That day had gone by like a dream for Eugene, and the sense of unreality
lasted into the evening; so that, in spite of his energetic character
and clear-headedness, his ideas were a chaos as he sat beside Goriot in
the cab. The old man’s voice was full of unwonted happiness, but Eugene
had been shaken by so many emotions that the words sounded in his ears
like words spoken in a dream.
“It was finished this morning! All three of us are going to dine
there together, together! Do you understand? I have not dined with my
Delphine, my little Delphine, these four years, and I shall have her
for a whole evening! We have been at your lodging the whole time since
morning. I have been working like a porter in my shirt sleeves, helping
to carry in the furniture. Aha! you don’t know what pretty ways she
has; at table she will look after me, ‘Here, papa, just try this, it is
nice.’ And I shall not be able to eat. Oh, it is a long while since I
have been with her in quiet every-day life as we shall have her.”
“It really seems as if the world has been turned upside down.”
“Upside down?” repeated Father Goriot. “Why, the world has never been so
right-side up. I see none but smiling faces in the streets, people who
shake hands cordially and embrace each other, people who all look as
happy as if they were going to dine with their daughter, and gobble down
a nice little dinner that she went with me to order of the chef at the
Cafe des Anglais. But, pshaw! with her beside you gall and wormwood
would be as sweet as honey.”
“I feel as if I were coming back to life again,” said Eugene.
“Why, hurry up there!” cried Father Goriot, letting down the window in
front. “Get on faster; I will give you five francs if you get to the
place I told you of in ten minutes time.”
With this prospect before him the cabman crossed Paris with miraculous
celerity.
“How that fellow crawls!” said Father Goriot.
“But where are you taking me?” Eugene asked him.
“To your own house,” said Goriot.
The cab stopped in the Rue d’Artois. Father Goriot stepped out first and
flung ten francs to the man with the recklessness of a widower returning
to bachelor ways.
“Come along upstairs,” he said to Rastignac. They crossed a courtyard,
and climbed up to the third floor of a new and handsome house. There
they stopped before a door; but before Goriot could ring, it was opened
by Therese, Mme. de Nucingen’s maid. Eugene found himself in a charming
set of chambers; an ante-room, a little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a
study, looking out upon a garden. The furniture and the decorations of
the little drawing-room were of the most daintily charming description,
the room was full of soft light, and Delphine rose up from a low chair
by the fire and stood before him. She set her fire-screen down on the
chimney-piece, and spoke with tenderness in every tone of her voice.
“So we had to go in search of you, sir, you who are so slow to
understand!”
Therese left the room. The student took Delphine in his arms and held
her in a tight clasp, his eyes filled with tears of joy. This last
contrast between his present surroundings and the scenes he had just
witnessed was too much for Rastignac’s over-wrought nerves, after the
day’s strain and excitement that had wearied heart and brain; he was
almost overcome by it.
“I felt sure myself that he loved you,” murmured Father Goriot, while
Eugene lay back bewildered on the sofa, utterly unable to speak a word
or to reason out how and why the magic wand had been waved to bring
about this final transformation scene.
“But you must see your rooms,” said Mme. de Nucingen. She took his hand
and led him into a room carpeted and furnished like her own; indeed,
down to the smallest details, it was a reproduction in miniature of
Delphine’s apartment.
“There is no bed,” said Rastignac.
“No, monsieur,” she answered, reddening, and pressing his hand. Eugene,
looking at her, understood, young though he yet was, how deeply modesty
is implanted in the heart of a woman who loves.
“You are one of those beings whom we cannot choose but to adore for
ever,” he said in her ear. “Yes, the deeper and truer love is, the more
mysterious and closely veiled it should be; I can dare to say so, since
we understand each other so well. No one shall learn our secret.”
“Oh! so I am nobody, I suppose,” growled the father.
“You know quite well that ‘we’ means you.”
“Ah! that is what I wanted. You will not mind me, will you? I shall go
and come like a good fairy who makes himself felt everywhere without
being seen, shall I not? Eh, Delphinette, Ninette, Dedel--was it not a
good idea of mine to say to you, ‘There are some nice rooms to let in
the Rue d’Artois; let us furnish them for him?’ And she would not hear
of it! Ah! your happiness has been all my doing. I am the author of your
happiness and of your existence. Fathers must always be giving if they
would be happy themselves; always giving--they would not be fathers
else.”
“Was that how it happened?” asked Eugene.
“Yes. She would not listen to me. She was afraid that people would
talk, as if the rubbish that they say about you were to be compared with
happiness! Why, all women dream of doing what she has done----”
Father Goriot found himself without an audience, for Mme. de Nucingen
had led Rastignac into the study; he heard a kiss given and taken, low
though the sound was.
The study was furnished as elegantly as the other rooms, and nothing was
wanting there.
“Have we guessed your wishes rightly?” she asked, as they returned to
the drawing-room for dinner.
“Yes,” he said, “only too well, alas! For all this luxury so well
carried out, this realization of pleasant dreams, the elegance that
satisfies all the romantic fancies of youth, appeals to me so strongly
that I cannot but feel that it is my rightful possession, but I cannot
accept it from you, and I am too poor as yet to----”
“Ah! ah! you say me nay already,” she said with arch imperiousness,
and a charming little pout of the lips, a woman’s way of laughing away
scruples.
But Eugene had submitted so lately to that solemn self-questioning, and
Vautrin’s arrest had so plainly shown him the depths of the pit that lay
ready to his feet, that the instincts of generosity and honor had been
strengthened in him, and he could not allow himself to be coaxed into
abandoning his high-minded determinations. Profound melancholy filled
his mind.
“Do you really mean to refuse?” said Mme. de Nucingen. “And do you know
what such a refusal means? That you are not sure of yourself, that you
do not dare to bind yourself to me. Are you really afraid of betraying
my affection? If you love me, if I--love you, why should you shrink back
from such a slight obligation? If you but knew what a pleasure it has
been to see after all the arrangements of this bachelor establishment,
you would not hesitate any longer, you would ask me to forgive you for
your hesitation. I had some money that belonged to you, and I have made
good use of it, that is all. You mean this for magnanimity, but it is
very little of you. You are asking me for far more than this.... Ah!”
she cried, as Eugene’s passionate glance was turned on her, “and you are
making difficulties about the merest trifles. Of, if you feel no love
whatever for me, refuse, by all means. My fate hangs on a word from you.
Speak!--Father,” she said after a pause, “make him listen to reason. Can
he imagine that I am less nice than he is on the point of honor?”
Father Goriot was looking on and listening to this pretty quarrel with a
placid smile, as if he had found some balm for all the sorrows of life.
“Child that you are!” she cried again, catching Eugene’s hand. “You are
just beginning life; you find barriers at the outset that many a man
finds insurmountable; a woman’s hand opens the way and you shrink back!
Why, you are sure to succeed! You will have a brilliant future. Success
is written on that broad forehead of yours, and will you not be able to
repay me my loan of to-day? Did not a lady in olden times arm her knight
with sword and helmet and coat of mail, and find him a charger, so that
he might fight for her in the tournament? Well, then, Eugene, these
things that I offer you are the weapons of this age; every one who
means to be something must have such tools as these. A pretty place your
garret must be if it is like papa’s room! See, dinner is waiting all
this time. Do you want to make me unhappy?--Why don’t you answer?” she
said, shaking his hand. “_Mon Dieu!_ papa, make up his mind for him, or
I will go away and never see him any more.”
“I will make up your mind,” said Goriot, coming down from the clouds.
“Now, my dear M. Eugene, the next thing is to borrow money of the Jews,
isn’t it?”
“There is positively no help for it,” said Eugene.
“All right, I will give you credit,” said the other, drawing out a cheap
leather pocket-book, much the worse for wear. “I have turned Jew myself;
I paid for everything; here are the invoices. You do not owe a penny
for anything here. It did not come to very much--five thousand francs at
most, and I am going to lend you the money myself. I am not a woman--you
can refuse me. You shall give me a receipt on a scrap of paper, and you
can return it some time or other.”
Delphine and Eugene looked at each other in amazement, tears sprang to
their eyes. Rastignac held out his hand and grasped Goriot’s warmly.
“Well, what is all this about? Are you not my children?”
“Oh! my poor father,” said Mme. de Nucingen, “how did you do it?”
“Ah! now you ask me. When I made up my mind to move him nearer to you,
and saw you buying things as if they were wedding presents, I said to
myself, ‘She will never be able to pay for them.’ The attorney says that
those law proceedings will last quite six months before your husband can
be made to disgorge your fortune. Well and good. I sold out my property
in the funds that brought in thirteen hundred and fifty livres a year,
and bought a safe annuity of twelve hundred francs a year for fifteen
thousand francs. Then I paid your tradesmen out of the rest of the
capital. As for me, children, I have a room upstairs for which I pay
fifty crowns a year; I can live like a prince on two francs a day, and
still have something left over. I shall not have to spend anything much
on clothes, for I never wear anything out. This fortnight past I have
been laughing in my sleeve, thinking to myself, ‘How happy they are
going to be!’ and--well, now, are you not happy?”
“Oh papa! papa!” cried Mme. de Nucingen, springing to her father, who
took her on his knee. She covered him with kisses, her fair hair brushed
his cheek, her tears fell on the withered face that had grown so bright
and radiant.
“Dear father, what a father you are! No, there is not another father
like you under the sun. If Eugene loved you before, what must he feel
for you now?”
“Why, children, why Delphinette!” cried Goriot, who had not felt his
daughter’s heart beat against his breast for ten years, “do you want me
to die of joy? My poor heart will break! Come, Monsieur Eugene, we are
quits already.” And the old man strained her to his breast with such
fierce and passionate force that she cried out.
“Oh! you are hurting me!” she said.
“I am hurting you!” He grew pale at the words. The pain expressed in his
face seemed greater than it is given to humanity to know. The agony of
this Christ of paternity can only be compared with the masterpieces of
those princes of the palette who have left for us the record of their
visions of an agony suffered for a whole world by the Saviour of men.
Father Goriot pressed his lips very gently against the waist than his
fingers had grasped too roughly.
“Oh! no, no,” he cried. “I have not hurt you, have I?” and his smile
seemed to repeat the question. “YOU have hurt me with that cry just
now.--The things cost rather more than that,” he said in her ear, with
another gentle kiss, “but I had to deceive him about it, or he would
have been angry.”
Eugene sat dumb with amazement in the presence of this inexhaustible
love; he gazed at Goriot, and his face betrayed the artless admiration
which shapes the beliefs of youth.
“I will be worthy of all this,” he cried.
“Oh! my Eugene, that is nobly said,” and Mme. de Nucingen kissed the law
student on the forehead.
“He gave up Mlle. Taillefer and her millions for you,” said Father
Goriot. “Yes, the little thing was in love with you, and now that her
brother is dead she is as rich as Croesus.”
“Oh! why did you tell her?” cried Rastignac.
“Eugene,” Delphine said in his ear, “I have one regret now this evening.
Ah! how I will love you! and for ever!”
“This is the happiest day I have had since you two were married!” cried
Goriot. “God may send me any suffering, so long as I do not suffer
through you, and I can still say, ‘In this short month of February I had
more happiness than other men have in their whole lives.’--Look at me,
Fifine!” he said to his daughter. “She is very beautiful, is she not?
Tell me, now, have you seen many women with that pretty soft color--that
little dimple of hers? No, I thought not. Ah, well, and but for me this
lovely woman would never have been. And very soon happiness will make
her a thousand times lovelier, happiness through you. I could give up
my place in heaven to you, neighbor, if needs be, and go down to hell
instead. Come, let us have dinner,” he added, scarcely knowing what he
said, “everything is ours.”
“Poor dear father!”
He rose and went over to her, and took her face in his hands, and set a
kiss on the plaits of hair. “If you only knew, little one, how happy you
can make me--how little it takes to make me happy! Will you come and see
me sometimes? I shall be just above, so it is only a step. Promise me,
say that you will!”
“Yes, dear father.”
“Say it again.”
“Yes, I will, my kind father.”
“Hush! hush! I should make you say it a hundred times over if I followed
my own wishes. Let us have dinner.”
The three behaved like children that evening, and Father Goriot’s
spirits were certainly not the least wild. He lay at his daughter’s
feet, kissed them, gazed into her eyes, rubbed his head against her
dress; in short, no young lover could have been more extravagant or more
tender.
“You see!” Delphine said with a look at Eugene, “so long as my father is
with us, he monopolizes me. He will be rather in the way sometimes.”
Eugene had himself already felt certain twinges of jealousy, and could
not blame this speech that contained the germ of all ingratitude.
“And when will the rooms be ready?” asked Eugene, looking round. “We
must all leave them this evening, I suppose.”
“Yes, but to-morrow you must come and dine with me,” she answered, with
an eloquent glance. “It is our night at the Italiens.”
“I shall go to the pit,” said her father.
It was midnight. Mme. de Nucingen’s carriage was waiting for her, and
Father Goriot and the student walked back to the Maison Vauquer, talking
of Delphine, and warming over their talk till there grew up a curious
rivalry between the two violent passions. Eugene could not help seeing
that the father’s self-less love was deeper and more steadfast than
his own. For this worshiper Delphine was always pure and fair, and her
father’s adoration drew its fervor from a whole past as well as a future
of love.
They found Mme. Vauquer by the stove, with Sylvie and Christophe to keep
her company; the old landlady, sitting like Marius among the ruins of
Carthage, was waiting for the two lodgers that yet remained to her, and
bemoaning her lot with the sympathetic Sylvie. Tasso’s lamentations as
recorded in Byron’s poem are undoubtedly eloquent, but for sheer force
of truth they fall far short of the widow’s cry from the depths.
“Only three cups of coffee in the morning, Sylvie! Oh dear! to have your
house emptied in this way is enough to break your heart. What is life,
now my lodgers are gone? Nothing at all. Just think of it! It is just as
if all the furniture had been taken out of the house, and your furniture
is your life. How have I offended heaven to draw down all this trouble
upon me? And haricot beans and potatoes laid in for twenty people!
The police in my house too! We shall have to live on potatoes now, and
Christophe will have to go!”
The Savoyard, who was fast asleep, suddenly woke up at this, and said,
“Madame,” questioningly.
“Poor fellow!” said Sylvie, “he is like a dog.”
“In the dead season, too! Nobody is moving now. I would like to know
where the lodgers are to drop down from. It drives me distracted. And
that old witch of a Michonneau goes and takes Poiret with her! What can
she have done to make him so fond of her? He runs about after her like a
little dog.”
“Lord!” said Sylvie, flinging up her head, “those old maids are up to
all sorts of tricks.”
“There’s that poor M. Vautrin that they made out to be a convict,” the
widow went on. “Well, you know that is too much for me, Sylvie; I
can’t bring myself to believe it. Such a lively man as he was, and paid
fifteen francs a month for his coffee of an evening, paid you very penny
on the nail too.”
“And open-handed he was!” said Christophe.
“There is some mistake,” said Sylvie.
“Why, no there isn’t! he said so himself!” said Mme. Vauquer. “And to
think that all these things have happened in my house, and in a quarter
where you never see a cat go by. On my word as an honest woman, it’s
like a dream. For, look here, we saw Louis XVI. meet with his mishap;
we saw the fall of the Emperor; and we saw him come back and fall again;
there was nothing out of the way in all that, but lodging-houses are not
liable to revolutions. You can do without a king, but you must eat all
the same; and so long as a decent woman, a de Conflans born and bred,
will give you all sorts of good things for dinner, nothing short of the
end of the world ought to--but there, it is the end of the world, that
is just what it is!”
“And to think that Mlle. Michonneau who made all this mischief is to
have a thousand crowns a year for it, so I hear,” cried Sylvie.
“Don’t speak of her, she is a wicked woman!” said Mme. Vauquer. “She
is going to the Buneaud, who charges less than cost. But the Buneaud
is capable of anything; she must have done frightful things, robbed
and murdered people in her time. _She_ ought to be put in jail for life
instead of that poor dear----”
Eugene and Goriot rang the door-bell at that moment.
“Ah! here are my two faithful lodgers,” said the widow, sighing.
But the two faithful lodgers, who retained but shadowy recollections
of the misfortunes of their lodging-house, announced to their hostess
without more ado that they were about to remove to the Chaussee d’Antin.
“Sylvie!” cried the widow, “this is the last straw.--Gentlemen, this
will be the death of me! It has quite upset me! There’s a weight on my
chest! I am ten years older for this day! Upon my word, I shall go out
of my senses! And what is to be done with the haricots!--Oh, well, if
I am to be left here all by myself, you shall go to-morrow,
Christophe.--Good-night, gentlemen,” and she went.
“What is the matter now?” Eugene inquired of Sylvie.
“Lord! everybody is going about his business, and that has addled her
wits. There! she is crying upstairs. It will do her good to snivel a
bit. It’s the first time she has cried since I’ve been with her.”
By the morning, Mme. Vauquer, to use her own expression, had “made up
her mind to it.” True, she still wore a doleful countenance, as might
be expected of a woman who had lost all her lodgers, and whose manner
of life had been suddenly revolutionized, but she had all her wits about
her. Her grief was genuine and profound; it was real pain of mind, for
her purse had suffered, the routine of her existence had been broken. A
lover’s farewell glance at his lady-love’s window is not more mournful
than Mme. Vauquer’s survey of the empty places round her table. Eugene
administered comfort, telling the widow that Bianchon, whose term of
residence at the hospital was about to expire, would doubtless take
his (Rastignac’s) place; that the official from the Museum had often
expressed a desire to have Mme. Couture’s rooms; and that in a very few
days her household would be on the old footing.
“God send it may, my dear sir! but bad luck has come to lodge here.
There’ll be a death in the house before ten days are out, you’ll see,”
and she gave a lugubrious look round the dining-room. “Whose turn will
it be, I wonder?”
“It is just as well that we are moving out,” said Eugene to Father
Goriot in a low voice.
“Madame,” said Sylvie, running in with a scared face, “I have not seen
Mistigris these three days.”
“Ah! well, if my cat is dead, if _he_ has gone and left us, I----”
The poor woman could not finish her sentence; she clasped her hands
and hid her face on the back of her armchair, quite overcome by this
dreadful portent.
By twelve o’clock, when the postman reaches that quarter, Eugene
received a letter. The dainty envelope bore the Beauseant arms on the
seal, and contained an invitation to the Vicomtesse’s great ball, which
had been talked of in Paris for a month. A little note for Eugene was
slipped in with the card.
