 as you are is a god ; he is not a machine in human 
 skin, but a theatre where noble sentiments are en- 
 acted. I live in sentiments ! A noble sentiment, 
 what is it? the whole of life in a thought. Look 
 at Pere Goriot: his two daughters are his universe, 
 they are the threads of fate that guide him through 
 created things. I say again, I have dug deep into life, 
 and I know there is but one enduring sentiment, 
 man's friendship for man. Pierre et Jaffier I know
 
 Pere Croriot. 201 
 
 * Venice Preserved ' by heart ! Have you seen many 
 men virile enough when a comrade said, ' Come, help 
 me bury a corpse ,' to follow without asking a question 
 or preaching a moral ? I have done that ! But you, 
 you are superior to others ; to you I can speak out, 
 you will comprehend me. You '11 not paddle long in 
 the marsh with the dwarfs and the toads! Well, 
 it is settled : you will marry her. Let us each carry 
 our point. Mine is steel, and will never yield ! Hal 
 ha! " 
 
 Vautrin walked away without listening to the nega- 
 tive reply of Rastignac. He seemed to know the 
 secret of those feeble efforts at resistance, those in- 
 effectual struggles with which men try to cheat them- 
 selves, and which serve to excuse their evil actions to 
 their own minds. 
 
 " Let him do what he likes ; I will never marry 
 Mademoiselle Taillefer," said Eugene. 
 
 The thought of a compact between himself and a 
 man he held in abhorrence, yet who was fast assuming 
 great proportions in his eyes by the cynicism of his 
 ideas and the boldness with which he clinched society, 
 threw Rastignac into an inward fever, from which, 
 however, he rallied in time to dress and go to Madame 
 de Restaud's. For some time past the countess had 
 shown him much attention, as a young man whose 
 every step led him more and more into the heart of 
 the great world, and whose influence might eventually 
 become formidable. He paid his debts to Messieurs 
 d'Adjuda and de Trailles, played whist far into the 
 night, and regained all he had lost. Being supersti- 
 tious, as most men are whose future lies before them to
 
 202 Pere Goriot. 
 
 make or mar, and who are all more or less fatalists, he 
 chose to see the favor of Heaven in his run of luck, a 
 recompense granted for his persistence in the path of 
 duty. The next morning he hastened to ask Vautrin 
 for the note of hand, and repaid the three thousand 
 francs with very natural satisfaction. 
 
 " All goes well," said Vautrin. 
 
 " But I am not your accomplice," said Eugene. 
 
 "I know, I know," replied the other, interrupting 
 him; "you are still hampered with some childish non- 
 sense. Once across the threshold, and you'll be all 
 right." 
 
 Two days later Poiret and Mademoiselle Michonneau 
 were sitting on a bench in the sun, in a quiet alley of 
 the Jardin des Plantes, talking with the gentleman who 
 had rightly enough been an object of suspicion to 
 Bianchon. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," said Monsieur Gondureau, " I can- 
 not see why you should have any scruples. His Excel- 
 lency Monseigneur the Minister of Police of this king- 
 dom," 
 
 "Ah! His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister of 
 Police of this kingdom," repeated Poiret. 
 
 "Yes; His Excellency is personally interested in 
 this affair," said Gondureau. 
 
 It seems at first sight improbable that Poiret, an old 
 government employe, who had presumably the virtues 
 of the bourgeois class though destitute of brains, should 
 have continued to listen to this man after he had plainly 
 acknowledged himself to be a police spy, an agent of the 
 Rue de Jerusalem disguised as an honest citizen. Yet
 
 Pere G-oriot. 203 
 
 the thing was really natural enough. The reader will 
 better understand the place that Poiret held in the 
 great family of fools after hearing some remarks made 
 not long since by certain keen observers of society, but 
 which have never yet appeared in print. There is a 
 nation of quill-drivers placed in the budget between 
 the Arctic zone of official life inhabited by clerks who 
 receive twelve hundred francs annually, the Green- 
 land of our public offices, and the temperate regions 
 where salaries rise from three to six thousand francs, 
 nay, even blossom in spite of the difficulties of cultiva- 
 tion. One of the characteristic traits of the tribe in- 
 habiting the middle region a narrow, down-trodden 
 class is its involuntary, mechanical, instinctive respect 
 for that Grand Llama of office, known personally to the 
 petty employe only by an illegible signature, and spoken 
 of with reverence as His Excellency Monseigneur the 
 Minister; five words equivalent to "// JBondo Cani" 
 of the Caliph of Bagdad, words which to this hum- 
 ble class represent a power sacred and beyond appeal. 
 "What the Pope is among Christians, Monseigneur is to 
 the employe. Regarded as infallible in his adminis- 
 trative capacity, *h light that emanates from this 
 luminary is reflected in his acts and words, and in all 
 that he does by proxy. It covers with a mantle and 
 legalizes every act that he may ordain. His very title 
 of Excellency seems to attest the purity of his motives 
 and the sanctity of his intentions, and is a cloak to 
 ideas that would not otherwise be tolerated. Things 
 that these poor officials would never do to serve them- 
 selves, they do willingly in the great name of His Ex- 
 cellency. Public offices have their duty of passive
 
 204 Pere Groriot. 
 
 obedience as well as the army ; they are controlled by 
 a system which stifles conscience, annihilates manliness, 
 and ends by making the human being a mere screw, 
 or nut, in the government machinery. Thus Monsieur 
 Gondureau, who appeared to have a knowledge of 
 men, soon discovered in Poiret the bureaucratic ninny, 
 and trotted out his Deus ex machind, the talismariic 
 words u His Excellency," at the moment when, un- 
 masking his batteries, it was desirable to dazzle the old 
 fellow, whom he regarded as a male Michonneau, 
 just as the Michonneau appeared to him a female 
 Poiret. 
 
 " Since His Excellency himself, His Excellency Mon- 
 seigneur ah ! that alters the case," said Poiret. 
 
 "You hear what Monsieur says, a gentleman in 
 whose judgment you appear to place confidence," said 
 the pretended bourgeois, addressing Mademoiselle Mi- 
 chonneau. " Well, His Excellency has now obtained 
 the most complete certainty that a man calling himself 
 Vautrin, who lives in the Maison Vauquer, is an escaped 
 format [convict] from the Torlon galleys, where he was 
 known by the name of Trompe-la-Mort " 
 
 "Ah! Trompe-la-Mort, one who cheats Death!" 
 interrupted Poiret. " He is lucky if he has earned his 
 name.". 
 
 "Yes," said the agent, " the nickname is due to the 
 luck he has had in never losing his life in any of the ex- 
 tremely audacious enterprises he has engaged in. The 
 man is dangerous ; he has qualities that make him very 
 remarkable. His condemnation itself was a thing that 
 did him infinite honor among his comrades." 
 
 ' Is he a man of honor ? " asked Poiret.
 
 Pere Croriot. 205 
 
 " After his own fashion, yes. He consented to 
 plead guilty to the crime of another, a forgeiy, com- 
 mitted by a handsome young man to whom he was 
 much attached ; an Italian and a gambler, who after- 
 wards went into the army, where he has conducted 
 himself with perfect propriety ever since." 
 
 " But if His Excellency the Minister of Police is 
 certain that Monsieur Vautrin is Trompe-la-Mort, 
 what does he want of me?" asked Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau. 
 
 " Ah ! yes," echoed Poiret ; " if the Minister really, 
 as you do us the honor to say, has the certainty " 
 
 " Certainty is not the word. The fact is strongly 
 suspected. Allow me to explain. Jacques Collin, 
 alias Trompe-la-Mort, has the entire confidence of the 
 prisoners of the three Bagnes [galleys]. They have 
 appointed him their agent and banker. He makes 
 money by taking care of their affairs, an office which 
 necessarily requires a man of mark." 
 
 "Ha! ha! do you see the pun, Mademoiselle?" 
 cried Poiret. u Monsieur calls him a ' man of mark ' 
 because he has been branded ! " 
 
 " This Vautrin," continued the agent, " receives the 
 money of the convicts at the galleys, invests it, takes 
 care of it, and holds it until claimed by those who es- 
 cape, or by their families if disposed of by will, or by 
 their mistresses when drawn upon for their benefit." 
 
 " Their mistresses ! you mean their wives ? " said 
 Poiret. 
 
 "No, Monsieur, the convict seldom has any but an 
 illegitimate wife. We call them concubines." 
 
 " What ! do they live in concubinage ? "
 
 206 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 " That follows of course." 
 
 " Well," said Poiret, " these are horrors that Mon- 
 signeur if he hears of them will never tolerate. Since 
 you have the honor of communicating with His Excel- 
 lency, you, who seem to me to have philanthropic views, 
 should enlighten him on the bad example set to society 
 by the immoral conduct of these men." 
 
 "But, Monsieur, Government does not send them to 
 the galleys to offer a model of all the virtues." 
 
 " True enough ; but still, Monsieur, allow " 
 
 " Let Monsieur go on with what he was saying, my 
 dear," said Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 " You can understand, Mademoiselle," resumed Gon- 
 dureau, " that Government might be very glad to put 
 its hand on this illicit capital, which is said to amount 
 to a very large sum. Trompe-la-Mort has a great 
 deal of property in his possession from the moneys 
 turned over to him by the convicts; and also from 
 what is placed in his hands by the Society of the Ten 
 Thousand " 
 
 "Ten thousand thieves! " ejaculated Poiret, aghast. 
 
 "No. The Society of the Ten Thousand is an asso- 
 ciation of robbers of the first class ; men who work on 
 a large scale, and engage in no enterprise unless sure 
 of making at least ten thousand francs by it. This 
 Society is made up of the most distinguished men 
 among those who go through the criminal courts. They 
 know the law, and never risk their lives by doing any- 
 thing that could condemn them to the guillotine. 
 Collin is their trusted agent, their counsellor. By the 
 aid of his immense resources he has managed to get 
 up a force of private detectives, and has connections
 
 Pere Q-oriot. 207 
 
 widely extended which he wraps in a mystery really 
 impenetrable. For a year we have surrounded him 
 with spies, but we have not yet been able to fathom 
 his game. His money and his ability are meantime 
 promoting vice, making a capital for crime, and sup- 
 porting a perfect army of bad men who are perpetually 
 making war upon society. To arrest Trompe-la-Mort 
 and seize his funds would pull the evil up by the roots. 
 The matter has thus become an affair of State and 
 of public policy, capable of doing honor to all who 
 engage in it. You, Monsieur, might perhaps be re- 
 employed by the Government, as secretary, possibly, 
 of a police commissioner, which would not hinder you 
 from drawing your pension as a retired functionary." 
 
 " But," said Mademoiselle Michonneau, " why does 
 not Trompe-la-Mort run off with the money?" 
 
 " Oh ! " said Gondureau, " wherever he went he 
 would be" followed by a man with orders to kill him if 
 he stole from the Bagne. Money cannot be carried off 
 as quietly as a man can run away with a pretty girl. 
 Moreover, Collin is a fellow incapable of such an act. 
 He would feel himself dishonored." 
 
 " Monsieur," said Poiret, " you are right ; he would 
 be altogether dishonored." 
 
 " All this does not explain why you do not simply 
 arrest him at once," said Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 "Well, Mademoiselle, I will tell you. But," he 
 whispered in her ear, " keep your gentleman from 
 interrupting me, or we shall never have done. He 
 ought to be very rich to get any one to sit and listen 
 to him. Trompe-la-Mort when lie came here put on 
 the skin of an honest man. He gave himself out as a
 
 208 PeVe Goriot. 
 
 plain citizen, and took lodgings in a commonplace pen- 
 sion. Oh ! he is very cunning, I can tell you. He is 
 not a fish to be caught without a worm ! So Monsieur 
 Vautrin is a man of consideration, who carries on im- 
 portant business of some kind." 
 
 " Naturally," said Poiret to himself. 
 
 " The minister, if any mistake should be made, and 
 if we were to arrest a real Vautrin, would bring down 
 upon himself all the tradespeople of Paris, and have to 
 face public opinion. Monsieur the prefect of police 
 is not very sure of his place ; he has enemies ; and if 
 we were to make a mistake, those who want to step 
 into his shoes would profit by the yelpings and out- 
 cries of the liberals to get rid of him. We must act 
 now as we did in that affair of Coignard, the false 
 Comte de Sainte-Helene ; if he had been the real count 
 we should have been in the wrong box. So we are 
 careful to verify," 
 
 " Yes, but for that you want a pretty woman," said 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau quickly. 
 
 " Trompe-la-Mort will never put himself in the power 
 of any woman," said the detective. " He will have 
 nothing to do with them." 
 
 " Then I don't see how I could help you to the veri- 
 fication, even supposing I were willing to undertake it 
 for two thousand francs." 
 
 "Nothing easier. I will give you a phial containing 
 one dose of liquid which will produce a rush of blood 
 to the head, not in the least dangerous, but with all 
 the symptoms of apoplexy. The drug may be put 
 either into his wine or his coffee. As soon as it has 
 had its effect, carry your man to his bed, undress him,
 
 Pere Goriot. 209 
 
 to see if he is dying, or any other pretext, con- 
 trive to be alone with him, and give him a smart slap 
 on the shoulder, paf ! and you will see the letters re- 
 appear." 
 
 "That's not much to do," said Poiret. 
 
 " Well, do you agree ? " said Gondureau to the old 
 maid. 
 
 "But, my dear Monsieur," said Mademoiselle Mi- 
 chonneau, " suppose there are no lettei-s. Shall I have 
 the two thousand francs ? " 
 
 No." 
 
 " What will you pay me in that case?" 
 
 " Five hundred francs." 
 
 " It is very little for doing such a thing as that. 
 Either way it is equally hard upon my conscience. I 
 have my conscience to quiet, Monsieur." 
 
 " I assure you," said Poiret, " that Mademoiselle 
 has a great deal of conscience; and, besides, she is a 
 most amiable person and well informed." 
 
 " Well," said Mademoiselle Michonneau, " give me 
 three thousand francs if it is Trompe-la-Mort, and 
 nothing at all if he proves to be an honest man." 
 
 " Done ! " said Gondureau, " but on condition that 
 you do it to-morrow." 
 
 " Not so fast, my dear Monsieur. I must consult 
 my confessor." 
 
 " You are a sly one ! " said the detective rising. 
 " Well, I '11 see you to-morrow then ; and if you want 
 me before then, come to the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne, 
 at the farther end of the Court of the Sainte-Chapelle. 
 There is only one door under the arch. Ask for 
 Monsieur Gondureau." 
 
 14
 
 210 Pre Goriot. 
 
 Bianchon, who was coming from the Coursde Cuvier, 
 caught the singular name of Trompe-la-Mort, and heard 
 the " Done ! " of the celebrated chief of the detective 
 police. 
 
 " Why did not you settle it at once ? " said Poiret 
 to Mademoiselle Michonneau. " It would give you 
 three hundred francs annuity." 
 
 " Why ?" said she. " Well, because I want to think 
 it over. If Monsieur Vautrin is really Trompe-la-Mort 
 perhaps it would be better to make a bargain with him. 
 Still, if I broached the subject I should give him warn- 
 ing, and he is just the man to decamp gratis. It would 
 be an abominable cheat." 
 
 " Even if he did get away," said Poiret, " Monsieur 
 told us he was watched by the police. But you, you 
 will lose everything." 
 
 "There is this to be said," thought Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau, "I don't like him. He is always saying 
 disagreeable things to me." 
 
 " Besides," said Poiret, returning to the charge, 
 " you will be acting for the Government. According 
 to what that gentleman told us (he seemed to me a 
 very nice man, and very well dressed too), it is an act 
 of obedience to the laws ; it rids the world of a crimi- 
 nal, however virtuous he may be. He who has drunk 
 will drink. Suppose he took a fancy to murder us in 
 our beds devil take me ! we should be guilty of his 
 homicides ; and be ourselves the first victims." 
 
 The preoccupation of Mademoiselle Michonneau 
 prevented her from giving ear to these sentences, 
 which dropped one by one from the lips of Poiret 
 like water trickling through a spigot carelessly closed.
 
 Pere G-oriot. 211 
 
 When once the old rann was set going, and Mademoi- 
 selle Michonneau did not stop him, he ticked on like 
 a mechanism wound up to go till it runs down. Hav- 
 ing broached a subject, he was usually led by his par- 
 entheses through a variety of irrelevant topics without 
 ever coming to a conclusion. By the time they reached 
 the Maison Vauquer he had maundered through a 
 quantity of examples and quotations which led him 
 finally to relate his own deposition in the affair of the 
 Sieur Ragoulleau and the Dame Morin, in which he had 
 figured as a witness for the defence. On entering the 
 house his companion observed that Eugene de Ras- 
 tignac was engaged in close conversation with Ma- 
 demoiselle Taillefer, and that their interest in each 
 other was so absorbing that they paid no heed to the 
 pair who passed them in crossing the dining-room. 
 
 " I knew it would come to that," said Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau to Poiret, " they have been making eyes 
 at each other for the last week." 
 
 " Yes," he replied, " but after all, she was pronounced 
 guilty." 
 
 " Who ? " 
 
 "Madame Morin." 
 
 "I was talking of Mademoiselle Victorine," said 
 Michonneau, following Poiret into his chamber without 
 noticing where she was going, " and you answer me 
 by Madame Morin. Who is that woman ? " 
 
 " What has Mademoiselle Victorine been guilty of? " 
 asked Poiret. 
 
 " She is guilty of being in love with Monsieur 
 Eugene de Rastignac, and running headlong without 
 knowing what she is coming to, poor innocent ! "
 
 212 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 EUGENE had that morning been driven to despair by 
 Madame de Nucingen. In his inmost soul he now 
 yielded himself up to Vautrin, not choosing to fathom 
 either the motives of that strange man in befriending 
 him, or the future of the alliance that would be riveted 
 between them. Nothing but a miracle could save him 
 now from the abyss, on the verge of which he stood as 
 he exchanged with Mademoiselle Taillefer the sweetest 
 of all promises. Victorine listened as to the voice of 
 angels ; the heavens opened for her, the Maison Vau- 
 qtier shone with tints that artists lavish upon palaces ; 
 she loved, and she was loved, alas, she thought she 
 was! And what young girl would not have thought 
 so, as she looked at Rastignac and listened to him for 
 that one sweet hour stolen from the argus eyes that 
 watched her ! While he fought his conscience, know- 
 ing that he was doing evil and choosing to do evil, 
 saying to himself that he would atone for this sin 
 by giving lifelong happiness to his wife, the fires of 
 the hell within him burned from the inner to the 
 outer, and' the anguish of his soul heightened the 
 beauty of his face. Mercifully for him the miracle 
 took place. 
 
 Vautrin entered gaily, reading at a glance the souls 
 of the young pair whom he had married by the machi-
 
 Pere Goriot. 213 
 
 nations of his infernal genius, and whose joy he killed 
 as he trolled forth in his strong mocking voice, 
 
 " My Fanny is charming 
 In her simplicity." 
 
 Victorine fled away, carrying with her more of joy 
 than she had yet known of sorrow. Poor child , a pres- 
 sure of the hands, the sweep of her lovers' curls upon 
 her cheek, a word whispered in her ear so close that she 
 felt the warm touch of his lips, an arm folded trembling 
 about her, a kiss taken from her white throat, these 
 were the troth-plights of her passion, which the near 
 presence of Sylvie, threatening to enter that radiant 
 dining-room, only rendered more ardent, more real, 
 more tender than the noblest pledges of devotion re- 
 lated in the love-tales of the knights of old. These 
 menus suffrages, to borrow the pretty expression 
 of our ancestors seemed almost crimes to the pure 
 heart that confessed itself weekly. In this shoi't hour 
 she had lavished treasures of her soul more precious 
 far than hereafter, rich and happy, she could bestow 
 with, the gift of her whole being. 
 
 " The affair is arranged," said Vautrin to Eugene. 
 " All passed very properly. Difference of opinion. 
 Our pigeon insulted my falcon. It is for to-morrow, 
 in the redoubt at Clignancourt. By half-past eight 
 o'clock Mademoiselle Taillefer will be heiress of all 
 the love and all the money of her father, while she 
 is quietly dipping her bits of toast into her coffee! 
 Droll, isn't it? It seems young Taillefer is a good 
 swordsman, and he feels as sure of having the best of 
 it as if he held all the trumps in his hand. But he '11
 
 214 Pere Goriot. 
 
 be bled by a trick of mine; a pass I invented, rais- 
 ing the sword and giving a quick thrust through the 
 forehead. I'll show it to you some day, for it is 
 immensely useful." 
 
 Rastignac looked at him and listened in a stupid 
 manner, but said nothing. At this moment Pere 
 Goriot came in with Bianchon and some of the other 
 guests. 
 
 " You are taking it just as I hoped," said Vautrin. 
 " You know what you are about. All right, my young 
 eaglet, you will govern men. You are strong, firm, 
 virile. I respect you." 
 
 He offered his hand, but Rastignac drew back 
 quickly and dropped into a chair, turning very pale ; a 
 sea of blood rolled at his feet. 
 
 " Well, well ! we still have a rag of our swaddling- 
 clothes spotted with virtue," said Vautrin in a whis- 
 per. "The papa has three millions. I know his 
 fortune. The dot will make you white as the bridal 
 gown, in your own eyes, too ; never fear." 
 
 Rastignac hesitated no longer. He determined to 
 go that evening and warn the Taillefers, father and 
 son. At this moment, Vautrin having left him, Pere 
 Goriot said in his ear, 
 
 " You seem out of spirits, my dear boy ; but I can 
 make you merry. Come ! " 
 
 The old man lit his rush-light at one of the lamps, 
 and went upstairs. Eugene followed him in silence. 
 
 " Let us go to your room," he said. " You thought 
 this morning that she did not care for you, heinf She 
 sent you away peremptorily ; and you went off angry. 
 Oh, you simpleton ! She was expecting me. We
 
 P$re G-oriot. 215 
 
 were going together, yes, together, to arrange a 
 little jewel of an appartement where you are to live 
 three days from now. Don't tell her that I told you. 
 It was to be a surprise ; but I can 't keep the secret 
 any longer. It is in the Rue d'Artois, two steps 
 from the Rue Saint-Lazare. You will be lodged like 
 a prince. We have been getting furniture fit for a 
 bride. We have been very busy together for the last 
 month, but" I would not tell you anything about it. 
 My lawyer has taken the field. Delphine will have 
 her thirty thousand francs a year, the interest of her 
 dot; and I shall insist on her eight hundred thousand 
 francs being invested in good securities, securities 
 in open day-light, you know." 
 
 Eugene was silent. lie walked up and down the 
 miserable, untidy room with folded arms. Pere Goriot 
 seized a moment when his back was turned to put upon 
 the chimney-piece a red morocco case, on which the 
 arms of Rastignac were stamped in gojd. 
 
 "My dear boy!" said the poor old man, "I have 
 gone into this thing up to my chin. To tell you the 
 truth, there is some selfishness in it. I have my own 
 interests to serve in your change of quarters. I have 
 something to ask of you." 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 " There is a little room attached to the appartement 
 that will just suit me. I shall live there, shall I not? 
 I am getting old I live so far from my daughters. 
 I shall not be in your way ; but you will come and tell 
 me about them constantly, every evening? That 
 will not trouble you, will it ? When you come in, and 
 I am in my bed, I shall hear you, and say to myself,
 
 216 Pere Goriot. 
 
 ' He has seen my little Delphine ; he has taken her to 
 a ball ; she is happy with him.' If I were ill, it would 
 be balm to my heart to hear you go out and come in. 
 It would bring me nearer to my daughters : you belong 
 to their world, but you are my friend. It will be but 
 a step to the Champs Elysees, where they drive every 
 afternoon ; I could see them daily, whereas now I 
 often get there too late. Sometimes my little Del- 
 phine would come there, and then I should see her, 
 in her pretty wadded pelisse, trotting about as daintily 
 as a little cat. She has been so bright and merry for 
 a month past, just what she was as a girl at home, 
 with me. She said to me just now as we walked 
 together, * Papa, I am so happy ! ' When they say 
 ceremoniously, ' My father,' they freeze me ; but when 
 they call me 'Papa,' I seem to see my little ones again ; 
 the past comes back to me ; they are mine once 
 more." 
 
 The old man wiped the tears from his eyes. " I had 
 not heard her say 'Papa' for so long! She had not 
 taken my arm for years': yes ! it is ten years since I 
 have walked beside either of my daughters. Oh ! it 
 was good to hear the flutter of her dress, to keep step 
 with her, to feel her so warm and soft beside me ! 
 This morning I went everywhere with Delphine ; she 
 took me into the shops ; I escorted her home. Ah ! 
 you and I will live together. If you have any want 
 I shall know it, I shall be at hand. If that rough 
 log of an Alsatian would only die ! if his gout would fly 
 to his stomach ! then you could make my poor girl a 
 happy woman. She may have done wrong, but she 
 has been so wretched in her marriage that I excuse
 
 Pere Goriot. 217 
 
 all. Surely the Father in Heaven is not less kind than 
 an earthly father ! She was praising you to me," he 
 went on after a pause. " She talked of you as we 
 walked : ' Is he not handsome, Papa ? Is he not kind 
 and good ? Does he ever speak of me ? ' From the 
 Rue d'Artois to the Passage des Panoramas she talked 
 of you. All this happy morning I was no longer old, 
 
 I was light as a feather. I told her how you gave 
 me the thousand-franc note. Oh ! the darling ! she 
 shed tears Why! what is that you have on your 
 chimney-piece ? " he said, impatient at Rastignac's 
 immobility. 
 
 Eugene, stunned and silent, looked at his neighbor 
 with a bewildered air. The duel, with all its conse- 
 quences, announced by Vautrin for the morrow, pre- 
 sented such a frightful contrast to this fulfilment of 
 his pleasant dreams that his mind struggled as it were 
 with a nightmare. He turned to the fireplace and 
 saw the little case, opened it, and found inside a scrap 
 of paper, beneath which lay a Breguet watch. On the 
 paper were written these words: 
 
 " I wish you to think of me every hour, because 
 
 " DELPHIXE." 
 
 The last word no doubt alluded to something that 
 had passed between them. Eugene was much affected. 
 His arms were inlaid in gold inside the case. This bijou, 
 
 a pretty thing he had long coveted, the chain, 
 the key, the case, the chasing, were all exactly what 
 he liked. Pore Goriot was delighted. He had doubt- 
 less promised to carry to his daughter an account of 
 how Eugene received her unexpected gift ; for he was
 
 218 Pere Goriot. 
 
 a third in their youthful pleasures, and not the least 
 happy of the three. 
 
 "You will go and see her this evening?" he said. 
 " She expects you. That log of an Alsatian sups with 
 his danseuse. You will take me with you, will you 
 not?" 
 
 " Yes, my good Pere Goriot. You know that I love 
 you " 
 
 " Ah ! you are not ashamed of me, not you ! Let 
 me kiss you ; " and he strained the student in his arms. 
 " To-night ! we will go and see her to-night." 
 
 " Yes ; but first I must go out on business which it 
 is impossible to postpone." 
 
 Can I help you ? " 
 
 " Why, yes, you can. While I go to Madame de 
 Nucingen's, you might go to the house of Monsieur 
 Taillefer, the father, and beg him to give me an hour 
 this evening, to speak to him on a subject of the 
 utmost importance." 
 
 " Can it be possible, young man," cried Pere Goriot, 
 whose whole aspect changed, " can it be true that 
 you are paying court to his daughter, as those fools say 
 downstairs? Heavens and earth! You don't know 
 what it is to get a tap from Goriot. If you are playing 
 false, one blow of my fist But it is not possible ! " 
 
 " I swear to you, I love but one woman in the 
 world," cried the student ; " and I did not know it till 
 'a moment ago. But young Taillefer is to fight a duel, 
 and he is certain to be killed." 
 
 " What is that to you ? " asked Goriot. 
 
 " I must tell the father to save his son ! " cried 
 Eugene.
 
 Pere Goriot. 219 
 
 His words were interrupted by the voice of Vnutrin 
 standing on the threshold of his chamber, singing, 
 
 " ' O Kichard, 6 mon roi ! 
 L'univers t' abandonne ' 
 
 " Broum ! broum ! broum ! broum ! broum ! 
 
 " ' Long have I wandered here and there, 
 And wherever by chance 
 Tra, la, la, la, la '" 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Christophe, " the soup is waiting ; 
 everybody is at table." 
 
 " Here, Christophe," said Vautrin. " Come in and 
 get a bottle of my claret." 
 
 "Is the watch pretty?" whispered Pore Goriot. 
 "Is it in good taste, hein?" 
 
 Vautrin, Pere Goriot, and Rastignac went down to 
 dinner, and by reason of their being late were placed to- 
 gether at the table. Eugene showed marked coldness 
 to Vautrin, though the man had nevjer displayed greater 
 gifts of intellect; he sparkled with, wit, and even roused 
 something of it in the other guests. His sang froid 
 and assurance struck Eugene with consternation. 
 
 " What herb have you trodden on to-day ? " said Ma- 
 dame Vauquer to Vautrin ; " you are as gay as a lark." 
 
 "I am always gay when I have done a good stroke 
 of business." 
 
 " Business ! " said Eugene. 
 
 " Well, yes. I have delivered over some goods to- 
 day which will bring me in a handsome commission. 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau," he continued, perceiving 
 that the old maid was looking at him attentively, " is 
 there anything in my face which is not agreeable to
 
 220 Pere Goriot. 
 
 you, that you stai-e at me like an American ? If so, 
 pray mention it, and it shall be changed to please you. 
 Ha ! Poiret, we won't quarrel about that, will we ? " 
 he added, winking at the employe". 
 
 " Sac-a-papier ! You ought to sit for the Joking 
 Hercules," said the young painter to Vautrin. 
 
 " Faith ! I 'm willing, if Mile. Michonneau will pose 
 as the Venus of Pere-la-Chaise," replied Vautrin. 
 
 "And Poiret?" said Bianchon. 
 
 "Oh, Poiret shall sit as Poiret, god of gardens !" 
 cried Vautrin. " He derives from/xnVe [pear]." 
 
 " All that is nonsense," said Madame Vauquer. 
 " You had better give us some of your claret, Monsieur 
 Vautrin ; I see the neck of a bottle. It will keep up 
 our spirits, and it is good for the stomach." 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Vautrin, " Madame la presidente 
 calls us to order. Madame Couture and Mademoiselle 
 Victorine have not yet declared themselves shocked 
 by your jocular discourse, but please respect the inno- 
 cence of Pere Goriot. I propose to offer you a little 
 bottleorama of claret, which the name of Lafitte ren- 
 ders doubly illustrious : this remark, you will under- 
 stand, bears no allusion to politics. Come on, China- 
 man ! " he added, looking at Christophe, who did not 
 stir. " Here, Christophe ! don't you know your name ? 
 Chinese ! bring forth the liquid ! " 
 
 " Here it is, Monsieur," said Christophe, giving him 
 the bottle. 
 
 After filling Eugene's glass and that of Pere Goriot, 
 he poured out a few drops for himself and tasted them 
 slowly, while the other two drank theirs off. Suddenly 
 he made a grimace.
 
 Pere G-oriot. 221 
 
 " The devil ! " he cried ; " this wine is corked. 
 Here, Christophe, you may have the rest of it; and 
 go and get some more. You know where it is, right 
 hand side. Stay ! we are sixteen ; bring down eight 
 bottles." " 
 
 " Regardless of cost," said the painter. " I '11 pay 
 for a hundred chestnuts." 
 
 Ah! ah!" 
 
 Bra-vo! Oh!" 
 
 "Hur-rah! rah!" 
 
 Every one uttered an exclamation, popping, as usual, 
 like fireworks. 
 
 " Come, Madame Vauquer, give us two bottles of 
 champagne," cried Vautrin. 
 
 " Listen to that ! You might as well ask for the 
 house itself ! Two bottles of champagne ! Why, 
 they cost twelve francs ! I don't make that in a 
 week. But if Monsieur Eugene will pay for the cham- 
 pagne, I '11 give some currant wine." 
 
 Pah ! That stuff of hers is as bad as a black dose," 
 said the medical student in a whisper. 
 
 " Will you hold your tongue, Bianchon ! " said Ras- 
 tignac ; " the very name of a black dose makes me sick 
 at Yes, bring on your champagne ! I '11 pay for 
 it," he added. 
 
 " Sylvie," said Madame Vauquer, " give us the bis- 
 cuits and some little cakes." 
 
 " Your little cakes are too old," said Vautrin ; " they 
 have grown a beard. As for the biscuits, produce 
 them ! " 
 
 In a few moments the claret circulated, the company 
 grew lively, the gayety redoubled. Above the din of
 
 222 Pere Goriot. 
 
 laughter rose a variety of cat-calls and imitations of 
 the noises of animals. The employe of the museum 
 reproduced a street-cry popularly supposed at that 
 time to resemble the amorous miaulings of the roof- 
 cats ; whereupon eight voices joined chorus in well- 
 known Paris cries : 
 
 " Knives to grind grind !" 
 
 " Chick weed for your little birds ! n 
 
 " Plaisir! ladies Plaisir! taste my sweet Plaisir!" 
 
 " China ! China to mend ! " 
 
 " To the barge ! To the barge ! " 
 
 u Beat your wives your coats ! Beat your coats ! " 
 
 " Old clo'es, gold lace, old hats to sell ! " 
 
 " Cherries ! cherries ! ripe cherries ! " 
 
 But the palm fell to Bianchon, as he miauled through 
 his nose, " Umbrellas ! Umbrellas to mend ! " 
 
 The racket was ear-splitting, the talk sheer nonsense, 
 a veritable medley, which Vautrin conducted like the 
 leader of an orchestra, keeping an eye meanwhile on 
 Eugene and Pere Goriot, who both had the appearance 
 of being drunk already. Leaning back in their chairs, 
 they gazed stolidly at the extraordinary scene around 
 them, and drank little. Both were thinking of what 
 they had to do that evening, but neither felt able to 
 rise from his chair. Vautrin, who watched every 
 change in their faces out of the corner of his eye, 
 seized the moment when their heads were beginning 
 to droop, to lean over Rastignac, and whisper in his 
 ear, 
 
 " My lad, we are not clever enough to get the better 
 of Papa Vautrin. He loves you a great deal too well 
 to let you commit a folly. When I have made up my
 
 Pere Goriot. 223 
 
 mind, nothing but the hand of Providence can stop 
 me. Ha ! ha ! my little school-boy ; we thought we 
 would go and tell Father Taillefer, did we ? Bah ! the 
 oven is hot, the dough is light, the bread is in the pan, 
 to-morrow we will eat it and brush off the crumbs. 
 So you thought you could keep it out of the oven ! 
 No! no! it is bound to bake. If any little bits of 
 remorse stick in our gullet, they will pass off with the 
 digestion. While we are sleeping our sound little 
 sleep, Colonel Count Franchessini will open us a way 
 to the money-bags of Michel Taillefer with the point 
 of his sword. Victorine as her brother's heiress will 
 have fifteen thousand francs a year at once. I have 
 made the proper inquiries ; the mother left more than 
 three hundred thousand." 
 
 Eugene heard, but he had no power to answer. His 
 tongue clove to the roof of his mouth ; he was over- 
 come with an unconquerable drowsiness. He saw the 
 table and the faces of the people through a luminous 
 haze. Presently the noise diminished, the guests were 
 leaving one by one. When Madame Vauquer, Madame 
 Couture, Victorine, Vautrin, and Pere Goriot alone 
 were left, Rastignac saw, as in a dream, Madame Vau- 
 quer going round the table collecting the bottles and 
 emptying their contents together to make full bottles. 
 
 "Are they not foolish; are they not young?" she 
 said. Those were the last words Eugene understood. 
 
 " There is nobody like Monsieur Vautrin for playing 
 such tricks," said Sylvie. " Just listen to Christophe 
 snoring like a top ! " 
 
 " Good-by, Mamma," said Vautrin. " I am off to the 
 boulevard to admire Monsieur Marty in LeMont Sau-
 
 224 Pere Goriot. 
 
 vage, a new play taken from ' Le Solitaire.' If you 
 like, I will take you and these two ladies." 
 
 " I thank you, no," said Madame Couture. 
 
 " Oh ! my dear lady ! " said Madame Vauquer, 
 "how can you refuse to see a play taken from 'Le 
 Solitaire,' a work by Atala de Chateaubriand, that 
 we all read and wept over under the iieuilles last sum- 
 mer ; a perfectly moral tale, which might edify your 
 young lady ? " 
 
 "We are forbidden to go to theatres," said Victorine. 
 
 " There ! those two are off," said Vautrin, looking 
 at Rastignac and Pere Goriot in a comical way, and 
 placing the student's head back in his chair so that he 
 might rest more comfortably ; singing as he did so 
 "'Sleep ! sleep! for thy sweet sake, 
 I watch, I wake.' " 
 
 " I am afraid he is ill," said Victorine. 
 
 " Then stay and nurse him," replied Vautrin. " It 
 is," he whispered in her ear, " a part of your submis- 
 sive duty as a woman. He adores you, that young 
 man ; and you will be his little wife. Remember, I 
 predict it. And then," he added aloud, " they were 
 much esteemed throughout the neighborhood, and had 
 a large family, and lived happily ever after. That 's 
 the ending of all love-stories. Come, Mamma," he 
 continued, turning to Madame Vauquer, and putting 
 his arm round her. " Put on your bonnet and the 
 beautiful dress with the flowers all over it, and the 
 countess's scarf, and let us be off. I '11 call a coach 
 myself," and he departed, singing, 
 
 " ' Sun, Sun ! divinest Sun ! 
 That ripenest the lemons thou shinest on.' "
 
 Pere Goriot. 225 
 
 " Mon Dieu ! Madame Couture, I could live happy 
 in a garret with that man ! " said Madame Vauquer. 
 " Look at Pere Goriot ! that old miser never offered 
 to take me nowhere. He '11 be on the floor presently. 
 Heavens ! it is n't decent for a man of his age to lose 
 his senses in that way. I suppose you '11 say he never 
 had any. Sylvie, get him upstairs." 
 
 Sylvie took the old man under the arms and made 
 him walk up to his room, where she threw him, dressed 
 as he was, across the bed. 
 
 " Poor young man !" said Madame Couture, putting 
 back Eugene's hair which had fallen over his forehead ; 
 " he is like a young girl ; he did not know the wine 
 would be too much for him." 
 
 *'I can tell you," said Madame Vauquer, "that 
 though I have kept this pension forty years, and many 
 young men have passed in that time through my hands, 
 I never knew one as well behaved and gentlemanly as 
 Monsieur Eugene. Is n't he handsome as he lies asleep ? 
 Let him rest his head upon your shoulder, Madame 
 Couture. Ah! he has turned it towards Mademoi- 
 selle Victorine. Well, there 's a Providence for chil- 
 dren ; a little more, and he would have cracked his 
 skull against the back of the chair. Are not they a 
 pretty couple ? " 
 
 " Please be silent," cried Madame Couture, " you are 
 saying things which " 
 
 " Bah ! " said Madame Vauquer, " he can't hear any- 
 thing. Come, Sylvie, and dress me. I am going to 
 put on my best corset." 
 
 " Madame ! your best corset after dinner ! " cried 
 Sylvie. " No, get somebody else to lace it. I won't 
 15
 
 226 Pere Goriot. 
 
 be the death of you. You risk your life, I tell you 
 that!" 
 
 " I don't care ; I am going to do honor to Monsieur 
 Vautrin." 
 
 " You must be very fond of your heirs ! " 
 
 " Come, Sylvie, no talking," said the widow, leaving 
 the room. 
 
 " At her age ! " said Sylvie, pointing at her mistress 
 and looking at Victorine. 
 
 Madame Couture and her ward remained alone in 
 the dining-room, the head of Eugene resting against 
 Victorine's shoulder. Christophe's loud snoring echoed 
 through the house and made a contrast to the peaceful 
 slumbers of the student, who was sleeping as quietly 
 as an infant. Happy in allowing herself one of those 
 tender acts of charity so dear to womanhood, and in 
 feeling, without reproach, the heart of the young man 
 beating against her own, Victorine's sweet face took 
 on a look of maternal pride and protection. Across 
 the thousand thoughts that stirred her heart there 
 came a tumultuous sense of her new joy, filling her 
 young veins with pure and sacred warmth. 
 
 " Poor darling ! " said Madame Couture, pressing her 
 hand. 
 
 The old lady gazed into the fair sad face, round 
 which for the first time shone the halo of human happi- 
 ness. Victorine resembled one of those quaint pictures 
 of the Middle Ages, where the accessories are meagre 
 or left to the imagination, while the artist spends the 
 magic of his calm and noble art upon the face of his 
 Madonna, yellow perhaps in tone, but reflecting from 
 the heaven above its golden tints of glory.
 
 Pre G-oriot. 227 
 
 "He only drank two glasses, Mamma," she said, 
 passing her fingers over his hair. 
 
 " If he were a dissipated man, my dear, he could have 
 taken his wine like all the rest ; the fact that it over- 
 came him proves the contrary." 
 
 The sound of carriage wheels was heard. 
 
 "Mamma," said the young girl hastily, " here comes 
 Monsieur Vautrin ; take my place by Monsieur Eugene. 
 I would rather not be seen thus by that man. He says 
 things that sully the soul, and his look abases me." 
 
 " No, no," said Madame Couture, " you do him in- 
 justice. Monsieur Vautrin is a worthy man, some- 
 what in the style of the late Monsieur Couture, brusque 
 but kindly ; a benevolent bear." 
 
 At this moment Vautrin came softly in and looked 
 at the young couple, on whom the light of a lamp fell 
 caressingly. 
 
 " Well, well ! " he said, folding his arms, " there 's a 
 scene that might have inspired some of the finest pages 
 of that good Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, author of ' Paul 
 and Virginia.' Youth is very beautiful, Madame Cou- 
 ture. Sleep, my poor boy," he added, looking down 
 on Eugene ; " our blessings come to us sleeping. Ma- 
 dame," he said presently, " what attaches me to this 
 young man, and moves my heart as I gaze upon him, 
 is that I know the beauty of his soul to be in harmony 
 with the beauty of his face. See ! is it not the head of 
 a cherubim resting on the shoulder of an angel ? He is 
 worthy of a woman's love. If I were a woman I would 
 be willing to die no ! not such a fool to live for 
 him. As I gaze upon those two, Madame," he whis- 
 pered, bending till he almost touched her ear, " I
 
 228 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 cannot help thinking that God has created them for one 
 another. The ways of Providence are full of mystery ; 
 they try the reins and the heart. Seeing you together, 
 my children," he added aloud, " united by an equal 
 purity, and by every emotion of the human heart, I feel 
 it is impossible that anything should part you in the 
 future. God is just. But," he continued, addressing 
 the young girl, "I think I have noticed on your hand 
 the lines of prosperity. I know something of palm- 
 istry. I often tell fortunes. Let me take your hand, 
 Mademoiselle Victorine, don't be afraid. Oh ! what 
 do I see ? On the word of an honest man, it will not 
 be long before you are one of the richest heiresses 
 in Paris! You will make the man who loves you 
 supremely happy. Your father will call you to him. 
 You will marry a man of title, young, handsome, and 
 who adores you." 
 
 At this moment the heavy steps of the coquettish 
 widow interrupted Vautrin's prophecies. 
 
 " Here is Mamma Vauquer-r-re, as fair as a star-r-r, 
 and decked out like a carrot. Are we not just a little 
 bit uncomfortable," he added, putting his hand on the 
 top of her busk. " It strikes me we are squeezed a 
 shade too tight, Mamma. If the play should make us 
 cry, there would be an explosion : but I will pick up 
 the pieces with the care of an antiquary." 
 
 " He knows the language of French gallantry, 
 does n't he ? " whispered the widow in the ear of Ma- 
 dame Couture. 
 
 " Farewell, my children ! " said Vautrin, turning 
 towards Victorine and Eugene. " I bless yoii," he 
 added, laying his hands upon their heads. " Believe
 
 Pere Goriot. 229 
 
 me, Mademoiselle, there is value in the blessing of an 
 honest man ; it will bring you joy, for God hears it." 
 
 " Good-by, my dear friend," said Madame Vauquer 
 to Madame Couture. "Do you think," she added in 
 a whisper, " that Monsieur Vautrin has intentions 
 towards me ? " 
 
 " Ah ! my dear mother," said Victorine, looking at her 
 hands with a sigh after the others had departed, " sup- 
 pose that good Monsieur Vautrin spoke the truth ? " 
 
 " One thing could make it true," replied the old 
 lady ; " your monster of a brother need only be thrown 
 from his horse " 
 
 "Oh, Mamma!" 
 
 " Mon Dieu, perhaps it is a sin to wish harm to one's 
 enemy. Well, I will do penance for it. But, truly, I 
 should not be sorry to lay flowers on his grave. He 
 lias a hard heart. He never defended his mother ; he 
 took all her fortune, and cheated you out of your share 
 of it. My cousin had a great deal of money. Unfor- 
 tunately for you there was no mention of her dot in 
 her marriage contract." 
 
 " My prosperity would be hard to bear if it cost 
 any one his life," said Victorine ; " and if to make me 
 happy my brother had to die, I would rather be as I 
 am now." 
 
 " Well, well ! As that good Monsieur Vautrin says, 
 who, you see, is full of religious feeling," said Madame 
 Couture, "I am glad to think he is not an unbe- 
 liever, like so many others, who talk of God with less 
 respect than they do of the Devil, well, as he says, 
 who knows by what ways it will please Providence to 
 guide us?"
 
 230 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Aided by Sylvie, the two women took Eugene to 
 his chamber and placed him on his bed, Sylvie un- 
 fastening his clothes to make him more comfortable. 
 Before leaving him, and when Madame Couture had 
 turned to go, Victorine laid a little kiss upon his fore- 
 head, with a rapture of happiness naturally to be ex- 
 pected from so criminal an act! She looked round 
 the chamber, gathered up, as it were, in one thought 
 all the joys of this happy day, made a picture in her 
 memory that she treasured long, and fell asleep the 
 happiest creature in all Paris. 
 
 The gay frolic under cover of which Vautrin had 
 drugged the wine of Eugene and Pere Goriot decided 
 his own fate. Bianchon, half tipsy, forgot to question 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau concerning Trompe-la-Mort. 
 If he had uttered that name he would have put Vau- 
 trin on his guard, or rather, to give him his true 
 name, Jacques Collin, one of the celebrities of the 
 galleys. Moreover, the nickname of Venus of Pere- 
 la-Chaise decided Mademoiselle Michonneau to give 
 him up at the very moment when, confident of his lib- 
 erality, she had calculated that it was better policy 
 to warn him and let him escape during the night. 
 Accompanied by Poiret, she went in search of the 
 famous chief of detectives in the Petite Rue Sainte- 
 Anne, under the impression that she was dealing with 
 an upper-class employe named Gondureau. The direc- 
 tor of the secret police received her graciously. Then, 
 after a conversation in which the preliminaries were 
 settled, Mademoiselle Michonneau asked for the dose 
 by the help of which she was to do her work. The
 
 Pere Goriot. 231 
 
 gesture of satisfaction made by the great man as he 
 searched for the phial in the drawer of his writing- 
 table, gave her a sudden conviction that there was 
 more in this capture than the mere arrest of an escaped 
 convict. By dint of beating her brains and putting 
 two and two together, she came to the conclusion that 
 the police hoped, through revelations made by con- 
 victs won over at the galleys, to lay their hands upon 
 a large amount of money. When she expressed this 
 conjecture to the fox with whom she was dealing, he 
 smiled and tried to turn aside her suspicions. 
 
 " You are mistaken," he said. " Collin is the most 
 dangerous sorbonne ever known among our robbers. 
 That 's the whole of it. The rascals know this. He 
 is their shield, their banner, their Bonaparte, in 
 short. They all love him. That scoundrel will never 
 leave his tranche on the Place de Greve." 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau did not understand him ; 
 but Gondureau explained to her the slang expressions 
 he had made use of. Sorbonne and tranche are two 
 energetic words of the thieves' vocabulary, invented 
 because these gentry were the first to feel the need of 
 considering the human head from two standpoints. 
 Sorbonne is the head of the living man, his intellect 
 and wisdom. Tranche is a word of contempt, express- 
 ing the worthlessness of the head after it is cut off. 
 
 " Collin baffles us," resumed the chief. " When we 
 have to do with men of his stamp, of steel and iron, 
 the law allows us to kill them on the spot if, when ar- 
 rested, they make the slightest resistance. We expect 
 a struggle which will authorize us to shoot Collin to- 
 morrow morning. We thus avoid a trial and the costs
 
 232 Pere Goriot. 
 
 of imprisonment and subsistence, and society is quit 
 of him. The lawyers and the witnesses, their pay and 
 expenses, the execution, and all the rest that is re- 
 quired to rid us legally of such villains cost more 
 than the three thousand francs we are to pay you. 
 Besides, it saves time. The thrust of a bayonet into 
 Trompe-la-Mort's paunch will prevent a hundred 
 crimes, and spare us the consequences of the corrup- 
 tion of fifty ill-disposed scoundrels, who are always 
 hovei'ing on the verge of mischief. That 's the true 
 function of the police, prevention of crime. Philan- 
 thropists will tell you so." 
 
 "It is serving one's country," cried Poiret. 
 
 " Yes," replied the chief; " certainly we are serving 
 our country : you are talking some sense this morning. 
 People are very unjust to us in this respect. We ren- 
 der society great services, and society overlooks them. 
 It takes superior men to endure prejudice; only a 
 Christian can accept the reproach that doing good in- 
 curs when it is not done exactly in the line of received 
 traditions. Paris is Paris, you know. That saying 
 explains my life. I have the honor to salute you, 
 Mademoiselle. I shall be with my men in the Jardin 
 du Roi to-morrow morning. Send Christophe to the 
 Rue de Buffon aud ask for Monsieur Gondureau at the 
 house where I was staying. Monsieur, your servant. 
 If anybody ever robs you, let me know, and I will re- 
 cover what is lost for you. I am at your service." 
 
 " Well," said Poiret to Mile. Michonneau, " there are 
 fools in the world who are all upset by the word ' detec- 
 tive.' That gentleman is very amiable ; and what he 
 asks of you is as easy as saying 'How do you do ?'"
 
 Pere aoriot. 233 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE next day was one long remembered in the an- 
 nals of the Haison Vauquer. Hitherto the most re- 
 markable event in its history had been the meteoric 
 apparition of the fraudulent countess. But all was to 
 pale before the catastrophes of this great day, which 
 for the rest of her life supplied Madame Vauquer with 
 topics of conversation. In the first place, Pere Goriot 
 and Eugene slept till eleven o'clock. Madame Vau- 
 quer, who did not get home from the theatre till very 
 late, stayed in bed till half-past ten. Christophe, who 
 had finished the bottle of wine made over to him by 
 Vautrin, slept so late that everything was behindhand 
 in the household. Poiret and Mademoiselle Michon- 
 neau made no complaint about breakfast being late. 
 As for Victorine and Madame Couture, they also slept 
 far into the morning. Vautrin went out before eight 
 o'clock, and got home just as breakfast was on the 
 table. No one, therefore, offered any remonstrance 
 when, at a quarter past eleven, Sylvie and Christophe 
 knocked at all the doors and said that breakfast was 
 served. While they were out of the dining-room, 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau, who was the first person 
 down that morning, poured her liquid into the silver 
 goblet belonging to Vautrin, in which the cream for 
 his coffee was heating in the bain-marie, together
 
 234 Pere Goriot. 
 
 with the portions of the other guests. The old maid 
 had counted on this custom of the house to accom- 
 plish her purpose. 
 
 It was not without difficulty that the family were 
 finally got together. At the moment when Rastignac, 
 still stretching himself, came last of all into the dining- 
 room, a messenger gave him a note from Madame de 
 Nucingen, which ran as follows : 
 
 " I will not show false pride, nor will I be angry with you, 
 my friend. I waited, expecting you, till two in the morning. 
 To wait for one we love ! He who has known such pain 
 would not impose it on another. It proves to me that you 
 have never loved till now. What has happened ? I am very 
 anxious. If I did not fear to betray the secrets of my heart I 
 should have gone to find out whether joy or sorrow had befallen 
 you. I feel the disadvantage of being only a woman. Re- 
 assure me ; explain to me why you did not come after what 
 my father told you. I may be angry, but I shall forgive you. 
 Are you ill? Why do you live so far away from me ? One 
 word for pity's sake ! You will be here soon, will you not ? 
 Say merely, ' I am coming,' or ' I am ill.' But if you were 
 ill, my father would have been here to tell me. What has 
 happened ? " 
 
 " Yes, what has happened ?" cried Eugene, hurriedly 
 entering the dining-room, and crumpling up his note 
 without reading the rest of it. " What o'clock is it ? " 
 
 "Half-past eleven," said Vautrin, putting sugar in 
 his coffee. 
 
 The escaped convict gave Eugene that glance of 
 cold compelling fascination which very magnetic people 
 have the power of giving, a glance which is said to 
 subdue the maniacs in a niad-house. Eugene trembled
 
 Pere Goriot. 235 
 
 in every limb. The roll of a carriage was heard in the 
 still street, and a servant in the Taillefer livery, which 
 Madame Couture recognized at once, came hurriedly 
 into the dining-room, with an excited air. 
 
 " Mademoiselle," he cried, " Monsieur your father 
 has sent for you. A great misfortune has befallen him. 
 Monsieur Frederic has fought a duel. He received a 
 sword-thrust in the forehead. The doctors have no 
 hope of saving him. You will hardly be in time to see 
 him breathe his last. He is unconscious already." 
 
 "Poor young man !" exclaimed Vautrin, " how can 
 people quarrel when they have thirty thousand francs 
 a year! Most assuredly young men do not tread the 
 paths of wisdom " 
 
 " Monsieur ! " interrupted Eugene. 
 
 " Well ! and what of it, you big baby ? " said 
 Vautrin, quietly finishing his cup of coffee, an opera- 
 tion which Mademoiselle Michonneau watched so in- 
 tently that she paid no heed to the extraordinary event 
 that stupefied the people around her. " Are there not 
 duels every day in Paris ? " 
 
 "I shall go with you, Victorine," said Madame 
 Couture. 
 
 The two women flew off without hats or shawls. 
 Victorine, with tears in her eyes, gave Eugene a part- 
 ing glance, which said, " I did not think our happiness 
 Avould so soon have turned to grief ! " 
 
 " Why, you are quite a prophet, Monsieur Vautrin," 
 said Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " I am all things," replied Jacques Collin. 
 
 " It is most singular," said Madame Vauquer, break- 
 ing forth into a string of commonplaces. u Death takes
 
 236 Pere Goriot. 
 
 us without warning. Young people are often called 
 before the aged. It is lucky for us women that we are 
 not expected to fight duels. But we have maladies 
 of our own unknown to men, child-bed especially. 
 "What unexpected luck for Victorine ! Her father will 
 be forced to acknowledge her." 
 
 " Just think," said Vautrin, looking at Eugene, 
 " yesterday she had not a sou; this morning she has a 
 fortune of millions." 
 
 " Ah ! Monsieur Eugene," cried Madame Vauquer, 
 "you put your hand in the bag at the right moment." 
 
 As Madame Vauquer said this, Pere Goriot looked at 
 Eugene and saw the crumpled letter in his hand. 
 
 " You have not read it," he said. " What does that 
 mean ? Are you like all the rest ? " 
 
 " Madame, I shall never marry Mademoiselle Victo- 
 rine," said Eugene, addressing Madame Vauquer with 
 an expression of mingled horror and disgust which 
 astonished the others at the table. 
 
 Pere Goriot seized the student's hand and pressed 
 it ; he would fain have kissed it. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " said Vautrin, " they have an excellent 
 saying in Italy, col tempo" 
 
 " I was to wait for an answer," said the messenger to 
 Rastignac. 
 
 " Say I am coming." 
 
 The man went away. Eugene's agitation was so 
 great that he could not be prudent. 
 
 " What can be done ? " he said aloud, though speak- 
 ing to himself, "I have no proofs." 
 
 Vautrin smiled. At this moment the potion ab- 
 sorbed by the stomach began to take effect. Never-
 
 Pere Goriot. 237 
 
 theless the convict was so vigorous that he rose, looked 
 at Rastignac, and said in a hollow voice, " Young man, 
 our blessings come to us while we sleep." 
 
 As he said the words he fell down, to all appearance 
 dead. 
 
 " The justice of God ! " cried Eugene. 
 
 " Why, what 's the matter with him, poor dear Mon- 
 sieur Vautrin," exclaimed Madame Vauquer. 
 
 " It is apoplexy," cried Mademoiselle Michonneau. 
 
 "Sylvie ! run, my girl, go for the doctor," said the 
 widow. " Ah, Monsieur Rastignac, go, please, and get 
 Monsieur Bianchon ; perhaps Sylvie will not find our 
 own doctor, Monsieur Griraprel." 
 
 Rastignac, glad of the excuse to escape from that 
 horrible den, rushed away at full speed. 
 
 " Christophe ! here, go as fast as you can to the 
 apothecary's, and ask him to give you something for 
 apoplexy. Pere Goriot, help us to carry him up to his 
 own room." 
 
 Vautrin was seized ; dragged with difficulty up the 
 staircase, and laid upon his bed. 
 
 " I can be of no further use ; I am going to see my 
 daughter," said Monsieur Goriot. 
 
 " Selfish old thing ! " cried Madame Vauquer. " Go ! 
 I only wish you may die like a dog yourself." 
 
 " See if you have any ether, Madame Vauquer," said 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau, who with the aid of Poiret 
 had unfastened Vautrin's clothes. 
 
 Madame Vauquer went to her own room and left 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau mistress of the field. 
 
 "Come, quick! take off his shirt and turn him 
 over. Be good for something so far, at least, as to
 
 238 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 save my modesty," she said to Poiret ; " you stand 
 there like a fool." 
 
 Vautrin being turned over, Mademoiselle Michon- 
 neau gave him a smart tap on the shoulder, and the two 
 fatal letters appeared in the midst of the red circle. 
 
 " Well, you have not had much trouble in earning 
 your three thousand francs," cried Poiret, holding 
 Vautrin up while Mademoiselle Michonneau was put- 
 ting on his shirt again. " Ouf ! but he is heavy," he 
 said, laying him down. 
 
 " Hold your tongue ! I wonder if there is a strong- 
 box or a safe ? " said the old maid with avidity, her 
 eyes almost looking through the walls as she glanced 
 eagerly at every bit of furniture in the room. " If one 
 could only open this writing-desk on some pretext," 
 she said. 
 
 " Perhaps that would n't be right," remarked Poiret. 
 
 " Where 's the harm ? Stolen money belongs to no 
 one it is anybody's. But we have not time, I hear 
 the Vauquer." 
 
 " Here is the ether," said the widow. " Well, I de- 
 clare, this is a day of adventures but, look ! that man 
 cannot be so very ill ; he is as white as a chicken." 
 
 " As a chicken," repeated Poiret. 
 
 " His heart beats regularly," said Madame Vauquer, 
 placing her hand upon it. 
 
 " Regularly ? does it though ? " said Poiret, sur- 
 prised. 
 
 He is all right." 
 
 "Do you think so?" asked Poiret. 
 
 " Why, yes ! he looks as if he were sleeping. Sylvie 
 has gone for the doctor. Look, Mademoiselle Michon-
 
 Pere Goriot. 239 
 
 neau, he is sniffing the ether. Bah ! it was only a 
 kind of spasm ; his pulse is good. He is as strong as 
 a Turk. Just see, Mademoiselle, what a fur tippet he 
 has got on his breast ! He will live to be a hundred, 
 he will ! His wig has n't tumbled off goodness ! 
 why, it is glued on. He has got some hair of his own 
 and it 's red ! They say men with red hair are 
 either very good or very bad : he is one of the good 
 ones." 
 
 " Good enough to hang," interrupted Poiret. 
 
 " Round a pretty woman's neck, you mean," cried 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau quickly. " Go downstairs, 
 Monsieur Poiret. It is our place to take care of you 
 men when you are ill. You had better go out and 
 take a walk, for all the good you do," she added. 
 " Madame Vauquer and I will sit here and watch this 
 dear Monsieur Vautrin." 
 
 Thus admonished, Poiret slunk off without a mur- 
 mur, like a hound that has got a kick from its master. 
 
 Rastignac had gone to walk, to breathe fresh air, for 
 he was stifled. What had happened ? The crime had 
 been committed at the hour fixed ; he had wanted to 
 put a stop to it the evening before what had hin- 
 dered ? .What must he do now? He trembled lest in 
 some way he was an accomplice. Vautrin's cool as- 
 surance horrified him still. 
 
 "Suppose he dies without speaking?" he asked 
 himself. 
 
 He was walking breathlessly along the alleys of the 
 Luxembourg, as if pursued by a pack of hounds : he 
 seemed to hear them yelping on his traces.
 
 240 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 " Here 1 " cried the voice of Bianchon, " have you 
 seen the Pilote?" 
 
 The Pilote was a radical paper edited by Monsieur 
 Tissot, which made up a country edition a few hours 
 after the appearance of the morning papers, and often 
 contained items of later news. 
 
 " There 's a great affair in it," said Bianchon ; " young 
 Taillefer has fought a duel with Comte de Franchessini 
 of the Old Guard, who ran two inches of his sword 
 into his forehead. So now the little Victorine is one 
 of the best matches in Paris. Hein ! if one had only 
 known it! What a game of chance life is and 
 death, too. Is it true that Victorine looks upon you 
 with an eye of favor, my boy ? " 
 
 " Hush, Bianchon ! I will never marry her. I love 
 a charming woman, a woman who loves me. I 
 
 " Well, you say it in a tone as if you were goading 
 yourself not to give up your charming woman. Show 
 me the lady worth the sacrifice of the wealth of the 
 house of Taillefer." 
 
 " Are all the devils on my track ? " cried Rastignac. 
 
 " Why, what are you about ? Haye you gone mad ? 
 Give me your wrist," said Bianchon, " I want to feel 
 your pulse. You have got a fever." 
 
 "Go at once to Mother Vauquer's," said Eugene: 
 "that scoundrel Vautrin has just dropped dead." 
 
 " Ah-h ! " cried Bianchon, dropping Rastignac's 
 hand, "that confirms my suspicions; I will make sure 
 about them." 
 
 During his long walk Eugene passed through a 
 solemn crisis. He made, as it were, the circuit of his 
 conscience. If he struggled with his own soul, if
 
 Pere Croriot. 241 
 
 he hankered and hesitated, it must be owned that his 
 probity came out of that bitter and terrible discus- 
 sion like a bar of iron, proof against every test. He 
 remembered the secret Pere Goriot had let drop the 
 day before. He thought of the appartement chosen 
 for him by Delphine in the Rue d'Artois. He took 
 out her letter, and re-read it, and kissed it. 
 
 "Her love is my sheet anchor," he said. " The poor 
 old man, too, he has had much to suffer ! He says 
 nothing of his griefs, but who cannot guess what they 
 have been to him? "Well, I will take care of him 
 as if he were my father ; I will give him the joys he 
 longs for. If she loves me she will sometimes come 
 and pass the day with him. That grand Comtesse 
 de Restaud is a vile woman ; she shuts her doors 
 against her father. Dear Delphine! she is kinder 
 to the poor old man yes ! she is worth loving." 
 He drew out his watch and admired it. " Everything 
 will go well with me," he said. " When people love 
 each other, what harm is there in accepting mutual 
 gifts? I may keep it. Besides, I shall succeed, 
 and repay her a hundredfold. In this liaison there 
 is no crime, nothing to make the strictest virtue 
 frown. We deceive no one : it is falsehood that makes 
 us vile. How many honorable people contract just 
 such unions! Her quarrel with her husband is irre- 
 mediable. Suppose I were to ask him, that big 
 Alsatian, to give up to me a woman he can never 
 render happy ? " 
 
 The struggle of his mind lasted long. Though the 
 victory remained with the virtues of youth, and he 
 repulsed the temptation to make himself the accom- 
 16
 
 242 Pere Goriot. 
 
 plice of a deed of blood, he was nevertheless drawn 
 back at dusk to the Maison Vauquer by an irresistible 
 impulse of curiosity. He swore to himself that he 
 would quit the place forever, but he must know if 
 Vautrin was dead. 
 
 Bianchon after administering an emetic had taken 
 the matters vomited by Vautrin to his hospital for 
 chemical analysis. When he saw Mademoiselle Mich- 
 onneau's anxiety to have them thrown away his sus- 
 picions increased ; but Vautrin got over the attack so 
 quickly that he soon dropped the idea of a plot agaiust 
 the life of that jovial merry-maker. 
 
 When Rastignac came in, Vautrin was standing by 
 the stove in the dining-room. The guests had come 
 together earlier than usual, anxious to learn the par- 
 ticulars of the duel and to know what influence it 
 would have on the future of Victorine. As Eugene 
 entered, he caught the eye of the imperturbable sphinx. 
 The look the latter gave him pierced deep into his 
 heart, and touched some chords of evil with so pow- 
 erful a spell that he shivered. 
 
 "Well, my dear fellow," said the escaped convict, 
 " Death will have a fierce struggle to get hold of me. 
 These ladies tell me I have recovered from a rush of 
 blood to the head that would have killed an ox." 
 
 " Indeed, you might say a bull," said Madame 
 Vauquer. 
 
 " Are you sorry to see me alive ? " said Vautrin to 
 Eugene in a whisper, divining his thought. " You 
 will find, on the contrary, that I am devilishly strong." 
 
 " Ah, by the by ! " exclaimed Bianchon, " the day 
 before yesterday Mademoiselle Michonneau was speak-
 
 Pere Goriot. 243 
 
 ing of a man named Trompe-la-Mort. That name 
 would suit you, Monsieur Vautrin." 
 
 The words were a thunderbolt to Vautrin. He 
 turned pale and staggered. His magnetic glance fell 
 on Mademoiselle Michonneau, who sank beneath the 
 power of his eye. She fell back on a chair, her knees 
 giving way under her. Poiret stepped nimbly between 
 the two, understanding instinctively that she was in 
 danger, so ferocious was the expression of the convict 
 as he threw off the mask of good humor under which 
 he had so long concealed his real nature. Without 
 the least comprehending what was taking place before 
 their eyes, the others saw that something was wrong, 
 and stood by bewildered. At that moment footsteps 
 were heard and the rattle of muskets in the street, as 
 a squad of soldiers brought their pieces to the pave- 
 ment. While Collin cast a quick glance at the win- 
 dows and the walls, instinctively looking for the means 
 of escape, four men showed themselves at the door of 
 the dining-room. The foremost was the chief of the 
 detective police, and the three others were members 
 of his force. 
 
 " In the name of the law and the King ! " said one of 
 the latter, his words being drowned by a murmur of 
 amazement ; but in a moment silence reigned in the 
 room as the guests stood aside to give passage to these 
 men, each of whom had his right hand in a side-pocket 
 where he held a loaded pistol. Two gendarmes, who 
 stepped in after the detectives, stood by the doorway 
 leading to the salon, while two more appeared at that 
 which opened towards the staircase. The tread and 
 the guns of a squad of soldiers outside sounded on
 
 244 Pere Goriot. 
 
 the pebble-paved space along the side of the building. 
 Every chance of flight was thus cut off from Trompe- 
 la-Mort, on whom all eyes now turned in his extremity. 
 The chief went straight to him, and gave him a blow 
 so vigorously applied that it tore the wig from its 
 place, and showed the head of Collin in all its horrible 
 integrity. The hair, red and close-cropped, gave to his 
 face a look of mingled strength and cunning ; and the 
 harmony of the face and head with the stalwart chest 
 revealed the whole being of the man as by a flash 
 from the fires of hell. All present comprehended 
 Vautrin, his past, his present, the future before him, 
 his implacable dogmas, the religion of his own good 
 pleasure, the dominion he had exercised by the cyni- 
 cism of his ideas and his acts, and by the force of his 
 extraordinary organism. The blood rushed to his 
 face, and his eyes glittered like those of a wildcat. 
 He made one bound of savage energy ; he uttered one 
 roar, so ferocious that the people near him shrank back 
 in fear. At this movement, like that of a lion at bay, 
 and assuming to be justified by the terror of the by- 
 standers, the detectives drew their pistols. Collin no 
 sooner heard the cocking of the triggers than he un- 
 derstood his danger, aud gave instant proof of the 
 highest of human powers, horrible, yet majestic 
 spectacle ! His whole being passed through a pheno- 
 menal change which can only be compared to that 
 which takes place in a boiler full of the steam that can 
 blast mountains in its might, and yet at the touch of 
 a drop of cold water sinks into instant dissolution. 
 The drop of water which in a moment calmed his 
 rage was a reflection that flashed, quick as lightning,
 
 P$re Goriot. 245 
 
 through his brain. He smiled quietly, and glanced at 
 his wig. 
 
 "This is not one of your polite days," he said to the 
 chief of police, stretching out his hands to the gen- 
 darmes with a motion of his head. "Messieurs, put 
 on the handcuffs. I take all present to witness that I 
 make no resistance." 
 
 A murmur of admiration, called forth by the promp- 
 titude with which this wondrous man mastered the 
 fire and molten lava of the volcano in his breast, ran 
 through the room. 
 
 " That puts an end to your kind intentions," he said, 
 looking full at the celebrated director of the detective 
 police. 
 
 " Come, undress ! " said the chief, in a tone of 
 contempt. 
 
 "What for?" asked Collin. "There are ladies 
 present. I deny nothing, and I surrender." 
 
 He paused, and looked on all around him with the 
 air of an orator about to hold the attention of his 
 audience. 
 
 " Write down, Papa Lachapelle," he said, address- 
 ing a little old man with white hair, who placed him- 
 self at the end of the table, taking from a portfolio a 
 form for the official report of the arrest, " that I ac- 
 knowledge myself to be Jacques Collin, condemned to 
 twenty years' imprisonment; and I have just given 
 proof that I did not steal my nickname. If I had so 
 much as lifted a hand," he said, turning to his late com- 
 panions, " those fellows would have spilled my claret on 
 the domestic hearthstone of Mamma Vauquer. These 
 rogues delight in setting snares for their victims."
 
 246 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Madame Vauquer turned pale on hearing these 
 words. " Mon Dieu ! " she cried, " it is enough to 
 bring on an illness ! To think of my having been at 
 the theatre with him only last evening ! " she said 
 to Sylvie. 
 
 " Show more philosophy, Mamma," said Collin. 
 " Was it really a misfortune to amuse yourself in my 
 box at the Gaite last night? Are you better than we? 
 We have less infamy branded on our shoulders than 
 you have in your hearts, you flabby members of a 
 gangrened society ! Even the best among you could 
 not hold out against me." His eyes turned to Rastig- 
 nac, to whom he gave a kindly smile in strange con- 
 trast to the harsh expression of his features. " Our 
 little bargain holds good, my lad," he said ; " that is, 
 in case of acceptance. You know " and he sang : 
 " ' My Fanny is charming 
 In her simplicity.' 
 
 Don't be uneasy," he resumed. " I shall be all right 
 again before long. They fear me too much to play 
 me false." 
 
 The bagne, with its manners and vocabulary, its 
 abrupt transitions from the jocose to the horrible, its 
 fiendish grandeur, its familiarity, its degradation, were 
 all exhibited to the eye in the person of this man, 
 no longer a man, but the type of a degenerate race ; of 
 a savage people, lawless yet logical, brutal but pliant. 
 On a sudden Collin had become an infernal poem, an 
 exposition of all human emotions save one, repent- 
 ance. His glance was that of the fallen angel, prepared 
 to carry on a losing war. Rastignac bent his head, 
 accepting the comradeship thus foi'ced upon him, in
 
 Pere Goriot. 247 
 
 expiation of the evil thoughts which had brought him 
 near to crime. 
 
 "Who betrayed me?" said Collin, casting his 
 glance around the circle. It stopped at Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau. " Ah ! it was you, sleuth-hound ! you 
 gave me a sham apoplexy, you prying devil ! If I said 
 two words, your head would be mown off in a week. 
 But I forgive you. I 'm a Christian. Besides, it was 
 not you who sold me. But who, then ? Ha, ha ! 
 you are rummaging up there," he cried, hearing the 
 detectives overhead, who were opening his closets 
 and taking possession of his effects. " The birds are 
 flown, the nest is empty. You can find nothing there. 
 My ledgers are here," he added, tapping his forehead. 
 " Now I know who sold me. It can be no other than 
 that dirty blackguard, Fil de Soie. Is n't it so, Father 
 Catch'em ?" he said to the chief of police. " I guess it 
 from the way you are looking for the bank-notes up- 
 stairs. None there, my little spies! As for Fil de 
 Soie, he '11 be under the sod in a fortnight, even if 
 you try to guard him with the whole force of your 
 gendarmerie. How much did you pay that old 
 Michonnette ? " he asked, turning to the police agents. 
 " Only a thousand crowns ? Why, I was worth more 
 than that, you decayed Ninon Pompadour in tatters 
 Venus of the cemetery ! If you had given me 
 warning, I 'd have paid you double. Ha ! you did 
 think of it ? Haggler in human flesh ! Yes, I 
 would have given you six thousand francs to spare 
 myself a journey which I don't like, and which puts 
 me out of pocket," he added, as they were screwing on 
 the handcuffs. "These people will take pleasure in
 
 248 Pere Goriot. 
 
 letting things drag along, just to keep me idle. If they 
 would only send me off to the galleys at once, I should 
 soon get back to my work, in spite of those simpletons 
 at the prefecture of police. La bas [down there] 
 they would turn their souls inside out to set their gen- 
 eral at liberty, their trusty Trompe-la-Mort. Is 
 there any one of you who can boast of having, as I 
 have, ten thousand brothers ready to do everything 
 for you ? " he asked proudly. " There is virtue here," 
 striking his breast. " I have never betrayed any one. 
 Ha! old adder!" he continued, addressing the old 
 maid. " Look at these people. They fear me, but 
 they loathe you. Pick up your gains and begone ! " 
 
 He made a pause, and looked round upon the other 
 guests. 
 
 " What fools you are ! " he said. " Did you never 
 see a convict ? A convict of the stamp of Collin, here 
 present, is a man who is less base than other men, and 
 who protests against the glaring deceptions of the so- 
 cial contract, as Jean Jacques called it, whose pupil 
 I am proud to be. For myself, I stand alone against 
 the Government, with all its courts of law, its budgets 
 and gendarmes, and I get the better of it." 
 
 " The devil ! " exclaimed the painter. " I should 
 like to sketch him now." 
 
 "Tell me," he continued, turning to the chief of 
 police, " tell me, equerry to Monseigneur the execu- 
 tioner, govei-nor of the Widow \La Veuve, appalling 
 name, full of terrible poesy, given by the convicts to 
 the guillotine] ; come, be a good fellow and say, was 
 it Fil de Soie who sold me? I should be sorry if he 
 died for another; it would not be just."
 
 Pre Goriot. 249 
 
 At this moment the detectives, who had opened 
 everything and taken an inventory of all that was in 
 his apartment, came down and said something in a low 
 voice to the chief of police. The proces-verbal (written 
 official report of all the circumstances of the arrest) 
 was now completed. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said Collin, turning to his late com- 
 panions, " they are about to take me from you. You 
 have all been very amiable to me during my residence 
 among you, and I shall think of you with gratitude. 
 Receive my adieux. You will permit me to send you 
 figs from Provence." 
 
 He went a few steps, and then turned and looked at 
 Rastignac. 
 
 "Adieu, Eugene," he said, in a gentle, sad voice, 
 strangely in contrast with the rough tone he had used 
 hitherto. " If you are ever in trouble, remember, I 
 leave you a devoted friend." Notwithstanding his 
 handcuffs, he put himself on guard, gave the word like 
 a fencing-master, one, two, and made a pass as if 
 with the sword. " In case of misfortune, go there. 
 Man or money, all are at your disposal." 
 
 This strange being put so much buffoonery into 
 these last words that no one present understood their 
 meaning except Rastignac. 
 
 When the house was vacated by the gendarmes, the 
 soldiers, and the agents of the police, Sylvie, who was 
 bathing her mistress's forehead with vinegar, looked 
 round upon the assembled household and said, 
 
 " Well all the same, he was a good man." 
 
 These words broke the spell which the rush of 
 events and the diversity of emotions had exercised
 
 250 PZre Goriot. 
 
 over the spectators of this strange scene. They 
 glanced at each other, and then by a common im- 
 pulse all turned to Mademoiselle Michonneau, who 
 crouched near the stove, cold, bloodless, withered as a 
 mummy, her eyes cast down as though she felt the 
 protection of the green shade insufficient to conceal 
 their expression. The cause of the aversion they had 
 long felt for her was suddenly made clear to their 
 minds. A murmur of disgust, which by its unanimity 
 expressed the common feeling of all present, sounded 
 through the room. Mademoiselle Michonneau heard 
 it, but she did not change her attitude. Bianchon 
 was the first to speak. He turned to the man next 
 him and said, in a low voice, 
 
 " I shall decamp if she is to eat her dinner here." 
 
 Instantly every one, except Poiret, accepted the 
 suggestion ; and the medical student, sustained by pub- 
 lic opinion, walked up to the old man. 
 
 " You who enjoy a special intimacy with Mademoi- 
 selle Michonneau," he said, " had better speak to her. 
 Make her understand that she must leave this house 
 without delay." 
 
 " Without delay ? " repeated Poiret, astonished. 
 
 Then he went up to the old maid and said something 
 in a whisper. 
 
 "But I have paid a month in advance; I have a 
 right to stay here while I pay my money like every- 
 body else," she said, darting a viperous glance at the 
 company. 
 
 " That need not hinder," said Rastignac, " we will 
 all subscribe and return you the money." 
 
 " Monsieur stands up for Collin? " she replied, casting
 
 Pere Gorioti 251 
 
 a venomous and searching look at Rastignac. "It is 
 easy to guess why. We all heard his last words." 
 
 Eugene sprang forward as though he would have 
 seized and strangled her. 
 
 " Let her alone ! " cried the others. 
 
 Rastignac folded his arms and stood mute. 
 
 " We must get rid of Mademoiselle Judas," said the 
 painter, turning to Madame Vauquer. " Madame, if 
 you do not turn out la Michonneau we shall all leave 
 you ; and we shall report everywhere that your pension 
 is frequented by spies and convicts. If you do as we 
 demand, we will be silent about what has happened, 
 which, indeed, is liable to take place in the best estab- 
 lishments, until galley-slaves are branded on the fore- 
 head and prevented from disguising themselves as 
 honest citizens and playing the buffoon as they please." 
 
 Hearing this, Madame Vauquer miraculously recov- 
 ered her senses, sat upright, folded her arms, and opened 
 her cold light eyes, which showed no trace of tears. 
 
 "But, my dear Monsieur," she said, "do you mean 
 to ruin my house ? There is Monsieur Vautrin oh ! 
 Mon Dieu" she cried, interrupting herself, "I cannot 
 help giving him his honest name ! he leaves me a 
 whole suite of rooms vacant; and now you ask me to 
 consent to have two more rooms unoccupied at a season 
 when everybody is settled ! " 
 
 " Come, gentlemen, get your hats. We will go and 
 dine in the Place Sorbonne at Flicoteaux's," said 
 Bianchon. 
 
 Madame Vauquer made a rapid mental calculation as 
 to which side her interest lay, and then waddled up to 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau.
 
 252 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Come, my dear good lady," she said, " you don't 
 want to be the death of my establishment, I am sure. 
 You see to what an extremity I am reduced by the be- 
 havior of these gentlemen. Go up to your room for 
 this evening." 
 
 " That won't do ! That will not do at all ! " cried all 
 the others. " We insist upon her leaving the house at 
 once." 
 
 " But she has not dined," said Poiret piteously. 
 
 "She can get her dinner somewhere else," cried 
 several voices. 
 
 " Begone, spy ! " 
 
 " Down with the spies with both of them ! " 
 
 "Gentlemen," said Poiret, suddenly exhibiting the 
 courage of an old ram defending his favorite ewe, " re- 
 spect her sex." 
 
 " Spies are not of any sex." 
 
 " Famous sex-orama ! " 
 
 " A la porte-orama ! " 
 
 "Gentlemen, this is indecent. When people are 
 dismissed from a house there are certain formalities to 
 be observed. We have paid our board in advance, 
 and we shall stay," said Poiret, putting on his amor- 
 phous old hat, and taking a chair beside Mademoiselle 
 Michonneau, to whom Madame Vauquer was appealing 
 in a low voice. 
 
 " Ah ! you bad boy ! " cried the painter ; "petit me- 
 chant, va ! " 
 
 " Come on, then," said Bianchon, " if they are not 
 going, we are." 
 
 At this summons all the guests moved in a body to 
 the door of the salon.
 
 Pere Goriot. 253 
 
 " Mademoiselle ! what shall I do ? I shall be ruined ! " 
 cried Madame Vauquer. "You cannot stay they 
 will proceed to violence." 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau rose. 
 
 " She is going ! " 
 
 " She won't go ! " 
 
 " Yes, she will ! " 
 
 " No, she won't ! " 
 
 These alternating exclamations and the increasing 
 hostility of all around her decided the old maid, and 
 she prepared to leave, after a few whispered stipulations 
 with her landlady. 
 
 " I am going to Madame Buneaud's," she said with 
 a menacing air. 
 
 " Go where you choose, Mademoiselle," cried Madame 
 Vauquer. to whom this choice of the rival establish- 
 ment added insult to injury. "Go, if you like, to the 
 Buneaud's. She will give you wine fit to make the 
 goats caper with stomach-ache, and stews made of cold 
 pieces from the eating-houses." 
 
 The guests stood in a double row in profound silence. 
 Poiret looked so tenderly at Mademoiselle Michonneau, 
 and yet was so naively undecided whether he ought to 
 go or stay, that the victorious party, put in good hu- 
 mor by the departure of the old maid, began to laugh 
 at him. 
 
 " Xi, xi, xi, Poiret ! " cried the painter, as if setting 
 on a dog ; " hi, old fellow ! " 
 
 The Museum employe began to sing, with comic 
 gestures, a well-known ballad : 
 
 " Partant pour la Syrie 
 Le jeune et beau Dunois."
 
 254 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " You had better go, Poiret ; you are dying to follow 
 her," cried Bianchon, " trahit sua quemque voluptas" 
 
 " Like follows like translation more liberal than 
 literal from Virgil," said a tutor who was one of the 
 guests. 
 
 Mademoiselle Michonneau looked hard at Poiret, 
 and made a movement as if to take his arm. He was 
 unable to resist the appeal, and came forward to sup- 
 port her. There was a burst of applause and peals of 
 laughter. 
 
 " Bravo, Poiret ! " 
 
 " Good for old Poiret ! " 
 
 " Poiret-Apollo ! " 
 
 " Poiret-Mars ! " 
 
 " Plucky Poiret ! " 
 
 At this moment a messenger came in with a note 
 for Madame Vauquer. She read it, and sank down 
 upon a chair. 
 
 " Now there is nothing left but to be struck by light- 
 ning," she said, " and burn the house down ! Young 
 Taillefer died at three o'clock. I am rightly punished 
 for having wished those ladies good-luck at the expense 
 of that poor young man. Madame Couture and Vic- 
 torine have sent for their things, and are going to 
 live with the father. Monsieur Taillefer allows his 
 daughter to keep the widow Couture as her companion. 
 Four appartement vacant ! Five lodgers gone ! " she 
 said, with tears in her voice. " Misfortune has visited 
 my house ! " 
 
 The roll of a carriage echoed up the quiet street and 
 stopped before the door. 
 
 " Here 's some lucky windfall," cried Sylvie.
 
 Pere Goriot. 255 
 
 Goriot came in, radiant with happiness ; his face 
 shone ; he seemed transfigured. 
 
 " Goriot in a hackney-coach ! " cried the others ; 
 " the end of the world has come ! " 
 
 The old fellow went straight to Rastignac, who was 
 standing apart dumb-founded, and took him by the 
 arm. " Cotne ! " he cried eagerly. 
 
 "Do you know what has happened ?" said Eugene; 
 " Vautrin was a convict escaped from the galleys ; they 
 have just arrested him. And young Taillefer is dead." 
 
 " Well what is that to us ? " replied Pere Goriot ; 
 " I am to dine with my daughter to-day at your rooms ; 
 you undei-stand ? She is waiting for us. Come ! " 
 
 He pulled Rastignac violently by the arm, and car- 
 ried him off as if he were a lover and Rastignac a 
 woman . 
 
 " Let us sit down to dinner ; " said the painter, and 
 each took his place at table. 
 
 " I declare," said Sylvie, " things do go wrong to- 
 day ! My haricot of mutton has got stuck. Well ! 
 you will have to eat it burned, whether or no ! " 
 
 Madame Vauquer had no heart to say a word when 
 she saw ten persons instead of eighteen sitting down 
 to table ; but they all made a good-natured effort to 
 console her and cheer her up ; and though at first they 
 could think of nothing but Vautrin and the startling 
 events of the day, the serpentine current of their talk 
 soon led them to duels, the galleys, law-courts, prisons, 
 and the reform of the criminal code, from whence they 
 wandered far away from Jacques Collin and Victorine 
 and her brother. Although there were but ten of them, 
 they made noise enough for twenty, and gave the im-
 
 256 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 pression of being more in number than usual, which 
 was the only apparent difference between the dinner of 
 to-day and the dinners of other days. The habitual 
 insouciance of that devil-may-care world of Paris, 
 which each day gluts its maw with the events of the 
 last twenty-four hours, resumed its sway , and even 
 Madame Vauquer permitted herself to listen to the 
 voice of hope, that divinity being represented by 
 the fat Sylvie.
 
 Pere Goriot. 257 
 
 XV. 
 
 THIS day was destined to be, from morning till night, 
 a phantasmagoria to Eugene, who in spite of his self- 
 command and his strength of mind could not collect 
 his scattered senses when he found himself in the coach 
 beside Pere Goriot, whose babble flowed joyously as 
 from a fount of unexampled happiness, sounding in 
 Eugene's ears, after so many emotions, like the words 
 of a dream : 
 
 " We finished our work this morning. "We are all 
 three to dine together, together, do you understand? 
 It is four years since I last dined with Delphine, 
 my own little Delphine ! I shall be there all the eve- 
 ning. We have been at your rooms since the morning. 
 I have been working like a day-laborer, coat off. I 
 helped to bring in the furniture. Ah ! ah ! you 
 don't know how charming she can be at the head of a 
 table. She will look after me. She will say, ' Come, 
 Papa, eat some of this it is good ! ' and then I shall 
 not be able to swallow a mouthful. Oh ! it is so long 
 since I have spent an evening with her ; but the happy 
 time is coming ! " 
 
 " Ah ! " cried Eugene, " the world seems upside 
 down." 
 
 " Upside down ! " exclaimed Pere Goriot. " Why, 
 it never seemed to me so right-side-up before. I see 
 17
 
 258 Pere Cf-oriot. 
 
 none but happy faces in the streets ; everybody seems 
 to be shaking hands ; some people are hugging each 
 other; men look as gay as if they were all going to 
 dine with their daughters, and gobble down the good 
 dinner I heard her order from the chef at the Cafe 
 Anglais. But, bah ! what matter ? Sitting beside her, 
 aloes would taste as sweet as honey." 
 
 " Am I coming to life again ? " said Eugene. 
 
 " Get on faster, coachman," cried Pere Goriot, letting 
 down the front glass of the carriage. " Drive faster ! 
 I will give you five francs drink-money if you get me 
 there in ten minutes." 
 
 On hearing this promise, the man dashed across Paris 
 at break-neck speed. 
 
 " The fellow crawls," cried Goriot. 
 
 " But where are you taking me ? " asked Rastignac. 
 
 " To your own rooms," said Pere Goriot. 
 
 The carriage stopped in the Rue d'Artois. The old 
 man got out first, and flung ten francs to the coachman 
 with the prodigality of a widower in the first flush of 
 his release. 
 
 " Come ! let us go upstairs," he said to Rastignac, 
 marshalling him across the courtyard and taking him to 
 an appartement on the third floor, in the rear of a new 
 and handsome building. Pere Goriot had no need to 
 ring the bell. Therese, Madame de Nucingen's wait- 
 ing-woman, opened the door, and Eugene found him- 
 self in a charming bachelor establishment, consisting 
 of an ante-chamber, a little salon, a bed-room, and a 
 dressing-room looking out upon a garden. In the little 
 salon, whose furniture and decorations would have 
 borne comparison with everything beautiful and grace-
 
 Pere Goriot. 259 
 
 ful of its kind, be saw Delphine by the soft light of 
 wax-candles, who rose from a couch by the fire and, 
 laying the hand-screen she had been using on the 
 chimney-piece, said in a voice full of tenderness, " So 
 you had to be sent for, Monsieur, who is so dull of 
 comprehension ! " 
 
 Therese left the room. Eugene took Delphine in 
 his arms, and as he pressed her to his heart tears came 
 into his eyes. The contrast between what he saw and 
 what he had so lately seen overwhelmed him, and the 
 emotions of this strange day, when so much had wea- 
 ried his spirit and confused hi.s brain, brought on a rush 
 of nervous agitation. 
 
 "I knew all along how he felt," whispered Pere 
 Goriot to his daughter, while Eugene lay back upon a 
 sofa unable to say a word, or to explain why this last 
 wave of the magic wand had so powerfully affected him. 
 
 " Come and see your rooms," said Madame de Nu- 
 cingen, after a pause, taking his hand and leading him 
 through the pretty appartement, where the carpets, the 
 furniture, and all the lesser decorations were of the 
 same style, in miniature, as those of Delphine's own 
 rooms. 
 
 " We will keep our happiness a secret from all 
 except ourselves," she whispered, smiling. 
 
 "Yes, but I must have my share in it," said Pere 
 Goriot. 
 
 " You know you are included : ourselves means 
 you, too." 
 
 " Ah ! that is what I wanted you to say. You will 
 not think me in the way, will you ? I shall come and 
 go like some good spirit, always at hand, though he
 
 260 Pere Goriot. 
 
 does not make himself known. Well, my Delphi- 
 nette, Ninette, Dedel ! was I not right to tell you of 
 this pretty little appartement, and to say, 'Let us 
 furnish it for him ' ? At first you did not like the 
 idea. It is I who planned all this pleasure. Fathers 
 should give their children everything, just as they 
 gave them life. Give all, give ever, that is a father's 
 motto." 
 
 " Have we guessed what you like best ? " said Del- 
 phine to Eugene as they came back into the salon. 
 
 "Yes," he said, "only too well. Alas! the luxury 
 of these rooms is complete ; my every dream is real- 
 ized. The poetry of such a life, so fresh, so elegant, 
 I feel it all ! But I cannot accept it from you, and I 
 am too poor as yet " 
 
 " Ah ! would you dare to cross me already ? " she 
 asked, with a mock air of authority, making one of 
 those pretty grimaces by which women try to laugh 
 away a scruple. But Eugene had that day too sol- 
 emnly interrogated his conscience, the arrest of Vau- 
 trin, revealing the horrible abyss into which he had so 
 nearly plunged, had too powerfully forced his mind 
 back to thoughts of duty and delicacy, to let him now 
 yield to her caressing assault upon his scruples. A 
 profound sadness came over him. 
 
 " Is it possible," cried Madame de Nucingen, " that 
 you refuse me? Do you kno\v all that such a refusal 
 means? It means that you doubt the future, that 
 you doubt me, or that you fear to be false yourself 
 to my affection. If you love me and if I love you, 
 why do you draw back and refuse such trifling obliga- 
 tions ? If you knew the pleasure I have had in pre-
 
 Pere Goriot. 2G1 
 
 paring these rooms for you, you would not hesitate ; 
 you would beg ray pardon for the very thought of 
 refusing me. Besides, you must remember that I have 
 money of yours : I have laid it out to the best advan- 
 tage, that is all. You fancy that your refusal is a 
 proof of highmindedness : it is the contrary. Oh, 
 Papa ! give him good reasons why he should not refuse 
 us," she exclaimed after a pause, turning to her father. 
 " Does he think I would be less fastidious than him- 
 self on a point of honor? " 
 
 Pere Goriot listened to this dispute with the ab- 
 sorbed smile of an Oriental snake-charmer. 
 
 " Child that you are, reflect ! " continued Madame de 
 Nucingen, taking Eugene's hand. "You stand on the 
 threshold of life ; between you and success there lies 
 a barrier insurmountable for most young men, the 
 barrier of poverty, of obscurity ; the hand of a woman 
 removes it, and you draw back ! You will succeed ; 
 you will make a brilliant future ; I read success upon 
 your brow. When this comes to pass, can you not pay 
 back to me what I lend you now? In olden times 
 ladies gave to their knights armor and swords and 
 helmets, coats of mail and horses, that they might 
 fight at tournaments and win them honor. Eugene, 
 the things I offer you are the arms of the nineteenth 
 century ; tools essential to the man who wishes to rise 
 above his fellows. Ah ! " she added, " the garret 
 where you live must be sumptuous, if it is anything 
 like Papa's ! Do you wish to make me miserable ? 
 Answer ! " she said, slightly shaking his hand. " Mon 
 Dieu, Papa ! make him accept, or I will go away and 
 never let him see me again."
 
 262 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " I can settle it," said Pere Goriot, coming out of 
 his trance. "My dear Monsieur Eugene, you would 
 be glad no doubt to borrow money from the Jews, 
 wouldn't you?" 
 
 " I must," he replied. 
 
 t( Very good ; now, then, I have you," said the old 
 man, drawing out a shabby leather pocket-book. "I 
 am your Jew. I have paid all the bills, and here they 
 are. Not a sou is owing for anything in this apparte- 
 ment. The furniture did not cost a great deal, at 
 most five thousand francs. I lend you that sum. You 
 won't refuse me ; I am not a woman. You can write 
 me an acknowledgment upon a scrap of paper, and 
 repay me some of these days." 
 
 Delphine and Eugene looked at each other in aston- 
 ishment, and tears filled their eyes. The student took 
 the hand of the old man and pressed it warmly. 
 
 " Why, you need not think so much of it ; are you 
 not both my children ? " said Goriot. 
 
 " But, my poor Father, how did you manage it ?" said 
 Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " Ah ! now you want me to tell you all," he an- 
 swered. " Well, after I had persuaded you to let 
 him live here, and I saw you buying things fit for a 
 bride, I said, ' She will find herself in trouble about 
 the money.' My lawyer tells me the suit against your 
 husband cannot be settled for six months. It can 
 wait. I have sold out my securities, that brought me 
 in thirteen hundred and fifty francs a year. With 
 fifteen thousand francs of the capital I have bought 
 an annuity of twelve hundred francs, and I have paid 
 these bills with the remainder, my children. I have a
 
 Pere G-oriot. 263 
 
 bedroom here which will cost only a hundred and 
 fifty francs a year, and I can live like a prince on forty 
 sous a day and have something left over. I hardly 
 ever wear out my clothes, and I shall never need any 
 new ones. For a fortnight past I have been laughing 
 in my sleeve, saying to myself, ' How happy we shall 
 be ! ' Was I not right ? are you not happy ? " 
 
 "Oh, Papa, Papa!" cried Madame de Nucingen, 
 springing into the arms of her father, who placed her 
 tenderly on his knee. She covered him with kisses ; 
 her blonde hair touched his cheeks as she shed tears 
 upon the aged face all glowing now with happiness. 
 " Dear Father, you are indeed a father. No ! there 
 is not another father in the world like you. Eugene! 
 you loved him before, but you will love him better 
 now." 
 
 "Why, my children," said Pere Goriot, who for 
 six years had not felt a daughter's heart against his 
 bosom ; " my Delphinette, do you want to kill me 
 with joy ? My poor heart cannot bear it. Ah ! Eu- 
 gene, the debt is repaid already ! " 
 
 And the old man pressed his daughter to his heart 
 with an embrace so frantic that she cried out, " Oh ! 
 you hurt me." 
 
 " Hurt you ! " he said, turning pale. He looked at 
 her with an expression of anguish. " No, no ! I could 
 not hurt you," gently kissing the waist his arm had 
 pressed too roughly. " It was you who hurt me by 
 that cry of pain. The furniture cost more than I 
 told him," he whispered in her ear ; " but we must 
 deceive him a little, or we shall not be able to manage 
 him."
 
 264 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Eugene, amazed at the inexhaustible self-devotion 
 of Pere Goriot, gazed at him with a naive admiration 
 which in the young expresses implicit faith. 
 
 " I will make myself worthy of such goodness ! " 
 he exclaimed. 
 
 " Oh, my Eugene, those words are noble ! " and Ma- 
 dame de Nucingen kissed him on the forehead. 
 
 " For thy sake he refused Mademoiselle Taillefer 
 and her millions," said Pere Goriot. "Yes, the little 
 girl was fond of him ; her brother is dead, and she is 
 as rich as Croesus." 
 
 "Do not say that!" cried Rastignac. 
 
 " Eugene," whispered Madame de Nucingen. " I 
 have now a regret to mar my happiness ; but I will 
 love you the better for it and forever." 
 
 " This is the happiest day of my life since your mar- 
 riages," cried Pere Goriot. "I am willing to suffer 
 all that it may please God to send me, so long as it 
 does not come through my children. As long as I live 
 I shall say to myself, ' In February, 1820, there was a 
 day when I was happier than other men are in a life- 
 time ! ' Look at me, Fifine," he said to his daughter. 
 " Ah ! is she not lovely ? Tell me, where can you 
 find another little woman with such a skin, and such 
 pretty dimples? She is mine, I made her, the little 
 darling ! Ah ! my friend, be good to her, make her 
 happy, and I will reward you. If there were but one 
 chance to go to heaven and I had got it, I would give 
 it to you. But, come ! let us dine, let us dine," he 
 said, as if beside himself. "All is ours." 
 
 Poor Father ! " 
 
 " Ah ! my child," he added, taking her head between
 
 Pere Goriot. 265 
 
 his hands, and kissing her hair; " you make my heaven 
 here. Come and see me often ; my room is close by ; 
 you have not far to go. Come often ; promise me, 
 say that you promise it." 
 
 " Yes, dear Father." 
 
 " Say it again." 
 
 " Yes, my good Father." 
 
 "Hush, now! for I should make you say it a hun- 
 dred times if I thought of myself only. Let us dine." 
 
 The evening was spent in tender child's play such 
 as this, Pere Goriot not the least childish of the 
 three. He sat at his daughter's feet and kissed them ; 
 he gazed into her eyes ; he laid his head upon her dress. 
 He was guilty of a thousand follies, like a lover with 
 his first love. 
 
 "You see now," whispered Delphine to Eugene, 
 " that when my father is here he exacts all my atten- 
 tion. It will often be very troublesome." 
 
 Eugene, who had already felt some twinges of jeal- 
 ousy, could not exactly blame this speech, although it 
 breathed the quintessence of ingratitude. 
 
 " When will the appartement be finished? " he asked, 
 looking round him. " Must we leave it to-night ? " 
 
 " Yes ; but to-morrow you dine with me : it is the 
 opera night, you remember." 
 
 " I shall go and sit in the pit," said Pere Goriot. 
 
 It was now midnight ; Madame de Nucingen's car- 
 riage was waiting. Pere Goriot and Eugene walked 
 back to the Maison Vauquer, talking of Delphine on 
 the way with an enthusiasm that revealed a curious 
 contrast of expression in the two individual passions.
 
 266 Pere Goriot. . 
 
 Eugene could not conceal from himself that the father's 
 love, stained by no selfish interest, crushed his out of 
 sight by its vehemence and grandeur. To the father 
 the idol was all purity and goodness, and his adora- 
 tion was nourished as much by recollections of the 
 past as by his visions of the future. 
 
 They found Madame Vauquer sitting over the stove 
 with Christophe and Sylvie on either side of her, like 
 Marius among the ruins of Cartilage. She was wait- 
 ing for the two who were to-night her sole lodgers, and 
 bemoaning herself to Sylvie. Though Lord Byron 
 puts very beautiful lamentations into the mouth of 
 Tasso, they have not the ring of truth which vibrated 
 in those now proceeding from the lips of the unfortu- 
 nate landlady. 
 
 " Only three cups of coffee to make to-morrow, 
 Sylvie ! Is not my empty house enough to break my 
 heart ? Alas ! what will life be to me without my 
 lodgers? Nothing. My house is desolate, deserted 
 by its men. They were its furniture. What is life 
 without furniture? What have I done that Heaven 
 should send me these misfortunes? We laid in pota- 
 toes and beans, yes, beans enough for twenty people. 
 The police in my house ! Must we eat nothing but 
 potatoes? I shall send Christophe away." 
 
 The Savoyard, who was asleep, woke up on hearing 
 his name and said, " Madame ? " 
 
 "Poor fellow! he is as faithful as a dog," said 
 Sylvie. 
 
 " A lost season ! People are housed. Can lodgers 
 drop from heaven ? I shall lose my senses. And that 
 witch of a Michonneau, to have carried off Poiret !
 
 Pere Goriot. 267 
 
 How did she get such a grip on the man ? He fol- 
 lows her about like a puppy-dog." 
 
 "Bah!" said Sylvie, shaking her head. "Those 
 old maids! they know the tricks of things." 
 
 "That poor Monsieur Vautrin, whom they turned 
 into a convict! " resumed the widow. "Well, Sylvie, 
 it is too much for me ; I can't believe it yet. A man 
 as gay as he, who drank his gloria at fifteen francs a 
 month, and paid on the nail ! " 
 
 " And who was generous, too," remarked Christophe. 
 
 " There 's some mistake," said Sylvie. 
 
 " No, there can't be. He owned it himself," said 
 Madame Vauquer. " And to think that all these things 
 happened here in this neighborhood, where even the 
 cats don't come ! I must be dreaming, it can't be pos- 
 sible ! We saw Louis XVI. meet with his accident ; 
 we saw the fall of the Emperor; we saw him come 
 back and fall again, all that belonged to the order 
 of possible things. But there are no such hap-hazards 
 about pensions. People can get along without a king, 
 but they must have breakfast and dinner ; and when 
 an honest woman, nee de Conflans, gives dinners, with 
 all sorts of good things, unless the very end of the 
 world should come but that's what it is ; it is the 
 end of the world ! " 
 
 " And to think that that Michonneau, who has done 
 all the mischief, is to receive, they say, three thousand 
 francs a year!" cried Sylvie. 
 
 "Don't mention her to me ! she is a wicked woman," 
 cried Madame Vauquer; "and she has gone off to 
 Buneaud's : she is capable of anything. She must 
 have done horrible things in her lifetime, robbed,
 
 268 Pere Goriot. 
 
 murdered, no doubt. She ought to have gone to the 
 galleys, instead of that poor, dear man " 
 
 At this moment Eugene and Pere Goriot rang the 
 bell. 
 
 " Ah ! there are my two faithful ones," said the 
 widow, with a sigh. 
 
 The faithful pair, who at that moment had but 
 slight remembrance of the disasters of the pension, 
 unceremoniously announced to their landlady that they 
 were to leave her on the following day and take up 
 their quarters in the Chaussee d'Antin. 
 
 " Sylvie ! " cried the widow. " My last trump is 
 gone ! Gentlemen, you have given me my death-blow. 
 It has pierced to my vitals, I feel it there. This day 
 has laid the weight of years upon my head. I shall 
 go mad, upon my word, I shall ! What can be 
 done with the beans ? I am left desolate. You shall 
 go to-morrow, Christophe. Good night, gentlemen, 
 good night." 
 
 " What is the matter with her ? " said Eugene to 
 Sylvie. 
 
 " Oh, Lord ! everybody has left the house because 
 of what happened this morning. It has upset her 
 head. There ! I hear her crying ; it will do her 
 good to blubber a bit. This is the first time I 've 
 known her to wet her eyes since I have lived with 
 her." 
 
 The next morning Madame Vauquer s'etait rai- 
 sonnee, as she expressed it, that is, she had come to 
 her senses ; and though afflicted as a woman might 
 well be who had lost all her lodgers, and whose life 
 was suddenly turned topsy-turvy, she had her wits
 
 Pere Goriot. 269 
 
 about her, and displayed no more than a reasonable 
 grief caused by such sudden disasters. The glances 
 that a lover casts upon the sacred places of a lost mis- 
 tress were not less moving than those with which she 
 now looked round her deserted table. Eugene tried 
 to comfort her with the idea that Bianchon, whose 
 term at the hospital was to end in a few days, might 
 step into his vacant room ; and told her that the em- 
 ploye at the Museum had frequently been heard to 
 wish for the appartement of Madame Couture ; and 
 that no doubt in a few days the house would be full 
 again. 
 
 " Heaven grant it, my dear Monsieur Eugene ! But 
 misfortune has come to my roof: before ten days are 
 gone, death will be here. You will see," she added, 
 casting a lugubrious glance around the dining-room. 
 "Which of us will he summon?" 
 
 " If that is the case, we had better be off," whis- 
 pered Eugene to Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Madame ! " cried Sylvie, bursting in excitedly. " I 
 have not seen Mistigris for three days ! " 
 
 " Ah ! if my cat is dead ; if he too has left me, 
 I " 
 
 The poor woman could not finish her sentence. She 
 clasped her hands and threw herself back in her arm- 
 chair, overwhelmed by this ominous loss. 
 
 Toward noon, the time of day when postmen make 
 their rounds in the neighborhood of the Pantheon, 
 Eugene received a letter in an elegant envelope, sealed 
 with the arms of Beauseant. It inclosed an invitation 
 addressed to Monsieur and Madame de Nucingen, for
 
 270 Pere Goriot. 
 
 a ball about to be given by the viscountess, which 
 had been announced for some weeks. A little note to 
 Eugene accompanied the invitation : 
 
 I think, Monsieur, that you will undertake with pleasure to 
 interpret my sentiments to Madame de Nucingen. I send you 
 the invitation you asked of me, and shall be delighted to 
 make the acquaintance of the sister of Madame de Restaud. 
 Come to my ball, and bring that charming lady with you ; 
 but do not let her absorb all your affection. You owe me a 
 little, in return for that which I feel for you. 
 
 VlCOMTESSE DE BEATJSEANT. 
 
 " Well," said Eugene, reading this note for the sec- 
 ond time, " Madame de Beauseant tells me plainly that 
 she does not wish to see the Baron de Nucingen." 
 
 He went at once to Delphine's, delighted that he 
 had it in his power to bestow a pleasure of which no 
 doubt he would reap the reward. Madame de Nu- 
 cingen was in her bath ; and Rastignac waited for her 
 with the eager impatience of his years, and in the 
 grasp of emotions which are given but once to the 
 lives of young people. The first woman to whom a 
 man attaches himself, if she appears to him in all the 
 splendors of Parisian life, need fear no rival. Love 
 in Paris is not the love of other regions. Neither 
 men nor women are there duped by the time-worn 
 ideas which all display like banners, for the sake of de- 
 cency, over affections calling themselves disinterested. 
 In Paris, a woman seeks to be loved not only for her 
 charms, but for all the satisfactions she can give to the 
 social ambitions of her lover ; she knows that she must 
 gratify the thousand vanities which make up life in
 
 Pcre Goriot. 271 
 
 the great world. In that world, Love is braggart, 
 spendthrift, gayly deceitful, and ostentatious. If the 
 women of the court of Louis XIV. envied Mademoi- 
 selle de la Valliere the ardor which caused that mighty 
 prince to forget the fabulous cost of the ruffles which 
 he tore in facilitating the entrance of the Due de Ver- 
 mandois into the world, what can be expected of a 
 lesser humanity ? Be young and rich and titled, ye 
 Parisian lovers ! Be something better, if you can. 
 The more incense you burn before your idol, if idol 
 you have, the more that deity will bend a favorable 
 ear. Love is here an idolatry, his rites more costly 
 far than those of any other worship; he flits and van- 
 ishes like an imp, delighting to leave his path marked 
 out by havoc. True passion is the poetry of garrets ; 
 without it, could the vestal flame of love be kept 
 alive ? Exceptions to the laws of this Draconian code 
 of Paris maybe found in oases of that wilderness. 
 in hearts not led astray by social theories, that dwell 
 retired near some fount of purity, some ever-bubbling 
 spring of living waters, where, faithful to these quiet 
 shades, they listen to the teachings of the Infinite 
 written for their learning on all things, even their own 
 hearts, patiently waiting to rise on wings of angels, 
 and compassionating the earth-bound tendencies of 
 the world about them. 
 
 Rastignac, like other young men who begin life 
 among the traditions of rank, expected to enter the 
 lists fully equipped. He had caught the fever of the 
 world and thought himself able to master it, without 
 in truth understanding the means or the ends of his 
 ambition. When the heart finds no pure and sacred
 
 272 Pere Goriot. 
 
 love to fill its cup of life, a draught of mere success 
 may have its value ; nay, the thirst for power is glori- 
 ous when, stripped of personal ambition, it takes the 
 form of patriotism. But Rastignac had by no means 
 reached the heights whence men may contemplate the 
 course of life and form a judgment on it. As yet he 
 had not wholly shaken off those fresh sweet theories 
 and dreams which enfold young people brought up in 
 country solitudes, as the green calyx does the bud. Up 
 to this time he had hesitated to cross the Parisian rubi- 
 con. In spite of his ardent curiosity, he clung to the 
 traditions of the noble life led by men of breeding in 
 their ancient manors. Nevertheless, his last scruples 
 vanished the night before, as he stood in his new rooms 
 in the Rue d'Artois. There, coming into possession 
 of the material advantages of wealth, in addition to his 
 natural advantages of rank and family, he stripped off 
 the skin of a country gentleman and slid with ease into 
 the new circumstances which his ambition told him 
 would lead to fortune. As he waited for Delphine, 
 luxuriously seated in her pretty boudoir, he seemed so 
 far removed from the Rastignac of the year before, that 
 as he looked at himself with the moral optics of his 
 own mind he wondered if he were indeed the same. 
 
 " Madame will see you," said Therese, whose voice 
 startled him. 
 
 He found Delphine on a couch beside the fire, fresh 
 and restful. As she lay back in her muslin draperies, 
 it was impossible not to compare her to one of those 
 oriental plants whose fruit comes with the flower. 
 
 " At last we are together," she said with some 
 e:notion.
 
 Pere Goriot. 273 
 
 " Guess what I bring you," said Eugene, sitting 
 down beside her and lifting her arm that he might 
 kiss her hand. 
 
 Madame de Nucingen made a gesture of delight as 
 she read the invitation; and turning to Eugene with 
 tears in her eyes, she threw her arms around his neck 
 and drew him down to her in a delirium of gratified 
 vanity. 
 
 " And it is you to whom I owe this happiness ! " 
 she said. " Obtained by you, it is more than a triumph 
 of self-love. No one has ever been willing till now to 
 introduce me into that charmed circle. Perhaps you 
 think me at this moment as frivolous and light-minded 
 as any other Parisian ; but remember, my friend, I am 
 yours, and if I wish more than ever to enter the 
 society of the Faubourg Saint-Germain it is because 
 that society is yours." 
 
 "Do you not think," said Engene, "that Madame 
 de Beauseant intimates pretty plainly that she does 
 not wish to see Monsieur de Nucingen at her ball?" 
 
 "Yes, I do," said Delphine, returning the note to 
 Eugene ; " those great ladies have a genius for imper- 
 tinence. But no matter ; I shall go. My sister is to 
 be there. I know she has ordered a bewitching dress 
 for the occasion. Eugene," she resumed, in a low 
 voice, "she wants to appear at that ball in all her 
 glory, that she may give the lie to dreadful rumors. 
 You don't know what things are said about her. Nu- 
 cingen told me this morning that they talked of her at 
 the club, and handled her without mercy. Ah, mon 
 Dieu! upon how slight a thread hangs the honor of a 
 woman ! and her family as well, for I feel myself 
 18
 
 274 Pere Goriot. 
 
 involved in these attacks upon my poor sister. They 
 say that Monsieur de Trailles has given notes to the 
 amount of a hundred thousand francs ; that these have 
 gone to protest, and that he has even been in danger 
 of arrest. In this extremity, so they say, my sister 
 has sold her diamonds to a Jew, those beautiful dia- 
 monds which you have seen her wear, heir-looms be- 
 longing to the Restaud family. I am told that for two 
 days nothing else has been talked of. I understand 
 now why Anastasie has ordered a dress of gold tissue : 
 she means to attract all eyes at Madame de Beauseant's 
 by appearing in a superb toilette, and wearing the dia- 
 monds. But she shall not outshine me ! She has al- 
 ways tried to crush me ; she was never kind to me, 
 though I have done much for her, I have even lent 
 her money when she was in trouble. But do not let 
 us talk about her now. To-day I wish to think of 
 nothing but happiness." 
 
 Rastignac did not leave Madame de Nucingen till an 
 hour after midnight. As she bade him farewell she 
 said, with a tone and expression of melancholy, " I am 
 timid, superstitious ! Call my presentiments foolish if 
 you will, but I feel as if some terrible catastrophe were 
 hanging over me." 
 
 " Child ! " said Eugene. 
 
 "Ah! it is I who am the child to-night," she an- 
 swered laughing. 
 
 Rastignac returned to the Maison Vauquer, as he be- 
 lieved, for the last time ; certain of quitting it forever 
 the next day. As he walked along he surrendered 
 himself to happy dreams, as young men will who taste 
 upon their lips the draught of joy.
 
 Pre Goriot. 275 
 
 " Well ? " said Pere Goriot, as Rastignac passed his 
 door. 
 
 " Good night," answered Eugene ; " I will tell you all 
 to-morrow." 
 
 " Ah, to-morrow ! " cried the old man. " Go to bed 
 now, and good night. To-morrow our happy life 
 begins ! "
 
 276 Pere Goriot. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 THE next morning Goriot and Rastignac were wait- 
 ing for the porters to remove their effects to the Rue 
 d'Artois, when, about noon, the noise of an equipage 
 stopping before the Maison Vauquer echoed up the 
 Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve. Madame de Nucingen 
 got out of the carriage, and learning from Sylvie that 
 her father was still there, ran lightly up to his room. 
 Eugene was in his own chamber, but his neighbor did 
 not know he was there. At breakfast he had asked 
 Pere Goriot to attend to the removal of his luggage, 
 promising to rejoin him at four o'clock in the Rue 
 d'Artois. But while the old man was out of the house 
 searching for porters, Eugene, after answering to his 
 name at the law-school, returned to settle his account 
 with Madame Vauquer, not wishing to leave the bill 
 with Goriot, lest the old man in his enthusiasm might 
 insist on paying it for him. The landlady was out, 
 and Eugene ran upstairs to make sure that nothing had 
 been left behind ; congratulating himself for his pre- 
 caution when he found in a table-drawer the accept- 
 ance given to Vautrin, which he had carelessly flung 
 aside at the time when he paid the debt. Not having 
 any fire, he was about to tear it into little pieces, when 
 his hand was arrested in the act by hearing the voice 
 of Delphine in Pere Goriot's chamber. He stopped
 
 Pere Goriot. 277 
 
 short to listen to what she was saying, confident that 
 she could have no secrets from him. Then, after her 
 first words, he found the conversation between father 
 and daughter too deeply interesting to resist the temp- 
 tation of hearing more. 
 
 " Ah, my Father," Delphine cried, " would to heaven 
 you had interfered about my fortune in time to save 
 me from ruin ! Can I speak freely ? " 
 
 " Yes, the house is empty," said Pere Goriot in a 
 strange tone. 
 
 " What is the matter with you, Father ? " she asked ; 
 are you ill ? " 
 
 " I feel as if you had struck me with an axe upon 
 my head. God forgive you, darling ! you do not 
 understand how much I love you, or you would not 
 tell me bluntly such terrible things, especially if the 
 case is not desperate. What has happened ? Why 
 are you here now, when in half an hour we should have 
 been in the Rue d'Artois ? " 
 
 " Ah, Father, how could I think of that when a 
 great catastrophe has befallen me? I am out of my 
 senses. Your lawyer has brought things to light 
 which we must have known sooner or later. Your 
 great experience in business is now my only hope, and 
 I have rushed to you as a poor drowning creature 
 catches at a branch. When Monsieur Derville found 
 that Monsieur de Nucingen was opposing him with all 
 sorts of evasions he threatened him with a law-suit, 
 saying that an order from the Court for such a pro- 
 ceeding could easily be obtained. Nucingen came to 
 my room this morning and asked me if I was bent on 
 his ruin and mine. I answered that I knew nothing
 
 278 Pere Cf-oriot. 
 
 about all that ; that I had my own fortune ; that I 
 ought to be allowed to spend the income of it as I 
 pleased ; that all business in connection with the mat- 
 ter was in the hands of my lawyer ; and, finally, that 
 I was totally ignorant on such matters, and did not 
 wish to discuss them. That was exactly what you 
 advised me to say, was it not ? " 
 
 " Yes, that was right," said Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Well," continued Delphine, " then he told me 
 plainly about his affairs. He has embarked all his 
 own money and mine in speculations that have not yet 
 matured, in furtherance of which he has sent great 
 sums of money to other countries. If I force him. to 
 account for my fortune now, I shall oblige him to 
 show his books and file his schedule ; whereas if I 
 will wait one year, he promises on his honor to double 
 my fortune and invest the whole his and mine in 
 landed property which shall be settled on me. My 
 dear Father, he meant what he said ; he frightened me. 
 He asked my pardon for his past conduct. He gave 
 me back my liberty ; he promised not to interfere with 
 my life in any way provided I would agree to let him 
 manage our affairs in my name. He promised, as a 
 proof of his good faith, that I should call in Monsieur 
 Derville at any time to examine the legality of the 
 papers by which the property was to be made mine. 
 In short, he put himself into my power, tied hand and 
 foot. He wishes for the next two years to keep the 
 expenditure of the household under his control, and he 
 besought me to spend no more than my allowance dur- 
 ing that pei'iod. He proved to me that he is doing all 
 he can to save appearances. He has sent away his
 
 Pere Goriot. 279 
 
 danseuse, and is going to practise the most rigid though 
 quiet economy, so that he may come safely out of his 
 speculations without impairing his credit. I answered 
 him as unkindly as I could. I appeared to doubt him, 
 so that by pushing him to extremities I might force 
 him to tell me everything. He showed me his books ; 
 and at last he burst into tears. I have never seen a 
 man in such a state. He lost his head ; he talked of 
 killing himself; he was out of his mind. I felt for 
 him." 
 
 " And you believed him ?" cried Pere Goriot. " He 
 was playing a part. They were lies. I know what 
 Germans are in business. They seem honest and open 
 enough ; but under that air of frankness they are 
 shrexvd and cunning, and worse to deal with than any 
 others. Your husband is imposing on you. He finds 
 himself close-pressed, and feigns death. He wants to 
 be more completely master of your fortune under your 
 name than he could be under his own. He will make 
 use of you to save himself in the event of business 
 losses. He is as cunning as he is false. He is a bad 
 fellow. No, no! I will not go to my grave leaving 
 my daughters stripped of everything. I know a little 
 about business still. He says he has embarked all his 
 capital in speculations. Well, then, his interest in 
 these speculations must be represented by stocks or 
 some kind of securities. Let him produce them, and 
 allow you to take your share. We will choose the safest, 
 and run our chance. We will have all the papers reg- 
 istered under the name of Delphine Goriot, wife, sepa- 
 rated as to property from the Baron de Nucingen. 
 Does he take us for fools ? Does he suppose I would
 
 280 Pere Groriot. 
 
 patiently permit him, were it only for a day, to leave 
 you without fortune? Never! not for a day, nor a 
 night, no, not for two hours! If such a thing should 
 come to pass I could not survive it. What ! have I 
 worked for forty years ; have I carried sacks of flour 
 on my back and toiled in the sweat of my brow ; have 
 I pinched and denied myself all the days of my life 
 for you, my angels, who repaid my toil and lightened 
 my burden, that to-day my fortune and my life 
 should pass away in smoke? I should die raving 
 mad ! By all that is sacred in heaven and earth we 
 will drag this matter to the light ; we will examine 
 into his books, his coffers, his speculations. I will not 
 sleep ; I will not lie down upon my bed ; I will not 
 eat, until I find out if your fortune is all there. 
 Thank God ! you are at least separated as to property. 
 You shall have Monsieur Derville for your lawyer ; he 
 is an honest man. Heavens and earth ! you shall 
 have your poor little million to yourself, you shall 
 have your fifty thousand francs income to spend as you 
 please to the end of your days, or I will make such a 
 stir in Paris Ha ! ha ! I will appeal to the Cham- 
 ber of Deputies, if the law courts will not right us. 
 If I can see you happy and at ease about money I 
 shall forget my own sorrows. Our money is our life ; 
 money does everything. What does that big log of 
 an Alsatian mean ? Delphine, don't yield a farth- 
 ing to that brute, who has held you in bondage and 
 made you miserable. If he needs your help, he shall 
 not have it unless we can tie him tight and make him 
 march a straight line. JUbn Dieu ! my whole head is 
 on fire ; there are flames in my skull. Think of my
 
 Pere G-oriot. 281 
 
 Delphine being brought to want! Oh, my Fifine, if 
 that should happen to thee! Sapristi! where is my 
 hat? Come, I must go directly. I shall insist on 
 looking into everything, his books, his business, his 
 correspondence. We will go this moment. I cannot 
 be calm until it is proved that your fortune is secure 
 beyond all risks, and I have seen it with my own 
 eyes ! " 
 
 u My dear Father, you must set about it cautiously. 
 If you put the slightest desire for vengeance into this 
 affair, if you even show hostile feeling to my husband, 
 you will ruin me. He knows you; he thinks it nat- 
 ural that influenced by you I should be anxious about 
 my fortune ; but I swear to you, he has it in his power, 
 and he means to keep it there. He is capable of run- 
 ning away with it, and leaving me without a sou. He 
 knows I would not dishonor the name I bear by bring- 
 ing him to justice. His position is both strong and 
 weak. Indeed, I have examined into it all. If you 
 push him to extremities, I am lost." 
 
 " Is he dishonest? Is he a rogue ? " 
 
 "Yes, Father, he is," she cried, throwing herself 
 into a chair and bursting into tears. " I did not mean 
 to acknowledge it. I wished to spare you the pain 
 of knowing that you had married me to such a man. 
 Vices and conscience, body and soul, all are in keep- 
 ing. It is terrible. I hate him, and yet I despise him. 
 A man capable of flinging himself into such transac- 
 tions as he has confessed to me, without shame or 
 remorse, fills me with disgust. My fears spring from 
 what I know of him. He offered me he, my hus- 
 band ! my full liberty (and you know what he meant),
 
 282 Pere Goriot. 
 
 if I would play into his hands ; if I would lend my 
 name to dishonorable transactions, under cover of 
 which he can escape if he meets with losses." 
 
 "But there are laws! There is the guillotine for 
 such men," exclaimed Pere Goriot. 
 
 " No, Father, there are no laws that can reach him. 
 Listen to what he told me. This is the substance 
 of it, stripped of his circumlocutions : ' Either all will 
 be lost, and you will not have a farthing, you will 
 be ruined ; for I can take no one into partnership but 
 yourself, or you must let me carry out my specula- 
 tions as they now stand, to the end.' Is that plain 
 speaking ? He still trusts me. He knows that I shall 
 not touch his fortune, and shall be satisfied with my 
 own. It has come to this, either I must enter into 
 a repulsive and dishonest partnership, or I am ruined. 
 He buys my complicity in his crimes by giving me the 
 liberty to live as I please. He says, ' I will take no 
 notice of your faults, if you will not prevent my plot- 
 ting the ruin of poor people.' Is that clear ? Do you 
 know what he means by ' speculations ' ? He buys un- 
 improved land in his own name, and puts forward men 
 of straw to build houses on the land. These men con- 
 tract with builders on an agreement for long credits ; 
 and afterwards, for a nominal sum, they make over 
 the buildings to my husband. They then go into sham 
 bankruptcy, and the contractors lose everything. The 
 name of Nucingen & Co. serves as a decoy. I under- 
 stand now how it is that to prove the payment of 
 money, should inquiry be aroused, he has sent away 
 enormous sums to Amsterdam, London, Naples, and 
 Vienna. How could we get hold of those sums ? "
 
 Pere Q-oriot. 283 
 
 Eugene heard the dull sound of Pere Goriot's knees 
 falling on the tiled floor of his chamber. 
 
 " Good God ! What have I done ? " he cried. " I 
 have delivered my daughter over to this man 1 He 
 will strip her of everything! Oh, forgive me, my 
 poor girl ! " 
 
 " True. If I am now in the depths of trouble, it is 
 partly your fault, Father," said Delphine. "A girl has 
 so little sense up to the time she is married. What 
 do we know of the world, or of men or manners? It 
 is the duty of our fathers to see to these things. Dear 
 Father, I don't mean to blame you, forgive me for 
 saying so. In this case the fault was all mine. No 
 don't cry, Papa," she said, kissing his forehead. 
 
 " Don't you cry, either, my little Delphine. Stoop 
 lower, that I may kiss away your tears. Ah ! I will 
 find my wits again. I will unravel the tangle thy 
 husband has made of thy affairs." 
 
 " No, let me manage him. I think I can get him 
 to put some of my money at once into land. Perhaps 
 I can make him buy back Nucingen in Alsace in my 
 name. I know he wants it. But come to-morrow, 
 Papa, and look into his books and his affairs. Mon- 
 sieur Derville knows nothing whatever about business. 
 Stay ! don't come to-morrow, it will agitate me ; 
 Madame de Beauseant's ball is the day after, and I 
 want to take care of myself and be as beautiful as pos- 
 sible, to do honor to my dear Eugene. Let us go and 
 look into his chamber." 
 
 At this moment another carriage drew up in the Rue 
 Neuve Sainte-Genevieve, and Madame de Restaud's 
 voice was heard speaking to Sylvie.
 
 284 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Is my father in ? " 
 
 This circumstance saved Eugene, who was on the 
 point of throwing himself upon the bed and pretending 
 to be asleep. 
 
 " Ah, Papa, have you heard about Anastasie ? " said 
 Delphine, recognizing her sister's voice. " It seems 
 that very strange things have been going on in her 
 household." 
 
 " What things?" cried Pere Goriot. "Is this to be 
 my end ? My poor head cannot bear another blow ! " 
 
 " Papa," said the countess, entering. " Ah, you 
 here, Delphine?" 
 
 Madame de Restaud seemed embarrassed at the 
 sight of her sister. 
 
 " Good morning, Nasie," said Madame de Nucingen. 
 " Do you think my being here so extraordinary ? I 
 see my father every day." 
 
 " Since when ? " 
 
 " If you came here, you would know." 
 
 " Don't aggravate me, Delphine," said the countess, 
 in a lamentable voice. "I am very unhappy. I am 
 ruined, my poor Father, utterly ruined, at last!" 
 
 "What is it, Nasie?" cried Pere Goriot. " Tell me 
 all, my child. Oh, she is fainting ! Delphine, come, 
 help her ; be kind to her, and I will love you better 
 than ever if I can." 
 
 " My poor Nasie," said Madame de Nucingen, mak- 
 ing her sister sit down, " speak ; we are the only ones in 
 the world who love you enough to forgive everything. 
 You see, family affections are the safest, after all." 
 
 Pere Goriot shivered. " I shall die of this," he said, 
 in a low voice. "Come," he continued, stirring the
 
 P$re G-oriot. 285 
 
 miserable fire ; " come to the hearth, both of you ; I 
 am cold. What is it, Nasie? Speak, you are kill- 
 ing me." 
 
 " Father ! " said the poor woman. " My husband 
 knows all. You remember, some time ago, that note 
 of Maxime's which you paid for me at Gobseck's? 
 Well, it was not the first. I had paid many before. 
 About the beginning of January he was greatly out of 
 spirits; he would tell me nothing. But it is so easy to 
 read the heart of those we love, a trifle tells every- 
 thing; besides, there are presentiments. He was more 
 loving and tender than I had ever known him. Poor 
 Muxime! In his heart he was bidding me good-by; 
 lie was thinking of blowing out his brains. At last 
 I besought him so earnestly that he told me but 
 not until I had been two hours on my knees that 
 he owed a hundred thousand francs. Oh, Papa ! 
 a hundred thousand francs ! I was beside myself. 
 I knew you had not got them ; I had eaten up your 
 all " 
 
 " No," said Pere Goriot, " I have not got them. I 
 cannot give them to you unless I stole them. Yes ! 
 I could have gone out to steal them. Nasie, I will 
 go-" 
 
 At these words, forced out like the death-rattle of 
 the dying, the groan of paternal love reduced to im- 
 potence, the sisters paused: what selfish souls could 
 listen coldly to this cry of anguish that like a pebble 
 flung into an abyss revealed its depths ? 
 
 " I obtained them, my Father," said the countess, 
 bursting into tears. " I sold that which did not belong 
 to me."
 
 286 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Delphine, too, seemed moved, and laid her head upon 
 her sister's shoulder. 
 
 " Then it was all true ?" she said. 
 
 Anastasie bowed her head. Madame de Nucingen 
 took her in her ai'ms and kissed her tenderly. 
 
 " You will always be loved, not judged, by me," she 
 said. 
 
 " My angels ! " said their father in a feeble voice ; 
 " alas ! that your union should come only through 
 misfortune." 
 
 " To save Maxime's life, to save my own happiness," 
 resumed the countess, comforted by these proofs of 
 loving kindness, " I carried to that money-lender whom 
 you know of that man born in hell, whom nothing 
 moves to pity ; that Monsieur Gobseck the family 
 diamonds, heir-looms treasured by Monsieur de Res- 
 taud : his, my own, all, everything. I sold them. 
 Sold them, do you understand ? I saved Maxime ; 
 but I killed myself. Restaud knows all." 
 
 " Who told him ? Who ? that I may strangle them ! " 
 cried the old man passionately. 
 
 " Yesterday my husband sent for me to his chamber. 
 I went. ' Anastasie,' he said to me, in such a voice, 
 oh, his voice was enough! I knew Avhat was com- 
 ing, ' Where are your diamonds ? ' ' In my room,' I 
 answered. ' No,' he said, looking full at me, ' they are 
 there, on my bureau.' lie showed me the case, which 
 he had covered with his handkerchief. 'You know 
 where they have come from,' he said. I fell at his 
 feet ; I wept ; I asked him what death he wished me 
 to die " 
 
 " Did you say that ? " cried Pere Goriot. " By all that
 
 Pere Goriot. 287 
 
 is sacred, any one who blames or harms my children, 
 while I live, may be sure that I " 
 
 The words died in his throat, and he was silent. 
 
 " And then, dear Father, he asked me to do some- 
 thing harder than to die. Heaven preserve other 
 women from hearing what he said to me ! " 
 
 " I shall kill him," said Pere Goriot, slowly. " He has 
 but one life, yet he owes me two. What followed ?" 
 
 "He looked at me," she continued, after a pause, 
 " and said, ' Anastasie, I will bury all in silence. I 
 will not separate from you, there are children to be 
 considered. I will not fight with Monsieur de Trailles, 
 I might miss him. Human justice gives me the right 
 to kill him in your arms ; but I will not dishonor the 
 children. I spare you and your children, but I impose 
 two conditions. Answer me. Are any of these chil- 
 dren mine ? ' I said, ' Yes.' ' Which ? ' Ernest, our 
 eldest.' 'It is well,' he said. 'Next, swear to obey 
 me in future on one point.' I swore. 'You will sign 
 over to me your property when I demand it?' " 
 
 " Sign it not ! " cried Pore Goriot. " Never sign it ! 
 Nasie, Nasie, he cares for his heir, his eldest. I will 
 seize the child. Thunder of heaven ! he is mine as 
 well as his ; he is my grandson. I will put him in my 
 village where I was bora. I will care for him oh, 
 yes, be sure of that ! I will make your husband yield. 
 I will say to him, If you want your son, give me back 
 my daughter j restore her property; leave her in 
 peace " 
 
 " Father ! " 
 
 " Yes, thy father. I am thy true father. Let this 
 great lord beware how he maltreats my daughter !
 
 288 Pere Goriot. 
 
 A fire is running through my veins ; I have the blood 
 of a tiger in me ! Oh, my children, my children ! is 
 this your life? it is my death. What will become of 
 you when I am gone ? Why cannot a father live out 
 the life of his child? Oh, my God, thy world is 
 wrong! and yet thou art a father. Oh, Father in 
 heaven ! why are we condemned to suffer through 
 our children ? Ah, my angels, it is only your griefs 
 that make you come to me, only your tears that you 
 share with me ! Yes, yes, but that is love ; I know 
 you love me. Come, both of you, come, pour your 
 troubles into my heart : it is strong, it is large, it can 
 hold them all. Yes, though you rend it into fragments, 
 each fragment is a living heart, a father's heart. 
 Could they but take your griefs and bear them for 
 you ! Ah ! when you were my little ones I made you 
 happy." 
 
 " We have never been happy since," said Delphine. 
 " Where are those days when we slid down the sacks 
 in the great granary ! " 
 
 " Father, I have not told you all," whispered Anas- 
 tasie to the old man, who started convulsively. " The 
 diamonds did not bring a hundred thousand francs. 
 They are still pursuing Maxime. We have twelve 
 thousand francs more to pay. He has promised me to 
 reform ; to give up gambling. All I have in the world 
 is his affection ; and, oh, I have paid too terrible a 
 price for it ! I cannot lose him now ! I have sacri- 
 ficed honor, fortune, children, peace of mind for him. 
 Oh, do something for me, that he may not be impris- 
 oned, not driven from society ! I know he will yet 
 make himself a position in the world. I have nothing
 
 P$re G-oriot. 289 
 
 left to give him now. But we have children ; they 
 must be provided for All will be lost if they put him 
 in Sainte-Pelagie, a debtor's prison ! " 
 
 "I have nothing nothing left, Nasie nothing! 
 The world is at an end ; I feel it quaking, crumbling. 
 Fly, fly ! save yourselves ! Stay ! I have still my 
 silver buckles, and six forks and spoons, the first I ever 
 owned. But I have no money, only my annuity ' 
 
 "What have you done with your money in the 
 funds?" 
 
 "I sold it out, keeping a trifle for my wants. I 
 wanted the rest, twelve thousand francs, to furnish 
 some rooms for Fifine." 
 
 " For you, Delphine?" cried Madame de Restaud. 
 
 " Never mind, never mind," said Pere Goriot, " the 
 twelve thousand francs are gone." 
 
 " I guess where," said the countess, " to help Mon- 
 sieur de Rastignac. Ah, my poor Delphiue, pause! 
 see what I have come to." 
 
 " My dear, Monsieur de Rastignac is a man incapa- 
 ble of ruining the woman who loves him." 
 
 " Thank you, Delphine. In the terrible position I 
 am in, you might have spared me that. But you never 
 loved me." 
 
 " Ah, but- she does love you, Nasie ; she was saying 
 so just now. We were speaking of you, and she said 
 you were beautiful, but she was only pretty " 
 
 " Pretty ! " cried the countess ; " her heart is stone- 
 cold." 
 
 " And if it were ! " exclaimed Delphine, coloring, 
 " how have you behaved to me ? You have dis- 
 claimed me; you have shut against me the doors of 
 19.
 
 290 Pere Goriot. 
 
 houses where I longed to go ; you have never let slip 
 an opportunity to give me pain. A cold heart ! Did 
 I come like you, and squeeze out of our poor father, 
 little by little, a thousand francs here, a thousand 
 francs there, all he possessed ? Did I reduce him to 
 the state he is now in ? This is your doing, my sister. 
 I sa\v my father as often as I could. I never turned 
 him out of doors, and then came and licked his hands 
 when I had need of him. I did not even know that he 
 was spending those twelve thousand francs forme. I 
 at least have some decency and you know it. Papa 
 may sometimes have made me presents, but I never 
 begged for them " 
 
 " You were better off than I. Monsieur de Marsay 
 was rich, as you had good cause to know. You have 
 always been despicable as to money. Adieu, I have 
 no sister, no " 
 
 " Hush, Nasie ! " cried Pere Goriot. 
 
 " No one but a sister a sister like you would in- 
 sinuate what the world itself does not believe. It is 
 monstrous ! " cried Delphine. 
 
 " My children ! my children ! hush, or you will 
 kill me before your eyes " 
 
 " I forgive you, Nasie," continued Madame de 
 Nucingen, " for you are unhappy ; but I am better 
 than you think of your saying that, just as I was 
 making up my mind to do everything that I could for 
 you. Well, it is worthy of all that you have done to 
 me for the last nine years ! " 
 
 " My children ! oh, my children ! Kiss each other, 
 be friends," said the father. " You are two angels." 
 
 " No, let me alone ! " cried the countess, whom
 
 Pere Goriot. 291 
 
 Pere Goriot had taken by the arm; "she has less pity 
 for me than my husband. An example of all the vir- 
 tues, indeed ! " 
 
 " I had rather be supposed to owe money to Mon- 
 sieur de Marsay than to own that Monsieur de Trailles 
 had cost me two hundred thousand francs," replied 
 Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " Delphine ! " cried the ' countess, making a step 
 towards her. 
 
 " I say the truth ; but what you say of me is false," 
 replied the other, coldly. 
 
 " Delphine, you are a " 
 
 Pere Goriot sprang forward and prevented the coun- 
 tess from saying more by putting his hand over her 
 mouth. 
 
 " Good heavens, Papa ! what have you been touch- 
 ing?" cried Anastasie. 
 
 " Ah, yes, yes ! I ought not to have touched you," 
 said the poor father, wiping his hand upon his trousers, 
 " I did not know you were coming. I am moving 
 to-day." 
 
 He was glad to be able to draw upon himself a 
 reproach that diverted the current of his daughter's 
 anger. 
 
 "Ah!" he sighed, sitting down, "you break my 
 heart. I am dying, children ; my head burns as if my 
 skull were full of fire. Be kind to each other; love 
 one another. You will kill me. Delphine ! Nasie ! 
 you were both right, you were both wrong. Come, 
 Dedel," he resumed, turning to Madame de Nucingen 
 with his eyes full of tears, " she needs twelve thousand 
 francs ; let us see how we can get them for her. Oh,
 
 292 Pere Goriot. 
 
 my daughters, do not look at each other like that ! " 
 He fell down on his knees before Delphine : " Ask her 
 pardon for my sake," he whispered ; " she is more un- 
 happy than you are." 
 
 "My poor Nasie," said Delphine, frightened by the 
 wild and maddened expression on her father's face, 
 " I was wrong. Kiss me." 
 
 "Ah, that is balm to my heart ! " cried the old man. 
 "But the twelve thousand francs, how can we get 
 them? I might offer myself for a substitute in the 
 army " 
 
 " Oh, Father ! " cried the daughters flinging their 
 arms about him. " No ! " 
 
 " God will bless you for that thought," cried Del- 
 phine. " We are not worthy of it, are we, Nasie ? " 
 
 "And besides, my poor Father, it would be but a 
 drop in the bucket," observed the countess. 
 
 " Will flesh and blood bring nothing? " cried the old 
 man wildly. "I would give myself away to whoever 
 would save thee, Nasie ; I would commit crimes for 
 him ; I would go to the galleys, like Vautrin ; I " 
 he stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt, and grasped 
 his head. " Nothing more ! all gone ! " lie said. 
 " No, I could steal if I knew where : it is hard to 
 know where. Oh, there is nothing I can do but 
 die ! Let me die ! I am good for nothing else. I am 
 no longer a father : she appeals to me ; she needs my 
 help, and I have none to give her ! Ah, wretch ! 
 why did I buy that annuity ? I ! who have children ! 
 Did I not love them ? Die, die ! like a dog, as I 
 am. Yet the beasts love their young Oh, my 
 head, my head ! it bursts ! "
 
 Pere Goriot. 293 
 
 He sobbed convulsively. Eugene, horror-stricken, 
 took up the note he had once signed for Vautrin, the 
 stamp of which was for a much larger sum than that 
 named on the face of it; he altered the figures, making 
 it a note for twelve thousand francs payable to the order 
 of Goriot, and went into the old mail's chamber. 
 
 " Here is the sum you want, Madame," he said, giv- 
 ing Madame de Restaud the paper. " I was asleep in 
 my room, and was wakened by what you were saying. 
 I learned for the first time what I owe to Monsieur 
 Goriot. Here is a paper on which you will be able to 
 raise the money. When it matures, I promise faith- 
 fully that it shall be paid." 
 
 The countess stood motionless, holding the paper. 
 " Delphine," she said, pale, and trembling with anger, 
 rage, and fury, " I take God to witness that I forgave 
 you all oh ! but this ! "What ! Monsieur has been 
 there, and you knew it ? You have had the meanness 
 to feed your spite by letting him hear my secrets, 
 mine, my children's, my shame, my dishonor! Go, 
 you are a sister no longer! I hate you! I will harm 
 you, if I can. I " 
 
 Anger cut short her words ; her throat was parched 
 and dry. 
 
 "My child ! he is one of us; he is my son, your 
 brother, our deliverer," cried Pere Goriot. " Kiss 
 him, thank him, Nasie. See, I embrace him," he went 
 on, clasping Eugene to his breast with a sort of fury. 
 " Oh, my son ! " he cried, " I will be more than a father 
 to thee. Nasie, Nasie ! bless him and thank him." 
 
 " Don't speak to her, Father, she is out of her senses," 
 said Delphine."
 
 294 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 " Out of my senses ! And you ? what are you ? " 
 cried Madame de Restaud. 
 
 " Oh, my children ! I die if you continue," cried the 
 old man, falling across his bed as if struck by a shot. 
 " They are killing me," he said. 
 
 The countess turned to Eugene, who stood motion- 
 less, struck dumb by the violence of the scene before 
 him. 
 
 " Monsieur ? " she said, and her gesture, tone, and 
 look were interrogative. She paid no attention to 
 her father, whose waistcoat was being loosened by 
 Delphine. 
 
 " Madame, I shall pay and keep silence," he said, 
 answering her question before she asked it. 
 
 " You have killed our father, Nasie," cried Delphine, 
 pointing to the old man now senseless on the bed. 
 
 Madame de Restaud left the room. 
 
 " I forgive her," he said, opening his eyes ; " her 
 position is dreadful, and would turn a wiser head. 
 Console hei-, Delphine. Be good to her, promise 
 your poor father, who is dying," he went on, pressing 
 her hand. 
 
 11 But what ails you ? " she said, much frightened. 
 
 " Nothing, nothing," her father answered. " It will 
 go off presently. I have a weight upon my fore- 
 head ; a headache. Poor Nasie, what will become of 
 her?" 
 
 At this moment Madame de Restaud returned and 
 threw herself down beside her father. " Oh, forgive 
 me ! " she cried. 
 
 " Come, come," said Pere Goriot, " that hurts me 
 more than anything."
 
 Pere Groriot. 295 
 
 " Monsieur," said the countess, turning to Rastignac 
 with tears in her eyes, " my troubles have made me 
 unjust. You will be a brother to me?" she added, 
 holding out her hand. 
 
 " Nasie," said Delphine, "my little Nasie, let us for- 
 get everything." 
 
 "No," she said, " I shall remember." 
 
 " My angels," said Fere Goriot, " you lift the cur- 
 tain that was falling before my eyes. Your voices 
 call me back to life. Let me see you kiss each 
 other once more. Tell me, Nasie, will this note save 
 you ? " 
 
 " I hope so. But, Papa, will you indorse it ? " 
 
 " Why, what a fool I was to forget that ! but I was 
 ill. Nasie, don't be vexed with me. Let me know 
 when you are out of your troubles. But, stay, I will 
 go to you No, I will not go. I dare not see your 
 husband. As to his doing what he pleases with your 
 fortune, remember, I am here. Adieu, my child." 
 
 Eugene stood stupefied. 
 
 " Poor Anastasie ! she was always violent," said 
 Madame de Nucingen ; "but she has a kind heart." 
 
 " She came back for the indorsement," whispered 
 Eugene in her ear. 
 
 " Do you think so ? " 
 
 " I wish I did not think it. Do not trust her," he 
 added, lifting up his eyes, as if to confide a thought 
 not to be put into words. 
 
 " Yes, she was always acting a pnrt ; and my poor 
 father was completely taken in by her." 
 
 " How are you now, dear Pere Goriot ? " asked 
 Rastignac, bending over the old man.
 
 296 Pre Goriot. 
 
 " I feel like going to sleep," he answered. Eugene 
 helped him to go to bed ; and after he had fallen asleep 
 holding his daughter's hand, Delphine quietly left him. 
 
 "To-night, at the opera," she said to Eugene, "you 
 will bring me word how he is. To-morrow you will 
 change your quarters, Monsieur. Let me peep into 
 your room oh, what a horrid place ! it is worse 
 than my father's. Eugene, you behaved beautifully ! 
 I would love you more than ever for it if I could. 
 But, my child, if you mean to get on in the world 
 you must give up throwing twelve thousand franc- 
 notes about in that way. Monsieur de Trailles is a 
 gambler, though my sister will not admit it. He 
 could have picked up that twelve thousand francs 
 in the place where he has lost and won a mint of 
 money. " 
 
 A groan brought them hastily back to Pere Goriot. 
 He was to all appearances asleep, but as they ap- 
 proached they heard him say, " Not happy ; they are 
 not happy ! " Whether he were asleep or awake, the 
 tone in which he uttered the words struck so painfully 
 to his daughter's heart that she leaned over the 
 wretched bed on which her father lay and kissed him 
 on his forehead. He opened his eyes and murmured, 
 " Delphine ! " 
 
 " How are you now? " she said. 
 
 " Better. Do not worry about me. I shall get up 
 presently. Go away, my children, and be happy." 
 
 Eugene took Delphine home ; but not liking the con- 
 dition in which they had left Pere Goriot, he refused 
 to dine with her, and went back to the Maison Vau- 
 quer. He found him better, and just sitting down to
 
 Pere Goriot. 297 
 
 dinner. Bianchon had placed himself so that he could 
 watch the old man unobserved. When he saw him 
 take up his bread and smell it to judge the quality of 
 the flour, the medical student, observing a total absence 
 of all consciousness of the act, made a significant 
 gesture. 
 
 " Come and sit by me, graduate of the Cochin Hos- 
 pital," said Eugene. 
 
 Bianchon did as he was asked, all the more readily 
 because it placed him nearer to the old man. 
 
 " What is the matter with him ? " whispered 
 Rastignac. 
 
 " If I am not mistaken, he 's done for. Something 
 out of the common must have excited him. He is 
 threatened with apoplexy. The lower part of his face 
 is calm enough, but the upper part is drawn and unnat- 
 ural. The eyes have the peculiar expression which 
 denotes pressure on the brain ; don't you notice that 
 they are cove ed with a light film? To-morrow 
 morning I shall be able to judge better." 
 
 " Is there any cure for it ?" 
 
 " None. Possibly we might retard his death if we 
 could set up a reaction in the extremities ; but if the 
 present symptoms continue, it will be all up with the 
 poor old fellow before to-morrow night. Do you know 
 what brought on his illness ? He must have had some 
 great shock that his mind has sunk under." 
 
 " Yes, he has," said Rastignac, remembering how 
 the daughters had struck alternate blows at their 
 father's heart. "But, at least," he said to himself, 
 "Delphine loves her old father."
 
 298 Pere Groriot. 
 
 XVII. 
 
 THAT night, at the opera, Eugene took some precau- 
 tions not to alarm Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " Oh, you need not be so anxious about him," she 
 said, as soon as he began to tell her of the illness. 
 " My father is very strong ; this morning we shook 
 him a little, that is all. Our fortunes are in peril: do 
 you realize the extent of that misfortune ? I could 
 not survive it, if it were not that your affection makes 
 me indifferent to what I should otherwise consider 
 the greatest sorrow in the world. I have but one 
 fear now, to lose the love which makes it happiness 
 to live. All outside of that I have ceased to care for ; 
 you are all in all to me. If I desire to keep my wealth, 
 it is that I may better please you. I know that I can 
 be more to a lover than to a father ; it is my nature. 
 My father gave me a heart, but you have made it 
 beat. The world may blame me, I do not care j 
 you will acquit me of sins into which I am drawn by 
 an irresistible attachment. You think me an unnatural 
 daughter? No, I am not : who would not love a father 
 kind as ours has been ? But how could I prevent his 
 knowing the inevitable results of our deplorable mar- 
 riages? Why did he not prevent them ? Was it not 
 his duty to think and judge for us ? I know that he 
 suffers now as much as we do ; but how can I help
 
 Pere Cf-oriot. 299 
 
 that ? Ought we to make light of our troubles ? That 
 would do no good. Our silence would have distressed 
 him far more than our reproaches and complaints have 
 injured him. There are some situations in life where 
 every alternative is bitter." 
 
 Eugene was silent, touched by this simple expression 
 of native feeling. The clear judgment a woman shows 
 in judging natural affections when a privileged affection 
 separates and holds her at a distance from them, struck 
 him forcibly. Madame de Nucingen was troubled by 
 his silence. 
 
 " What are you thinking of ? " she said. 
 
 " Of what you have just said to me. Until now, I 
 thought that I loved you more than you love me." 
 
 She smiled, but checked the expression of her feel- 
 ings, that she might keep the conversation within the 
 conventional limits of propriety. 
 
 " Eugene," she said, changing the conversation, " do 
 you know what is going on in the world ? All Paris 
 will be at Madame de Beauseant's to-morrow evening. 
 The Rochefides and the Marquis d'Adjuda have agreed 
 to keep the matter secret ; but it is certain that the 
 king signs the marriage contract to-morrow morning, 
 and that your poor cousin as yet knows nothing of it. 
 She cannot put off her ball, and the marquis will not 
 be there. All the world is talking of it." 
 
 " Then the world is amusing itself with what is in- 
 famous," cried Eugene, " and makes itself an accom- 
 plice. Don't you know that it will kill Madame de 
 Beauseant ?" 
 
 "Oh, no, it will not," said Delphine, smiling; "yon 
 don't understand that sort of woman. But all Paris
 
 300 Pre Croriot. 
 
 will be at her ball, and I too, I shall be there! I 
 owe this happiness to you." 
 
 " Perhaps," said Rastignac, " it is only one of those 
 unfounded rumors which are always flying about 
 Paris." 
 
 " We shall know to-morrow." 
 
 Eugene did not go back to the Maison Vauquer. 
 The pleasure of occupying his new rooms in the Rue 
 d'Artois was a temptation too great to withstand. 
 The next morning he slept late ; and towards midday 
 Madame de Nucingen came to breakfast with him. 
 Young people are so eager for these pretty enjoyments 
 that he had well-nigh forgotten Pcre Goriot. It was 
 like a delightful festival to make use of each elegant 
 trifle that was now his own ; and the presence of 
 Madame de Nucingen lent to them all an added 
 charm. Nevertheless, about four o'clock they remem- 
 bered the old man, and as they recalled the happiness 
 he had shown at the thought of living there, Eugene 
 remarked that they ought to get him there at once, 
 especially if he were likely to be ill ; and he left 
 Delphine to fetch him from the Maison Vauquer. 
 
 Neither Goriot nor Bianchon were at the dinner- 
 table. 
 
 " Well," said the painter, " so Pere Goriot has broken 
 down at last! Bianchon is upstairs with him. The 
 old fellow saw one of his daughters this morning, 
 that Countess de Restau-rama. After that he went 
 out, and made himself worse. Society is about to be 
 deprived of one of its brightest ornaments." 
 
 Eugene rushed to the staircase.
 
 Pere G-oriot. 301 
 
 " Here, Monsieur Eugene ! " 
 
 " Monsieur Eugene ! Madame is calling you," cried 
 Sylvie. 
 
 " Monsieur," said the widow, " you and Pere Goriot 
 were to have left on the 15th of February ; it is three 
 days past that time, this is the 18th. I shall expect 
 both of you to pay me a month's lodging ; but if you 
 choose to be responsible for Pere Goriot, your word 
 will be satisfactory." 
 
 " Why so? Cannot you trust him ? " 
 
 " Trust him ! If he were to go out of his mind 
 or die, his daughters would not pay me a farthing; 
 and all he will leave is not worth ten francs. He 
 carried off the last of his forks and spoons this 
 morning. I don't know why. He had dressed him- 
 self up like a young man. Heaven forgive me, but I 
 do think he had put rouge on his cheeks. He looked 
 quite young again." 
 
 "I will be responsible," cried Eugene, with a shud- 
 der, foreseeing a catastrophe. 
 
 He ran up to Pere Goriot's chamber. The old man 
 was lying on his bed, with Bianchon beside him. 
 
 " Good evening, Father," said Eugene. 
 
 Pere Goriot smiled gently and said, turning his 
 glassy eyes upon the student, "How is she?" 
 " Quite well ; and you?" 
 
 " Not very ill." 
 
 " Don't tire him," said Bianchon, drawing Eugene 
 apart into a comer of the room. 
 
 " Well ? " asked Rastignac. 
 
 " Nothing can save him but a miracle. The conges- 
 tion I expected has taken place. I 've put on mustard
 
 302 Pere Goriot. 
 
 plasters, and luckily they are drawing: he feels 
 them." 
 
 " Can he be moved ? " 
 
 " Not possibly. You must leave him where he is, 
 and he must be kept perfectly quiet, and free from 
 emotion." 
 
 "Dear Bianchon," said Eugene, "we will take care 
 of him together." 
 
 " I called in the surgeon-in-chief of my hospital." 
 
 " What did he say ? " 
 
 "He will give no opinion till to-morrow evening. 
 He has promised to come in after he gets through his 
 work for the day. It is quite certain that the old fel- 
 low has been up to some imprudence ; but he won't 
 tell me what. He is as obstinate as a mule. When I 
 speak to him he either makes believe he does not hear, 
 or that he has gone to sleep ; or if his eyes are open, 
 he begins to groan. He went out this morning and 
 walked all over Paris, nobody knows where. He 
 carried off everything he owned of any value; he 
 has been making some infernal sale of his things, 
 and exhausting his strength. One of his daughters 
 was here." 
 
 " Ah ! " said Rastignac, " the countess ; a tall, dark 
 woman, with fine eyes, a pretty foot, and graceful 
 figure ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Leave me a moment alone with him," said Eugene. 
 " I can get him to tell me everything." 
 
 " Well, then, I '11 go and get my dinner. Be careful 
 not to agitate him. There is still some hope." 
 
 " I '11 be careful."
 
 Pere Groriot. 303 
 
 " They will enjoy themselves to-morrow," said Pere 
 Goriot to Eugene as soon as they were alone. " They 
 are going to a great ball." 
 
 " What did you do this morning, Papa, to knock 
 yourself up and have to go to bed ? " 
 
 " Nothing." 
 
 " Was Anastasie here ?" 
 
 " Yes," replied Pere Goriot. 
 
 " Well, then, don't keep any secrets from me. What 
 did she ask you for this time?" 
 
 " Ah ! " he replied, rallying his strength to speak. 
 " Poor child ! she was in great trouble. Nasie has not 
 a sou of her own since the affair of the diamonds. She 
 had ordered for this ball a beautiful dress of gold tissue, 
 which would set her off like a jewel. The dressmaker 
 infamous creature! refused to trust her, and her 
 maid paid a thousand francs on account poor Nasie ! 
 that she should come to that! it breaks my heart ; 
 but the maid, finding that Restaud had withdrawn all 
 confidence from Nasie, was afraid of losing her money, 
 so she arranged with the dressmaker not to deliver the 
 dress till the thousand francs were paid. The ball is 
 to-morrow; the dress is ready; Nasie is in despair. 
 She wanted to borrow my forks and spoons and pawn 
 them. Her husband insists that she shall go to the 
 ball in order to show all Pai'is the diamonds she was 
 said to have sold. Could she say to him, ' I owe a 
 thousand francs; pay them for me'? No: I felt 
 that myself. Her sister Delphine is to be there in a 
 beautiful dress ; Anastasie ought not to be less brilliant 
 than her younger sister, certainly not. Besides, she 
 was drowned in tears, my poor little daughter ! I
 
 304 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 was so mortified that I had not those twelve thousand 
 francs yesterday ! I would have given the rest of my 
 miserable life to make amends. You see, I have borne 
 up till now against everything; but this last want of 
 money has broken my heart. Well, well, I made no 
 bones about it ; I patched myself up ; I tried to make 
 myself look spruce, and I sold my forks and spoons 
 and the buckles for six hundred francs. Then I made 
 over my annuity for one year to old Gobseck for four 
 hundred more. Bah ! I can live on dry bread : I did 
 when I was young. So my Nasie will appear to- 
 morrow evening. I have got the thousand francs under 
 my pillow. It warms me up to feel them there under 
 my head, and to know that they are going to give com- 
 fort to my poor child. She is to come for them at ten 
 o'clock to-morrow morning. I shall be quite well by 
 that time. I don't want them to think me ill ; they 
 might not like to go to the ball, they would wish to 
 stay and nurse me. Nasie will kiss me to-morrow as 
 if I were a baby. After all, I might have spent that 
 money on the apothecary ; I 'd rather give it to my 
 Cure-all, my Nasie. I can still comfort her in her 
 troubles : that makes up in part for having sunk my 
 money in an annuity. She is down in the very depths, 
 and I have no strength to pull her up again ! I am 
 going back into business ; I shall go to Odessa and 
 buy wheat: wheat is worth three times as much with 
 us as it costs there. The importation of cereals as raw 
 material is forbidden ; but the good people who make 
 the laws never thought of prohibiting manufactured 
 articles of flour. Ha ! ha ! the idea came into my head 
 this morning. I shall make millions out of my pastes."
 
 Pere Goriot. 305 
 
 " He is losing his mind," thought Eugene, looking 
 down upon the old man. " Come, now, lie still, and 
 don't talk," he said. 
 
 Rastignac went to dinner when Bianchon came up. 
 Both passed the night taking turns beside the sick bed. 
 One occupied himself in reading medical books, the 
 other in writing to his mother and sisters. The next 
 morning Bianchon thought the symptoms somewhat 
 more favorable, but the patient needed the intelligent 
 personal care which the two students alone could give 
 him. Leeches were put on the emaciated body of the 
 poor old man, and poultices ; mustard foot-baths were 
 administered, and a number of medical devices resorted 
 to which required all the strength of the two young 
 men. Madame de Restaud did not come, but sent a 
 messenger for the money. 
 
 " I thought she would have come herself ; but per- 
 haps it is best so, she might have been anxious," 
 said her father, trying to make the best of his 
 disappointment. 
 
 At seven o'clock in the evening Therese appeared, 
 bringing a letter for Eugene : 
 
 " What can you be doing, dear friend? Am I neglected as 
 soon as loved ? You have shown me, in the outpourings of 
 heart to heart, a soul so beautiful that I trust you as one of 
 those forever faithful through many phases and shades of feel- 
 ing. Do you remember what you said as we were listening 
 to the prayer of Moses in Egypt ? ' To some it seems but a 
 single note ; to others the infinite of music.' Do not forget that 
 I expect you this evening to go with me to Madame de Beau- 
 seant's. Monsieur d'Adjuda's marriage contract was signed by 
 the king this morning, and the poor viscountess did not know
 
 306 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 of it till two o'clock. All Paris will be at her house to-night ; 
 just as a crowd flocks to the Place de Greve to see an execu- 
 tion. Is it not horrible that people should go there to see if 
 she can hide her grief, if she knows how to die ? I certainly 
 would not go if I had been to her house before. But she will 
 probably never receive again, and then all the efforts I have made 
 to go there would be thrown away. My situation is different 
 from that of others. And besides, I shall be there for your 
 sake. If you do not come to me within two hours, I ana not 
 sure that I shall pardon you for the crime." 
 
 Eugene seized a pen and replied thus : 
 
 " I am waiting for a doctor, who will say how long your 
 father has to live. He is dying. I will come and tell you 
 what the medical opinion is. I fear it can only be that he 
 will not recover. You will judge whether you can go to the 
 ball. Tender remembrances." 
 
 The doctor came at half-past eight, and though he 
 could hold out no hopes of improvement he thought 
 death was not imminent. He said there would be 
 changes to better or worse, and on these would hang 
 the life and reason of the patient. 
 
 " Far better that he should die," were his last words. 
 
 Eugene consigned Pere Goriot to the care of Bian- 
 chon, and went to Madame de Nucingen with the sad 
 news, which to his mind, still imbued as it was with 
 tender memories of his home, precluded all possibility 
 of amusement for a daughter. 
 
 " Tell her to go to the ball and enjoy herself all the 
 same," said Pere 'Goriot, who they hoped was dozing, 
 but who started up in bed when he saw that Rastignac 
 was going.
 
 Pere G-oriot. 307 
 
 The young man entered Delphine's presence with 
 his heart full of grief and pity. He found her with 
 her toilette made, her hair dressed, and nothing more 
 to be done than to put on her ball-dress. But like an 
 artist's final work upon his canvas, the finishing touches 
 took more time than the picture itself. 
 
 " What ! are you not dressed ? " she said. 
 
 "But, Madame, your father is " 
 
 " Why do you harp upon my father?" she cried, in- 
 terrupting him. " You need not teach me my duty to 
 my father. I have known my father for a long time. 
 Not another word, Eugene ; I will not listen to you 
 till you have made your toilette. Therese has laid out 
 everything in your room. My carriage is at the door; 
 take it, and come back as soon as possible. We can 
 talk about my father as we are driving to the ball. I 
 wish to start early, for if we are caught in the line of 
 carriages it may be midnight before we get there." 
 
 Madame ! " 
 
 " Go, go ! not another word," she cried, running into 
 her boudoir for a necklace. 
 
 " Go, Monsieur Eugene go ! " said Therese, " or you 
 will make Madame very angry." 
 
 So saying, she pushed the young man, who stood dis- 
 mayed and silenced by this elegant parricide. He went 
 away and dressed himself, filled with melancholy and 
 disheartening reflections. The world seemed to him 
 like an ocean of slime, in which a man sank up to his 
 throat if he so much as put his foot into it. 
 
 " Its wickednesses are mean, are paltry," he cried. 
 " Vautrin's crimes at least were great." 
 
 He had now seen, by experience, the three great
 
 308 Pere Q-oriot. 
 
 phases of society, Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt : 
 Family-life, the World, and Vautrin. He dared not 
 make his choice among them. Obedience had become 
 to him stagnation ; revolt was impossible ; struggle 
 false and uncertain. He thought of his home ; he re- 
 membered the pure emotions of that peaceful life ; his 
 mind went back to the years passed among the dear 
 ones who fondly loved him. He said to himself that 
 those who conformed in all things to the natural 
 laws of family life were fully, perfectly, permanently 
 happy. 
 
 But though he owned these things, he had not the 
 courage to assert them to Delphine. Could he confess 
 the faith of purity to her ? Could he talk to her of 
 virtue in the guise of love ? His worldly training was 
 already bearing fruit ; his love was selfishness. His 
 instinct enabled him to sound the inner nature of 
 Delphine: he believed her capable of going to this 
 ball over the dead body of her father; but he had nei- 
 ther the strength to oppose her by argument, nor the 
 courage to displease her, nor the virtue to give her up. 
 " She would never forgive me for being right where 
 she was bent on doing wrong," was his reflection. 
 Then he recalled the doctor's words. He persuaded 
 himself that Pere Goriot was not so dangerously ill as 
 he had thought; he multiplied heartless arguments 
 that he might justify Delphine : she could not know 
 her father's true condition ; the poor old man himself 
 would send her to the ball if she went to see him. He 
 reflected also that the laws of social life are absolute, 
 and make no allowances for differences of character, or 
 interests, or situations. He tried to deceive himself,
 
 Pre G-oriot, 309 
 
 and find reasons to sacrifice his conscience to his mis- 
 tress. For two days past everything within him and 
 about him had changed. Woman had turned the cur- 
 rent of his whole existence; home and its ties had 
 paled before her influence; she had confiscated all 
 things to her profit. 
 
 "Tell me now, how is my father?" said Madame 
 de Nucingen, when he came back dressed for the ball. 
 
 " Very ill," he said. " If you would give me a proof 
 of your affection, you would let me take you to him at 
 once." 
 
 " Well yes ; " she said ; " but it must be after the 
 ball. Eugene, be good ; don't preach to me. Come ! 
 
 They drove away. Eugene sat silent for a part of 
 the way. 
 
 "What are you thinking of?" she asked. 
 
 " I am listening to the rattle in your father's throat," 
 he answered in a tone of anger; and he began to relate, 
 with the fiery eloquence of youth, the cruelty to which 
 Madame de Restaud's vanity had pushed her, the last 
 supreme act of their father's self-devotion, and the mor- 
 tal cost of that golden robe in which Anastasie was 
 now about to appear. Delphine wept. 
 
 " But it will make me ugly ;" she thought and her 
 tears dried at once. " I will go and nurse my father. 
 I will stay beside his pillow," she said aloud. 
 
 " Ah ! now, indeed, thou art all that I would have 
 thee ! " cried Eugene. 
 
 The lamps of five hundred carriages lighted the 
 approach to the Hotel de Beauseant, and on either 
 side of the illuminated gateway was a mounted gen- 
 darme. The great world flocked thither in such crowds,
 
 310 Pere Goriot. 
 
 eager to gaze on this great lady at the moment of her 
 downfall, that the ball-rooms on the ground-floor of 
 the Hotel were filled when Madame de Nucingen and 
 Rastignac entered them. Since the famous occasion 
 when a whole Court rushed to see la grande Made- 
 moiselle, after Louis XIV. had torn her lover from her 
 arms, no disaster of the heart had excited such intense 
 interest as this of Madame de Beauseant. On this 
 occasion the daughter of the semi-royal house of 
 Burgundy rose superior to her woe, and swayed to 
 her latest moment that world whose homage she had 
 valued only as incense to be offered on the altar of 
 her friend. The loveliest women in Paris adorned the 
 rooms with their dresses and their smiles. The most 
 distinguished men of the Court, ambassadors, minis- 
 ters, heroes illustrious in a hundred ways, and covered 
 with crosses, medals, and ribbons of all orders, pressed 
 around their hostess. The great world had arrayed 
 itself as if to make a last obeisance to its sovereign. 
 The music of the orchestra floated in tender harmonies 
 along the gilded ceilings of the palace now desolate 
 for its queen. Madame de Beauseant stood within the 
 doorway of the first salon, receiving those who called 
 themselves her friends. Dressed in white, without an 
 ornament, and with simply braided hair, she appeared 
 calm, and exhibited neither grief nor pride, nor any 
 pretence of joy. No one saw into her heart. She 
 seemed a marble Niobe. The smiles she gave to her 
 intimate friends had occasional gleams of irony; but 
 to all present she appeared unchanged, and bore her- 
 self so truly the same as when happiness shed its halo 
 round her that the most unfeeling person in that crowd
 
 Pere Goriot. 311 
 
 admired her, as the Roman youths admired the gladia- 
 tors who smiled as they died. 
 
 " I feared you might not come," said Madame de 
 Beauseant to Rastignac. 
 
 Taking her words for a reproach, he answered with 
 emotion, "Madame, I have come to be the last to 
 leave you." 
 
 "That is well," she said, taking his hand. "You 
 are perhaps the only person present whom I can trust. 
 My friend, when you love, let it be a woman whom 
 you can love forever. Never forsake a woman ! " 
 
 She took Rastignac's arm, and led him to a sofa in 
 the card-room. 
 
 " Go for me," she said, " to the Marquis d'Adjuda. 
 Jacques, my footman, will tell you where he is to be 
 found, and will give you a note for him. It asks for 
 my letters. He will give them up to you, I trust he 
 will. If you obtain them, go up to my rooms on your 
 return ; they will tell me when you are there." 
 
 She rose and went forward to greet the Duchesse 
 de Langeais, who was entering the salon. Rastignac 
 did as he was told. He asked for the Marquis d'Ad- 
 juda at the Hotel Rochefide, where he was to pass the 
 evening, and found him. The Marquis took him to 
 his own house, and gave him a casket, saying, " They 
 are all there." He seemed to wish to say more ; per- 
 haps to question Eugene about the viscountess, 
 possibly to own himself already in despair about his 
 marriage (as, in fact, he became soon after) ; but a ray 
 of pride shone in his eyes, and he had the melancholy 
 courage to triumph over his better feelings. "Tell 
 her nothing about me, my dear Eugene," he said. He
 
 312 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 pressed Rastignac's hand with a grasp of affection and 
 regret, and made a sign that he should leave him. 
 
 Eugene returned to the Hotel de Beauseant, and 
 was shown up to his cousin's chamber, which was 
 strewn with preparations for a journey. He sat down 
 near the fire holding the cedar casket, and fell into a 
 state of the deepest melancholy. For him, Madame 
 de Beausdant took on the proportions of a goddess of 
 the Iliad. 
 
 " Ah ! my friend," she said, coming in and laying 
 her hand upon his shoulder. 
 
 He turned and saw her in tears. Pier eyes were 
 raised, the hand upon his shoulder trembled, the other 
 was lifted up. Suddenly she took the casket, put it 
 on the fire, and watched it burn. 
 
 "They are dancing they came early Death 
 may keep me waiting long. Hush, dear friend," she 
 said, laying her hand upon the lips of Rastignac as he 
 was about to answer. "To-night I take my leave of 
 Paris and the world. At five o'clock to-morrow morn- 
 ing I go to bury myself in the solitude of Normandy. 
 Since three o'clock to-day I have made my prepara- 
 tions, signed papers, transacted business. I had no 
 one I could send to " She paused. " It was cer- 
 tain he would be at " She stopped again, overcome 
 with emotion. At such times it is pain to speak ; 
 certain words it is impossible to utter. " You see," 
 she resumed, " that I counted upon you for this last 
 service. I should like to give you a remembrance, 
 something to make you think of me. I shall often 
 think of you; you have seemed to me kind and noble, 
 fresh and true, in this world where these qualities are
 
 Pre G-oriot. 313 
 
 rare. See," she said, casting a glance about the room, 
 "here is the box in which I have always kept my 
 gloves. Every time that I took them from it for 
 a ball, an opera I felt myself beautiful, for I was 
 happy. I never opened it that I did not leave within 
 it some smiling thought. Much of myself is in that 
 box, much of a Madame de Beauseant, who is gone 
 forever. Accept it. I will take care that it is carried 
 to your rooms in the Rue d' Artois. Madame de 
 Nucingen looks well to-night. Treat her tenderly. 
 If we never meet again, dear friend, be sure that I 
 shall pray for you, who have been very good to me. 
 Let us go down now ; I would not have them think that 
 I have wept. I have an eternity before me, where I 
 shall be alone, where no one will ask whether I smile 
 or weep. Let me give a last look round my chamber." 
 
 She stopped, hid her eyes for a moment with her 
 hand, then bathed them with cold water, and took the 
 student's arm. " Let us go," she said. 
 
 Rastignac had never in his life been so much moved 
 as he now was by the grief thus nobly kept under con- 
 trol. When they reached the ball-rooms, Madame de 
 Beauseant made the circuit of her guests leaning on 
 her cousin's arm, a last and thoughtful act of kind- 
 ness bestowed by this gracious woman. He soon saw 
 the two sisters, Madame de Restaud and Madame de 
 Nucingen. The former was blazing in diamonds, 
 which no doubt burned her as they blazed, conscious, 
 as she was, that she was wearing them for the last 
 time. Though she bore herself proudly and was ex- 
 quisitely dressed, she seemed unable to meet the eye 
 of her husband. This sight did not make Rastignac
 
 314 Pere Goriot. 
 
 less bitter at heart. If Vautrin had appeared to him 
 in the Italian colonel, he now saw through the glitter- 
 ing diamonds of the two sisters the neglected death- 
 bed of Pere Goriot. 
 
 His depression was noticed by Madame de Beauseant, 
 who attributed it to another cause, and released his 
 arm. 
 
 " Go now," she said ; "I would not deprive you of a 
 pleasure." 
 
 Eugene was soon claimed by Delphine, charmed 
 with the sensation she had created, and anxious to 
 lay at his feet the homage she was receiving from 
 the great world, in which she now might hope for 
 adoption. 
 
 " What do you think of Nasie ? " she asked him. 
 
 " She has discounted even her father's death," he 
 answered. 
 
 About four in the morning the crowd began to 
 thin, and presently the music censed. The Duchesse 
 de Langeais and Rastignac at last stood alone in the 
 great ball-room. The viscountess, expecting to find 
 only Rastignac, came in after taking leave of Monsieur 
 de Beauseant, who had gone to bed, saying, 
 
 " Indeed you are wrong, my dear, to shut yourself 
 up, at your age ! Why not remain among us ? " 
 
 On seeing the duchess, Madame de Beauseant started 
 and gave a little cry. 
 
 " I guess what you are about to do, Clara," said 
 Madame de Langeais. " You are going to leave us, 
 and you will never return. But you shall not go 
 without hearing what I have to say. We must not 
 part misunderstanding each other."
 
 Pere Goriot. 315 
 
 She took her friend by the arm and led her into 
 a smaller salon. There, looking at her with tears in 
 her eyes, she pressed her in her arms and kissed her 
 cheeks. 
 
 " We must not part coldly, dear," she said ; " it 
 would make me too unhappy. You may rely on me 
 as you would upon yourself. You have been noble 
 this evening : I feel that I am not unworthy of you, 
 and I wish to prove it. I have not always treated 
 you as I should have done : forgive me, dear. I take 
 back every word that may have pained you, would 
 that I could unsay them altogether ! We are passing 
 through the same sorrow ; I know not which of us is 
 the most unhappy. Monsieur de Montriveau was not 
 here to-night : you know what that means. All who 
 saw you at this ball, Clara, will never forget you. 
 For myself, I shall make a last effort : if it fails, I 
 shall go into a convent. And you? Where are you 
 going?" 
 
 " To Normandy, to Courcelles : to love, to pray, 
 till it shall please God to take me from the world." 
 Then, with a break in her voice, Madame de Beau- 
 seant called to Eugene, remembering that he was 
 waiting for her in the great salon. 
 
 He knelt beside her, and took her hand and kissed 
 it. 
 
 "Antoinette, adieu," she said; "be happy. Mon- 
 sieur de Rastignac, you are happy, for you are 
 young, and can still have faith. Here, where I re- 
 nounce the world, I have beside me as some rare 
 death-beds have had two hearts that feel for me 
 with sacred and sincere affection."
 
 316 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Rastignac left the house about five o'clock, having 
 put Madame de Beauseant into her travelling-carriage 
 and received her last farewells mingled with tears. 
 He walked home to the Maison Vauquer in the damp 
 dawn of a cold morning. He was making progress in 
 his education. 
 
 "We can't save poor old Goriot," said Bianchon, when 
 Rastignac entered the room of his sick neighbor. 
 
 " Bianchon," said Rastignac, looking down upon the 
 old man, who lay asleep, " keep to the humble destiny 
 to which you limit your ambition. For me, I am in 
 hell, and I must stay there. Whatever evil they may 
 tell you of the world, believe it. No Juvenal that 
 ever lived could reveal the infamies concealed under 
 its gold and jewels." 
 
 Later in the day Rastignac was awakened by Bian- 
 chon, who being obliged to go out, requested him to 
 take charge of Pere Goriot, who had grown much 
 worse during the morning. 
 
 *' Poor old fellow! He can't live two days, per- 
 haps not more than six hours," said the medical stu- 
 dent ; " though of course we must do all we can for 
 him. We shall have to try certain remedies that cost 
 money. You and I can take care of him, but how 
 are we to pay for the things ? I have n't a sou, myself. 
 I have turned out his pockets and searched his cup- 
 boards nothing ! absolutely zero ! I asked him in a 
 lucid moment, and he told me he had not a farthing. 
 How much have you ? " 
 
 " I have only twenty francs," said Rastignac ; " but I 
 will go and play them, and win more."
 
 Pere Goriot. 317 
 
 " Suppose you lose ? " 
 
 " Then I will ask money from his sons-in-law and 
 his daughters." 
 
 " And suppose they won't give it to you ? " said 
 Bianchon. " However, the important thing now is 
 not to get the money, but to wrap the poor fellow in 
 hot mustard, from his feet up to the middle of his 
 thighs. If he cries out, so much the better : it will 
 show there 's a chance for him. You know how to 
 manage it, and Christophe will help you. I will stop 
 at the apothecary's and make myself responsible for 
 the things we may want. What a pity he could not 
 have been taken to the hospital ! He would have 
 been much better off there. Come on, and let me 
 give you the directions; and don't leave him till I 
 get back." 
 
 The two young men went into the room where the 
 old man lay. Eugene was shocked by the great 
 change that a few hours had made in the weak, 
 blanched, and distorted features. 
 
 " Well, Papa ! " he said, leaning over the bed. 
 
 Pere Goriot raised his dim eyes and looked atten- 
 tively at him, but did not recognize him. The student 
 could not bear the sight, and turned away weeping. 
 
 " Bianchon," he said, u ought there not to be curtains 
 to his window?" 
 
 " Oh, no ; atmospheric conditions can't affect him 
 now. It would be a good sign if he felt either heat or 
 cold. Still, we must keep up a little fire, to heat the 
 mustard and prepare his drinks. I '11 send you some 
 fagots, which will do till we can buy wood. Last 
 night and yesterday I burned up yours, and the poor
 
 318 Pere Goriot. 
 
 old fellow's bark as well. It was so dam]), and the 
 walls were dripping with moisture. I could hardly 
 keep the floor dry. Christophe swept it up, but it is 
 as bad as a stable. I have been burning juniper, the 
 room smelt so infernally." 
 
 "Good God!" said Rastignac. "Think of his 
 daughters ! " 
 
 "Now, if he wants anything to drink, give him 
 this," said the medical student, showing a large white 
 pitcher. " If he complains of his stomach being hot 
 and hard, call Christophe, and he will help you to give 
 him you know. If he should get excited and insist 
 on talking, or be a little out of his head, don't check 
 him. It is not a bad symptom. But send Christophe 
 at once to the hospital ; and cither the surgeon or my 
 comrade and I will come and apply the actual cautery. 
 This morning, while you were asleep, we had a great 
 consultation here, between a pupil of Dr. Gall the 
 phrenologist, the head-surgeon of the Hotel Dien, 
 and our own chief from the Cochin Hospital. They 
 thought there were some curious symptoms in the 
 case ; and we are going to make notes on its progress, 
 in hopes of throwing light on some important scientific 
 points. One of the doctors thinks that if the pressure 
 of the serum should be more upon one organ than upon 
 any other, we may see some singular developments. 
 So in case he should begin to talk, listen to what he 
 says, and note what kind of ideas his mind runs on, 
 whether memory is all he has left, or whether he still 
 has his reasoning powers ; whether he is thinking of 
 material things, or only of feelings; whether he is 
 calculating as to the future, or only reverting to the
 
 Pere Goriot. 319 
 
 past. In short, give us an exact report. It is possible 
 that the invasion of the brain may be complete, all 
 over it; in that case, he will die imbecile, as he is at 
 this moment. The course of an illness like this is 
 often very singular. If the rush were here," continued 
 Bianchon, putting his finger upon the occiput, "the 
 case might show some very remarkable phenomena. 
 The brain might then recover some of its faculties, and 
 death would be slow in coming. The matter that 
 presses on the brain might then be absorbed through 
 channels which we could only discover in the post- 
 mortem. There is an old man now in the Hospital 
 for Incurables, with whom the matter in question is 
 slowly passing away down the spinal column. He 
 suffers horribly, but he lives." 
 
 "Did they enjoy themselves?" said Pere Goriot, 
 who now recognized Eugene. 
 
 " He thinks of nothing but his daughters," said 
 Bianchon. He said to me over and over again during 
 the night, ' they are dancing,' ' she has got her gown.' 
 He called them by their names. He made me cry 
 the devil take me ! by his piteous way of saying 
 ' Delphine ! my little Delphine ! Xasie ! ' Upon my 
 word of honor," said the medical student, " it was 
 enough to make any fellow shed tears." 
 
 "Delphine?" said the old man. "Is she there? 
 Did you say so?" And his eyes glanced wildly at 
 the walls and doorway. 
 
 " I '11 go and tell Sylvie to get the mustard," said 
 Bianchon. " It is a good time now."
 
 320 Pere Goriot. 
 
 XVIII. 
 
 RASTIGNAC remained alone with the old man, sitting 
 at the foot of the bed, with his eyes fixed on the aged 
 head now coming with sorrow to the grave. 
 
 " Madame de Beauseant has fled," he said to him- 
 self, " Pere Goriot dies : natures that have deep affec- 
 tions cannot abide long in this evil world. How 
 should noble minds live, allied to a society that is 
 mean, petty, and superficial ? " 
 
 Scenes of that splendid ball rose up in awful con- 
 trast to this bed of death. Bianehon reappeared. 
 
 " Look here, Eugene ! " he said. " I have just seen 
 our surgeon-in-chief, and I have run back to tell you. 
 If he should recover his reason, if he should talk, 
 wrap him in mustard, from his neck half-way down 
 his loins, and send somebody at once for me." 
 
 " Dear Bianehon ! " said Eugene. 
 
 " Oh, it 's a case of great scientific interest ! " 
 exclaimed the medical student, with the fervor of a 
 neophyte. 
 
 " Alas ! " cried Eugene ; " am I the only one to care 
 for the poor old man out of affection ?" 
 
 " You would not say that, if you had seen me this 
 morning," said Bianehon, not offended. " The other 
 doctors thought of him only as a case; but I thought 
 also of the poor patient, my dear fellow."
 
 Pere Goriot. 321 
 
 He went away, leaving his friend alone with the old 
 man. Eugene dreaded a crisis, which was not long in 
 coming. 
 
 " Ah ! is that you, my dear boy ? " asked Pere Goriot, 
 recognizing Eugene. 
 
 " Are you better ? " said the student, taking his 
 hand. 
 
 " Yes ; my head was in a vice, but it is free now. 
 Did you see my daughters ? Will they be here soon ? 
 They will come as soon as they know that I am ill. I 
 wish my room were clean. There was a young man 
 here last night who burned up all my fuel." 
 
 " I hear Christophe bringing up some wood which 
 that young man has sent you." 
 
 " Good, but who is to pay for the wood ? I have 
 no money. I have given it all away, all ! I must 
 come on charity. Was the dress of gold tissue 
 very handsome? Ah, how I suffer! Thank you, 
 Christophe, my good man. God will reward you; I 
 have nothing now." 
 
 "I will pay you and Sylvie handsomely for all you 
 do," whispered Eugene to the Savoyard. 
 
 " My daughters said they would be here, did they 
 not, Christophe? Go to them again; I will give you 
 a five-franc piece. Tell them that I am not very well ; 
 that I should like to see them, to kiss them, before I 
 die. But don't alarm them." 
 
 Christophe went off on a sign from Rastignnc. 
 
 " They will come," resumed the old man. "I know 
 
 them. Dear, kind Delphine, if I die, what sorrow I 
 
 shall cause her; and Nasie too. I don't want to die. 
 
 To die, my good Eugene, is not to see them. There, 
 
 21
 
 322 Pere Goriot. 
 
 where I am going, how lonely I shall be ! Hell, to a 
 father, is to be without his children I have served 
 my apprenticeship in it ever since they married. My 
 heaven was in our home, Rue Jussienne. Tell me, 
 if I go to heaven, can I come back in spirit and hover 
 near them? I have heard of such things; are they 
 true? I see them now, as they were in the Hue 
 Jussienne. ' Good morning, Papa,' they used to say. 
 I took them on my knee and played with them, a 
 thousand little tricks: they caressed me so prettily. 
 We used to breakfast together, to dine together. Ah, 
 I was a father then ! I was happy in my children. 
 They never reasoned then; they knew nothing of the 
 world, they only loved me. Oh, my God ! why 
 could I not have kept my little ones? I suffer 
 my head! my head ! Forgive me, my children, but I 
 am in such pain no, this must be anguish ; for you 
 have hardened me to pain. If I could but hold them 
 in my arms, I should not suffer so. Are they coming? 
 Will they come ? Christophe is so stupid. I ought to 
 have gone myself. You saw them at the ball. 
 They did not know that I was ill, did they? they 
 would not have danced, poor darlings. Oh ! I must 
 not be ill, they need me : their fortunes are in dan- 
 ger. Ah! to what husbands they are bound! Save 
 me ! cure me ! Oh, I suffer, suffer ! I must be 
 cured, for they need money, and I know where to make 
 it. I am going to Odessa; I shall make my pastes 
 there. I 'm shrewd : I shall make millions. Oh, 
 I suffer too much ! too much ! " 
 
 He was silent a few moments, and seemed to be 
 rallying all his strength to bear the pain.
 
 Pere Goriot. 323 
 
 " If they were here I would not complain," he said. 
 " Why should I complain if they were here ? " 
 
 He dozed off lightly. The sleep lasted some time. 
 Christophe returned, and Rastignac, who thought Pere 
 Goriot had fallen back into a stupor, let him give an 
 account of his mission. 
 
 " Monsieur," he said, " first of all, I went to find 
 Madame la comtesse ; but I was told I could not 
 speak with her because she was settling some business 
 with her husband. I said that I must see somebody ; 
 so Monsieur de Restaud came himself, and he talked 
 just this way. He said : Well, if Monsieur Goriot is 
 dying, it is the best thing he can do. I want Madame 
 de Restaud to settle some very important business, and 
 she can't go till it is finished.' He looked very angry, 
 he did. I was just going away when Madame came 
 through a side door into the antechamber and said to 
 me, ' Christophe, tell my father that I am arranging 
 important matters with my husband, and that I cannot 
 leave at present ; but as soon as I can I will go to 
 him.' As for Madame la baronne, that was another 
 matter. I could n't see her, and I could n't get word 
 to her. Her maid said, ' Madame did not get home 
 from a ball till half-past four, and she 's asleep. If I 
 wake her she will scold me. I will tell her that her 
 father is worse when she rings her bell. It is always 
 soon enough to tell bad news. ' I begged her and 
 begged her ; but it was no use. Then I asked to see 
 Monsieur de Nucingen, but he was out." 
 
 " So neither of his daughters will come to him!" 
 cried Rastignac. " I will write to both of them." 
 
 " Neither ! " cried the old man, rising in his bed.
 
 324 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " They are busy ; they sleep ; they will not come. I 
 knew it. We must die, to know what our children 
 are. Friend, never marry ; never have children. You 
 give them life, they will give you death. You bring 
 them into the world, they drive you out of it. No ! 
 they will not come. I have known it these ten years. 
 I have said it to myself, but I dared not believe it." 
 
 Tears welled up to the red rims of his poor eyes, but 
 they did not fall. 
 
 " Ah, if I were rich ; if I had kept my fortune ; if 
 I had not given them all, all, they would be here, 
 they would lick my cheeks with kisses. I should live 
 in a mansion ; I should have a fine chamber, servants, 
 a fire. They would be all in tears, husbands and 
 children. All would be mine. But now, nothing ; 
 I have nothing. Money gives all things, even chil- 
 dren. Oh, my money ! where is it ? If I had treas- 
 ures to bequeath, they would nurse me, they would 
 watch me. I should hear them ; I should see them. 
 Ah, my son ! my only child ! I would rather be as I am, 
 forsaken and destitute : if a poor creature is loved, he 
 knows that love is true. But, no, no! if I were rich 
 I should see them. My God ! who knows ? They have 
 hearts of stone, both, both ! I loved them too well; 
 they gave me no love in return. A father should 
 always be rich ; he should curb his children like vicious 
 horses. But I I was on my knees to them ! Ah, 
 cruel hearts ! they fitly crown their conduct to me for 
 ten years past. If you knew the tender care they took 
 of me the first year of their marriage ! oh, I suffer 
 a martyrdom of pain! I had just given eight hun- 
 dred thousand francs to each, and neither they nor their
 
 Pere Goriot. 325 
 
 husbands could be rude to me. They welcomed me. 
 It was ' My good Papa,' ' My dear Papa.' My place 
 was laid at their table ; I dined with their husbands ; I 
 was treated with respect. Why ? Because I had said 
 nothing of my affairs ; because a man who gives away 
 a million and a half of francs must have something 
 left to leave : he is a man to be thought of. And so 
 they paid me attentions, but it was for my money. 
 The world is not noble : I saw it all. They took me 
 to the theatre in their carriages ; I went if I pleased to 
 their parties. They called themselves my daughters ; 
 they acknowledged me to be their father. Ah, I 
 have my sight ; I saw through it all, nothing escaped 
 me; it struck home and pierced my heart: I knew 
 that all was a pretence. But the evil was without 
 remedy. I was less at my ease dining with them than 
 at the table downstairs. I was dull ; I could say 
 nothing. These fashionable people whispered to my 
 sons-in law, * Who is that, Monsieur? ' ' The papa 
 with the money-bngs.' ' Ah, the devil ! ' they cried, and 
 looked at me with the respect due to wealth. My 
 head, my head ! I suffer, Eugene ! I suffer ! It is my 
 death-struggle." 
 
 He paused a moment, and then continued : " But it 
 is nothing, nothing compared to the first look Anastasie 
 gave me, to make me feel I had said an ignorant thing 
 which mortified her. That look ! it bled me from 
 every vein. I was ignorant ; yes, but one thing I 
 knew too well, there was no place for me among 
 the living. The next day I went to Delphine to con- 
 sole me ; and there I did an awkward thing which 
 made her angry. I went nearly out of my mind ;
 
 326 Pere Goriot. 
 
 for eight days I was beside myself, not knowing 
 what to do : I was afraid to go and see them, lest 
 they should speak their mind to me. And so it came 
 to pass that I was turned from their doors. My 
 God! thou who hast known the sufferings and the 
 misery I have endured ! who hast counted the stabs 
 that I have received throughout the years which have 
 changed and whitened and withered me ! why dost 
 thou let me suffer so horribly to-day ? Have I not ex- 
 piated the crime of loving them too well? they have 
 punished it themselves ; they have tortured me with 
 hot irons ! Ah, fathers are fools ! I loved them 
 so well that I went back like a gambler to his play. 
 My daughters were my vice, my mistresses. They 
 wanted this and that, laces, jewels, their waiting- 
 women told me ; and I gave that I might buy a wel- 
 come. But all the same they tutored me about my 
 behavior in their world : they let me see they were 
 ashamed of me." 
 
 His voice sank, then rose again : " Oh, I suffer ! 
 The doctors ! where are they ? If they would split 
 my head open with an axe, I should suffer less. 
 Send for them, send for my daughters, Anastasie, 
 Delphine ! I must see them! Send the gendarmes; 
 use force ! Justice is on my side ; all is on my side, 
 nature, laws! The nation will perish if fathers are 
 trodden under foot ; society, the world, all rest 
 upon fatherhood : they will crumble to nothing if 
 children do not love their fathers. Oh, to see them ! 
 to hear them ! no matter what they say to me ; their 
 voices would calm me, my Delphine especially. 
 But when they come, tell them not to look at me so
 
 Pere Goriot. 827 
 
 coldly. Ah, my friend, my good Eugene ! do you 
 know what it is to see the golden glance of love 
 change to leaden gray ? Since that day, when their 
 eyes no longer lightened up for me, my life has been 
 an arctic winter ; grief has been my portion and I 
 have eaten my fill of it. I have lived only to be in- 
 sulted and humiliated. Yet I loved them so much 
 that I swallowed the affronts each shameful pleasure 
 cost me. A father hiding himself! waiting in the 
 streets to see his child ! I have given them all my 
 life : they will not give me one hour to-day. I thirst, 
 I burn ! they will not come to ease my death, for 
 I am dying ; I feel it. Do they know what it is to 
 trample on the corpse of a father ? There is a God in 
 heaven ; he will avenge us, whether we will or no. 
 Oh, they will come ! Come, my darlings ! a kiss, 
 a last kiss! the viaticum of your father. I go to 
 God, and I will tell him you have been good to 
 me ; I will plead for you, for you are innocent ; 
 yes, Eugene, they are innocent. The fault was mine. 
 I taught them to tread me underfoot. Divine justice 
 sees the truth and will not condemn them. I abdi- 
 cated my rights ; I neglected my duty ; I abased 
 myself in their eyes. The noblest natures would be 
 corrupted by such weakness. I am justly punished : 
 my children were good, and I have spoiled them ; 
 on my head be their sins. I alone am guilty ; but 
 guilty through love. Their voices would still my 
 heart. I hear them : they come ! They will 
 come ; the law requires them to see their father 
 die, the law is on my side. Write to them that 
 I have millions to bequeath. It is true, upon my
 
 328 Pere Groriot. 
 
 honor. I am going to Odessa to make Italian pastes. 
 I know what I am about. It is a great project, 
 millions to make, and no one has yet thought of it. 
 Transportation does not injure pastes as it does wheat 
 and flour. Yes, millions! you may say millions, 
 avarice will bring them. Well, even so, I shall see 
 them ! I want my daughters ; I made them ; they 
 are mine!" he cried wildly, rising in his bed, his dis- 
 hevelled white hair giving to his head a look of un- 
 utterable menace. 
 
 " Dear Pere Goriot, lie down again," said Eugene. 
 "As soon as Bianchon comes back I will go myself and 
 fetch them, if they do not come " 
 
 " If they do not come ! " sobbed the old man ; " but 
 I shall be dead! dead, in a rush of madness mad- 
 ness! I feel it coming. At this moment I see my 
 life. I am a dupe. They do not love me, they 
 never loved me. If they have not come, it means 
 that they will not come. The longer they delay, the 
 less they will 1'esolve to give me this last joy. I know 
 them. They have never divined my sorrows, nor my 
 wants, nor my pains : why should they divine my 
 death ? They have never even, entered into the secret 
 of my tenderness for them. Yes, I see it all. I 
 have so long plucked out my entrails for. their sakes 
 that my sacrifices have ceased to be of value. Had 
 they asked me to tear out my eyes, I should have an- 
 swered, ' Take them ! ' I have been a fool. They 
 thought all fathers were like me. But their own 
 children will avenge me. Tell them it is for their 
 interest to come here ; tell them to think of their own 
 death-beds. Go, go ! tell them to come : not to come
 
 Pere Goriot. 329 
 
 is parricide ! they have committed that already ; 
 they have given me a death in life. Call out ! 
 call out, as I do, ' Here, Nasie ! Here, Delphine ! 
 Come to your father who has been so good to you, and 
 who is dying ! ' Are they coming ? No ? Am I to 
 die like a dog? This is my reward, abandoned, 
 forsaken ! They are wicked, they are criminal. I 
 hate them ! I curse them ! I will rise from my coffin 
 to curse them again ! Friends, am I wrong ? They 
 do wrong Oh, what am I saying ? Is Delphine 
 there ? Delphine is good ; but Nasie is so unhappy ! 
 And their money ! Oh, my God ! let me die ! I 
 suffer so ! My head ! my head ! Cut it off, but leave 
 me my heart ! " 
 
 " Christophe ! go for Bianchon," cried Eugene, 
 horror-stricken ; " and bring me a cabriolet I am 
 going to fetch your daughters, dear Pere Goriot. I 
 will bring them to you." 
 
 " Yes, by force, by force ! Get the gendarmes, the 
 troops," he cried. " Tell the Government, the public 
 prosecutor, to send them. I will have them ! " 
 
 " But you cursed them." 
 
 "Who says I did?" answered the old man with 
 amazement. "You know I love them : I adore them. 
 I shall recover if I see them. Yes, go for them, my 
 good friend, my dear son. You have been very kind 
 to me. I wish I could thank you ; but I have nothing 
 to give except the blessing of a dying man. You love 
 your father and mother, I know you do," he con- 
 tinued, pressing the student's hand in his failing grasp. 
 " You feel what it is to die as I am dying, without 
 my children. To be thirsty, and never to drink, that
 
 330 Pere Goriot. 
 
 is how I have lived ten years. My sons-in-law have 
 killed my daughters. I lost them when they married. 
 Fathers ! petition the Chambers for a law against 
 marriage. No more marriages ! they t:;ke our chil- 
 dren from us, and we die desolate. Make a law 
 for the death of fathers ! Oh, this is horrible, hor- 
 rible ! Vengeance ! it is my sons-in-law who keep 
 them away from me ! They assassinate me ! Death, 
 or my daughters ! Ah, it is finished ! I die with- 
 out them ! Fifine ! Nasie ! Fifine ! come ! 
 
 " My good Pere Goriot ! be calm, be still, don't 
 think." 
 
 " Not to see them ! it is the agony of death." 
 
 " You shall see them." 
 
 " Shall I ? " cried the old man, wandering. " See 
 them ? I am to see them, to hear their voices? I shall 
 die happy. Well, yes, I don't ask to live; I don't 
 wish it ; my troubles are too heavy. But, oh, to see 
 them ! to touch their pretty dresses ! it isn't much 
 to smell the fragrance ah ! put my hands upon their 
 hair, will " 
 
 He fell back heavily on his pillow, felled like an ox. 
 His fingers wandered over the coverlet as if searching 
 for his daughters' hair. " I bless them," he said, mak- 
 ing an effort. " I bless " 
 
 He sank unconscious. At this moment Bianchon 
 came in. 
 
 " I met Christophe," he said. " He is bringing you 
 a carriage." Then he looked at the sick man and 
 lifted his eye-lids. Both saw that the power of sight 
 had gone. 
 
 " He won't come out of this ; that is, I think not,"
 
 Pere Goriot. 331 
 
 said Bianchon. He felt the pulse, and laid his hand 
 upon the old man's heart. " The machine is still run- 
 ning, more 's the pity. He had better die." 
 
 " Yes," said Rastignac. 
 
 " What 's the matter with you ? You are as pale as 
 death." 
 
 " Bianchon ! I have been listening to such cries, 
 such anguish ! There is a God. Oh, yes, there is a 
 God ! and he has prepared for us a better world, or this 
 earth would be foolishness. If it were not so tragic 
 I could weep ; my whole being is wrenched." 
 
 "Dear fellow! We shall want several things; 
 where can we get the money 't " 
 
 Rastignac drew out his watch. " Here, pawn this 
 at once. I can't wait a moment. J hear Christophe. 
 I have not a farthing; and shall have to pay the 
 coachman when I get back."
 
 332 Pere Goriot. 
 
 XIX. 
 
 RASTIGNAC ran downstairs and started for the Rue 
 du Helder to find Madame de Restaud. As he drove 
 through the streets, his imagination, excited by the 
 horrors he had witnessed, increased his indignation. 
 When he reached the antechamber and asked for 
 Madame de Restaud, the servants told him she could 
 see no one. 
 
 " But," he said to the footman, " I come from her 
 father, who is dying." 
 
 " Monsieur, we have the strictest orders from Mon- 
 sieur le cotnte 
 
 " If Monsieur de Restaud is at home, tell him the 
 condition of his father-in-law, and say that I beg to 
 see him immediately." 
 
 Eugene waited a long time. " He may be dying at 
 this moment," he thought. 
 
 The footman came back and showed him into the 
 outer salon, where Monsieur de Restaud received him 
 standing, without asking him to sit down, and with 
 his back to a fire-place where there was no fire. 
 
 " Monsieur le comte," said Rastignac, " your father- 
 in-law is dying at this moment in a wretched lodging, 
 without a farthing even to buy fuel. He is about to 
 draw his last breath, and is asking for his daughter." 
 
 "Monsieur," replied the Comte de Restaud, coldly, 
 " you are doubtless aware that I have very little
 
 Pere Groriot. 333 
 
 affection for Monsieur Goriot. He has compromised 
 himself by unseemly transactions with Madame de 
 Restaud ; he is the author of the chief misfortunes of 
 my life ; in him I see the enemy of my domestic hap- 
 piness. I cannot care whether he lives or dies ; to 
 me it is perfectly indifferent. Such are my feelings 
 concerning him. The world may blame me, I de- 
 spise its opinion ; I have matters of far more impor- 
 tance to think of than the opinion of fools or third 
 parties. As for Madame de Kestaud, she is in no con- 
 dition to leave her own house ; nor do I wish her to 
 leave it. You may tell her father that as soon as she 
 has fulfilled the duty she owes to me and to my child, 
 she may go to him. If she loves her father, she can 
 be free to go in a few moments." 
 
 "Monsieur le comte, it is not for me to pass judg- 
 ment on your conduct ; you have the right to deal with 
 your wife as you think best : but I am sure that I can 
 rely upon your word. Will you promise to tell her 
 that her father cannot live another day, and that he 
 has already cursed her because she has not come to 
 him ? " 
 
 " Tell her yourself," said Monsieur de Restaud, 
 struck by the tone of indignation with which Ras- 
 tignac uttered these words. 
 
 Eugene followed the count into the inner room 
 where Madame de Restaud usually sat. They found 
 her bathed in tears, lying back in her chair like a 
 woman who longed to die. Eugene pitied her. Before 
 noticing him, she turned a timid look upon her hus- 
 band, a look which showed how completely she was 
 prostrated, mentally and physically, by the power he
 
 334 P$re Groriot* 
 
 now wielded over her. The count made a sign with his 
 head, which she took as a permission to speak. 
 
 " Monsieur, I have heard all," she said. " Tell my 
 father that if he knew my situation he would forgive 
 me. I did not expect this additional misery : it is 
 more than I have strength to bear. But I will resist 
 to the last," she continued, turning to her husband : " I 
 am a mother. Tell rny father I am not to blame, in 
 spite of appearances," she added, with an accent of 
 despair. 
 
 Rastignac bowed to husband and wife. He could 
 guess through what a trial the woman was passing, 
 and he went away silenced. From Monsieur de Res- 
 taud's tone, he saw that remonstrances were useless ; 
 and he judged that Anastasie herself would not dare 
 to make them. 
 
 He hastened to Madame de Nucingen. 
 
 " I am quite unwell, my poor friend," she said, as 
 he entered. " I took cold coming away from the ball, 
 and I am afraid it may settle on my lungs. I am ex- 
 pecting the doctor 
 
 " If death were on your lips," said Eugene, interrupt- 
 ing her, "you should drag yourself to your father's 
 bedside. He is dying, and he calls for you. If you 
 heard but the least of his cries, you would not fancy 
 yourself ill." 
 
 "Eugene, perhaps my father is not as ill as you 
 think. But I should be in despair if you thought me 
 to blame. I will try to please you. He, I know, 
 would be filled with grief if my illness were made 
 serious by the imprudence of going out to-day. But 
 I will go, after I have seen the doctor. Ah ! what
 
 Pere Groriot. 335 
 
 have you done with your watch ? " she cried, observ- 
 ing that he did not wear the chain. 
 
 Eugene hesitated. 
 
 " Eugene ! Eugene ! if you have sold it, or lost it 
 oh ! it would be very " 
 
 Rastignac leaned over her and said, in a low voice, 
 " Do you wish me to tell you ? Well, know it, then ! 
 Your father has not money to buy the winding-sheet 
 in which they will wrap him this evening. Your 
 watch is in pawn : I had nothing else. 
 
 Delphine sprang up and ran to her writing-table, 
 from which she took her purse and gave it to Ras- 
 tignac. She rang her bell and cried, " I am coming, 
 I am coming, Eugene ! Let me get dressed. Oh, I 
 should be a monster not to go ! Go back ; I will be 
 there before you. Therese," she said, turning to her 
 waiting-maid, " ask Monsieur de Nucingen to come up 
 at once and speak to me." 
 
 Eugene, glad to comfort the dying man with the 
 news that one of his daughters was coming, reached 
 the Rue Neuve Sainte-Genevieve almost in good spirits. 
 When he paid his coachman, he discovered that the 
 purse of this wealthy, elegant, and envied woman con- 
 tained sixty-six francs ! Pere Goriot, supported by 
 Bianchon, was being operated upon by the hospital 
 surgeon, under the superintendence of the chief phy- 
 sician. They were applying the actual cautery, 
 a last resource of science, but in this case wholly 
 ineffectual. 
 
 " Can you feel it ? " asked the physician. 
 
 Pere Goriot, seeing the student enter the room, cried 
 out, " Are they coming ? "
 
 336 Pere Goriot. 
 
 " He may pull through," said the surgeon. " He 
 can speak." 
 
 "Yes," replied Eugene ; " Delphine is on her way." 
 
 " It won't do," said Bianchon ; " he is only talking of 
 his daughters. He cries after them as a man impaled 
 cries, they say, for water." 
 
 " We may as well give it up," said the physician to 
 the surgeon. " There is nothing more to be done ; we 
 cannot save him." 
 
 Bianchon and the surgeon replaced the dying man 
 upon his wretched bed. 
 
 " You had better change the linen," said the physi- 
 cian. "There is no hope; but something is always 
 due to human nature. I will come back, Bianchon," 
 he said to his pupil. " If he seems to suffer, put lau- 
 danum on the diaphragm." 
 
 The surgeon and physician went away. 
 
 " Come, Eugene, courage, my lad ! " said Bianchon 
 when they were left alone. "We must put on a clean 
 shirt, and change the bed. Go down and ask Sylvie to 
 bring up some sheets and stop and help us." 
 
 Eugene went down and found Madame Vauquer 
 helping Sylvie to set the dinner-table. At his first 
 words the widow came up to him with the sour civility 
 of a shopkeeper doubtful about the payment, yet un- 
 willing to lose a customer. 
 
 " My dear Monsieur Eugene," she said, " you know 
 as well as I do that Pere Goriot has not a sou. To 
 furnish sheets to a man just giving up the ghost is 
 throwing them away, one of them at least must be 
 sacrificed for the winding-sheet. Besides this, you owe 
 me one hundred and forty-four francs ; add forty francs
 
 Pre Croriot. 337 
 
 for the sheets and some other little things, including the 
 candles, which Sylvie will give you, and it mounts 
 up to not less than two hundred francs ; a sum which a 
 poor widow like me cannot afford to lose. Come ! do 
 me justice, Monsieur Eugene. I have lost enough the 
 last few days since ill-luck got hold of me. I would 
 have given five louis if the old man had gone away 
 when he gave notice. My lodgers don't like this sort 
 of thing. It would not take much to make me even 
 now send him off to the hospital. Put yourself in my 
 place. My establishment is the chief thing to me, of 
 course. It is my support, my all." 
 
 Eugene ran up swiftly to Pere Goriot's chamber. 
 " The money for the watch, Bianchon, where is it ?" 
 
 "On the table. You will find three hundred and 
 sixty-odd francs left. I have paid all we owe. The 
 pawn ticket is under the money." 
 
 " Here Madame," said Rastignac, rushing headlong 
 down the staircase, " let us settle our accounts. Mon- 
 sieur Goriot will not long be with you, and I " 
 
 " Yes, he will go out feet foremost, poor old man," 
 she said, counting up her two hundred francs with an 
 air of complacent melancholy. 
 
 " Let us make an end of this," cried Rastignac. 
 
 " Sylvie, give out the sheets, and go and help the 
 gentlemen upstairs. You will not forget Sylvie," 
 whispered Madame Vauquer to Eugene. " She has 
 sat up two nights, you know." 
 
 As soon as Eugene's back was turned, the old woman 
 ran after her cook. " Take the sheets that have been 
 turned, Sylvie, No. 7. Good enough for a corpse," 
 she whispered. 
 
 22
 
 338 Pere Goriot. 
 
 Eugene being already half way up the stairs did not 
 hear his landlady's words. 
 
 " Now, then," said Bianchon, " we will change his 
 shirt. Hold him up." 
 
 Eugene went to the head of the bed and supported 
 Pere Goriot, while Bianchon drew off his shirt. The 
 old man made a gesture as if to grasp something on 
 his breast, uttering plaintive inarticulate cries, like an 
 animal in pain. 
 
 " Oh ! oh ! " said Bianchon, " he wants a little hair- 
 chain and locket which we took off when we applied 
 the fire. Poor old man ! Put it around his neck 
 again; it is on the chimney-piece." 
 
 Eugene took up the little chain, made of a tress of 
 chestnut hair, which was doubtless Madame Goriot's. 
 Attached to it was a locket, with the names " Anas- 
 tasie " on one side and " Delphine " on the other ; fit 
 emblem of his constant heart, it lay upon that heart 
 continually. The curls in the locket were so fine that 
 they must have been cut off when the little girls were 
 infants. As Eugene replaced the trinket on his breast 
 the old man gave a long-drawn sigh of relief, heart- 
 breaking to hear. It was well-nigh the final echo of his 
 living emotions, as they drew in to the unknown centre 
 from which spring and to which return our human sym- 
 pathies. His face, much distorted, wore an unnatural 
 expression of joy. The two young men, deeply moved 
 by this sudden explosion of a feeling which had out- 
 lived the power of thought, let fall hot tears, which 
 touched the face of the dying man. He uttered a 
 piercing cry of pleasure. 
 
 " Nasie ! Fifine ! " he exclaimed.
 
 Pere Goriot. 339 
 
 " He is still living," said Bianchon. 
 
 " What 's the use of that ? " said Sylvie. 
 
 " To suffer," replied Rastignac. 
 
 Making Eugene a sign to do as he did, Bianchon 
 knelt down beside the bed to pass his arms beneath the 
 sick man's knees, while Rastignac on the other side did 
 the same, supporting the shoulders. Sylvie stood by 
 to draw the sheet as the weight was raised, and slip 
 through one of those she had brought up with her. 
 Misled no doubt by the tears that he had felt upon his 
 face, Pere Goriot used his last strength to stretch out 
 his hands on either side of the bed and grasped the 
 hair of the two students, muttering feebly, " Ah, my 
 angels ! " two words sighed forth by the spirit as it 
 took its flight. 
 
 " Poor, dear man ! " said Sylvie, much affected by this 
 exclamation, the utterance of the ever-dominant pas- 
 sion drawn forth by an involuntary deception. The 
 last conscious sigh of the unhappy father was a sigh of 
 joy. It expressed his whole life, delusion ; deluded 
 even in death ! They laid him gently back upon the 
 wretched pallet, and from that moment his face showed 
 only fluctuations between life and death, the move- 
 ments of the machinery no longer guided by the brain, 
 in which alone resides the consciousness of human joy 
 and misery. 
 
 " He will lie as he is for some hours, and die so qui- 
 etly that no one will perceive when the end comes. 
 There will be no rattle in his throat. His brain has 
 ceased to act," said Bianchon. 
 
 At this moment they heard the rapid footsteps of a 
 young woman.
 
 340 Pere Goriot. 
 
 "It is Delphine," said Rastignac; "she comes too 
 late." 
 
 It was not Delphine, but Therese, her waiting- 
 woman. 
 
 " Monsieur Eugene," she said, " there has been an 
 angry scene between Monsieur and Madame, about 
 some money Madame asked for, for her father. She 
 fainted away ; the doctor came and bled her. She kept 
 saying, ' Papa is dying, I must go to him ! ' Her cries 
 were enough to break one's heart." 
 
 " That will do, Therese. Her coming would be su- 
 perfluous now. Monsieur Goriot has lost conscious- 
 ness." 
 
 " Poor, dear Monsieur ! is he so bad as that ? " said 
 Therese. 
 
 " You don't want me any more; I must go and see 
 after my dinner. It is half-past five now," said Sylvie, 
 who as she went downstairs nearly fell over Madame 
 de Restaud. 
 
 The countess glided into the death-chamber like an 
 apparition. She gazed at the bed by the light of the 
 one poor candle, and shed tears as she looked down 
 upon' the face of her dying father, where the last flicker- 
 ings of life still quivered. Bianchon left the room, out 
 of respect for her feelings. 
 
 " I could not escape soon enough," she said to 
 Rastignac. 
 
 The student sadly shook his head to imply that this 
 was time. Madame de Restaud took her father's hand 
 and kissed it. 
 
 " Forgive me, oh, my Father ! " she exclaimed. " You 
 used to say that my voice would call you from the
 
 Pre G-oriot. 341 
 
 tomb. Come back to life one moment to bless your 
 repentant daughter! Oh, hear me ! This is dread- 
 ful! Your blessing is the only one I can hope for 
 here below. All hate me; you alone in this wide 
 world can love me. My children will abhor me. Oh, 
 take me with you ! I will love you ; I will wait upon 
 you He does not hear me. I am mad " 
 
 She fell upon her knees, gazing at the wreck before 
 her. 
 
 " My cup of misery is full," she cried, looking up at 
 Eugene. " Monsieur de Trailles has gone, leaving enor- 
 mous debts behind him, and I now know that he 
 deceived me all along. My husband can never forgive 
 me ; I have made over to him the disposal of my for- 
 tune ; my children are destitute. Alas ! for what, for 
 whom, have I betrayed the only faithful heart that 
 loved me ? I did not understand him ; I cast him off ; 
 I did so many cruel things to him Oh, wicked 
 woman that I am ! " 
 
 " He knew it," said Rastignac. 
 
 At that moment Pere Goriot opened his eyes ; but 
 the movement was only convulsive and involuntary. 
 The gesture by which his daughter showed her hope 
 of recognition was not less terrible to witness than his 
 dull, dying eyes. 
 
 " Can he not hear me ? " she cried. " Ah, no ! " she 
 added after a pause, sitting down beside the bed. 
 
 As she expressed the wish to watch him, Eugene 
 went downstairs to take some food. The guests 
 were all assembled in the salon. 
 
 " Well," said the painter, " so we are to have a little 
 death-orama upstairs ? "
 
 342 Pere G-oriot. 
 
 "Charles," said Eugene, "choose some less melan- 
 choly subject to joke upon." 
 
 " Dear me ! is it forbidden to laugh under this roof ? 
 What does it matter? Bianchon says the old fellow 
 has lost his senses." 
 
 " If that is so," said the employe, " he will die as he 
 lived." 
 
 " My father is dead ! " shrieked Madame de Restaud. 
 Rastignac and Bianchon ran upstairs, where they found 
 her fainting on the floor. After bringing her back 
 to consciousness, Eugene took her down to the hack- 
 ney coach in which she had come, and consigned her 
 to Therese, with orders to take her to Madame de 
 Nucingen. 
 
 "Yes, he is quite dead," said Bianchon, coming down 
 again. 
 
 " Come, gentlemen, sit down to table," said Madame 
 Vauquer. " The soup is getting cold." 
 
 The two students took their places by each other. 
 
 "What is to be done next?" said Eugene to 
 Bianchon. 
 
 "I have closed his eyes, and composed him properly. 
 When the doctor from the Mayor's office has certified 
 to the death, which we will report at once, he will be 
 sewn up in a sheet and buried. Where do you mean 
 to put him?" 
 
 " He will never sniff his bread any more, like this," 
 said one of the guests, mimicking the trick of the poor 
 old man. 
 
 " The devil ! gentlemen," cried the tutor, " do leave 
 Pere Goriot alone. We don't want any more of him. 
 You have served him up with every kind of sauce for
 
 Pere, Gioriot. 343 
 
 the last hour. One of the privileges of this good city 
 of Paris is that you can come into the world, live in 
 it and go out of it, and nobody will pay any atten- 
 tion to you. Avail yourselves of the advantages of 
 civilization. According to statistics, sixty persons 
 have died in Paris this very day. Are we called 
 upon to weep over Parisian hecatombs? If Pere 
 Goriot is dead, so much the better for him. If you 
 were all so fond of him, you can go and keep watch 
 beside him ; but leave the rest of us to eat our dinners 
 in peace." 
 
 " Oh, yes," said the widow. " It is much better for 
 him that he is dead. It seems the poor man has had 
 plenty of troubles all his life long." 
 
 This was the only funeral oration pronounced over a 
 being who in the eyes of Rastignac was the incarna- 
 tion of Fatherhood. 
 
 The fifteen guests began to talk about other things. 
 "When Eugene and Bianchon had finished eating, the 
 clatter of knives and forks, the laughter, the jests, the 
 various expressions on the callous, greedy faces round 
 the table struck them with horror. They went in 
 search of a priest to watch and pray during the night 
 beside the dead. It was necessary to calculate the 
 last duties they could render to their poor old friend 
 by the slender sum they had to spend. About nine 
 o'clock in the evening the body was placed on a 
 bier between two tallow candles, in the centre of the 
 wretched chamber ; and a pi-iest came to watch beside 
 it. Before going to bed, Rastignac, who had obtained 
 information from the ecclesiastic as to burial fees and 
 the cost of funeral rites, wrote to the Baron de Nucin-
 
 344 Pere Goriot. 
 
 gen and the Comte de Restaud, asking them to send 
 their men of business with orders to provide for a 
 suitable interment. He sent Christophe with these 
 notes, and then went to his own bed and slept, worn 
 out with fatigue. 
 
 The next morning Bianchon and Rastignac were 
 forced to go themselves and declare the death, which 
 was certified to officially by midday. Two hours 
 passed ; neither of the sons-in-law sent money, nor 
 did any one appear who was authorized to act in their 
 names. Rastignac had already been obliged to pay 
 the priest, and Sylvie having demanded ten francs for 
 sewing the corpse in its winding-sheet, Rastignac and 
 Bianchon came to the conclusion that as the relatives 
 would do nothing, they had barely enough money to 
 provide the cheapest funeral. The medical student 
 undertook to place the body himself in a pauper's cof- 
 fin, which he sent from the hospital, where he could 
 buy it for less cost than elsewhere. 
 
 "Play a trick upon those people, they deserve 
 it," he said to Rastignac. '-'Buy a grave for five 
 years in Pere-La-Chaise, and order a third-class fu- 
 neral service at the Church, and from the Pompes- 
 Funebres, and send the bills to the family. If the 
 sons-in-law and the daughters don't choose to pay it, 
 we will have engraved upon his tombstone, ' Here lies 
 Monsieur Goriot, father of the Comtesse de Restaud 
 and the Baronne de Nucingen. Buried at the expense 
 of two students.' " 
 
 Eugene did not take his friend's advice until he 
 had been, but in vain, to Monsieur and Madame de 
 Nucingen's house and to Monsieur and Madame de
 
 Pere Goriot. 345 
 
 Restaud's. He could not gain admittance. Both 
 porters had strict orders. 
 
 " Monsieur and Madame," they said, " receive no 
 one : they are in deep affliction, owing to the death of 
 their father." 
 
 Eugene had had enough experience of Parisian life 
 to know that it was useless to persist further. He was 
 greatly wounded when he found that he could not see 
 Delphine. " Sell a necklace," he wrote in the porter's 
 lodge, " that your father may be decently consigned to 
 his last resting-place." 
 
 He sealed the note, and begged the porter to give it 
 to Therese for her mistress; but the man gave it to 
 the Baron de Nucingen, who put it in the fire. 
 
 Having made all his arrangements, Eugene came 
 back a little after three o'clock to the Maison Vauquer, 
 and could not help shedding tears when he saw the 
 bier at the iron gate, scantily covered with black cloth 
 and placed upon two chairs in the lonely street. An 
 old holy-water sprinkler, which no hand had yet 
 touched, lay beside it in a plated copper vessel full 
 of holy water. The gateway was not even hung 
 with black. It was a pauper funeral, no pomp, no 
 attendants, no friends, no relatives. Bianchon, whose 
 duties kept him at the Hospital, had left a note for 
 Rastignac to let him know what arrangements he had 
 made for the Church services. He told him that a 
 Mass could not be had for the sum they were able to 
 pay ; that they must put up with a less costly service 
 at vespers ; and that he had sent Christophe to notify 
 the Pompes-Funebres.
 
 346 Pere Goriot. 
 
 As Rastignac finished reading Bianchon's scrawl, he 
 saw in Madame Vauquer's hands the gold locket which 
 had lain upon the old man's heart. , 
 
 " How dared you take that ? " he said to her. 
 
 " Bless me ! " cried Sylvie, " did you mean to bury 
 him with that ? Why, it 's gold." 
 
 " Yes," answered Eugene indignantly. '-' Let him at 
 least take with him to the grave the only thing that 
 represents his daughters." 
 
 When the hearse came, Eugene ordered the coffin 
 to be taken back into the house, where he unscrewed 
 the nails, and reverently placed upon the old man's 
 heart that relic of the days when Delphine and Anas- 
 tasie had been young and pure, and " did not reason," 
 as he had said in his dying moments. 
 
 Rastignac and Christophe and two of the under- 
 taker's men were all who accompanied the hearse 
 which carried the poor man to the nearest church, 
 Saint-Etienne du Mont, not far from the Rue Neuve 
 Sainte-Genevieve. There the corpse was placed in 
 a little chapel, low and dark, round which the student 
 looked in vain for the daughters of Pere Goriot or their 
 husbands. He was alone with Christophe, who thought 
 himself under an obligation to pay the last duties to a 
 man who had been the means of procui-ing for him 
 many large pour-boires. While waiting for the two 
 officiating priests, the choir-boy, and the beadle, Rastig- 
 nac pressed Christophe's hand, but could not speak. 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur Eugene," said Christophe, " he was 
 a good and honest man ; he never said an angry word ; 
 he never tried to injure any one ; he never did an un- 
 kind thing."
 
 P$re Goriot. 347 
 
 The two priests, the acolyte, and the beadle came 
 and gave all that could be had for seventy francs in an 
 epoch when religion is too poor to pray for nothing. 
 The clergy sang a psalm, the Libera, and the De 
 profundis. The service lasted twenty minutes. There 
 was only one mourning-coach, intended for the priest 
 and the choir-boy ; but they allowed Rastignac and 
 Christophe to go with them. 
 
 " As there is no procession," said the priest, " we can 
 go fast, so as not to be late. It is half-past five now." 
 
 However, just as the coffin was replaced in the 
 hearse two carriages with armorial bearings, but empty 
 (those of the Comte de Restaud and the Baron de Nu- 
 cingen), made their appearance and followed the funeral 
 to Pere-La-Chaise. At six o'clock the body of Pere 
 Goriot was lowered into its grave, round which stood 
 the footmen of his daughters, who disappeared with 
 the clergy as soon as a short prayer all that could 
 be given for the student's money was over. "When 
 the two grave-diggers had thrown a few shovelsful of 
 earth upon the coffin they came out of the grave, and 
 turning to Rastignac asked him for their drink-money. 
 Eugene felt in his pockets, but nothing was there. He 
 had to borrow a franc from Christophe. This cir- 
 cumstance, trivial in itself, produced in his mind a 
 horrible depression. Day was departing ; a damp mist 
 irritated his nerves. He looked down into the grave 
 and buried there the last tear of his young manhood, 
 a last tear springing from the sacred emotions of a pure 
 heart, which from the earth on which it fell exhaled to 
 heaven. He folded his arms and stood gazing upward 
 at the clouds. Seeing him thus, Christophe went away.
 
 348 Pere Croriot. 
 
 Left alone, Rastignac walked a few steps until he 
 reached the highest part of the cemetery, and saw 
 Paris as it lies along the winding shores of the Seine. 
 Lights were beginning to glitter in the gathering dark- 
 ness. His eyes turned eagerly to the space between 
 the column of the Place Vendome and the dome of the 
 Invalides. There lived that world of fashion which 
 it had been his dream to enter. He gave the hum- 
 ming hive a look that seemed to suck it of its honey, 
 and then he cried aloud, " War ! war between us, 
 henceforth ! " 
 
 And as a first act of hostility to Society, Rastignac 
 went to dine with Madame de Nucingen. 
 
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