Father Goriot
disgracefully. If, at a woman’s utmost need, _somebody_ heaps gold upon
her, he ought never to forsake her; that love should last for ever!
But you, at one-and-twenty, you, the soul of honor, with the unsullied
conscience of youth, will ask me how a woman can bring herself to accept
money in such a way? _Mon Dieu_! is it not natural to share everything
with the one to whom we owe our happiness? When all has been given, why
should we pause and hesitate over a part? Money is as nothing between
us until the moment when the sentiment that bound us together ceases to
exist. Were we not bound to each other for life? Who that believes in
love foresees such an end to love? You swear to love us eternally; how,
then, can our interests be separate?
“You do not know how I suffered to-day when Nucingen refused to give
me six thousand francs; he spends as much as that every month on his
mistress, an opera dancer! I thought of killing myself. The wildest
thoughts came into my head. There have been moments in my life when I
have envied my servants, and would have changed places with my maid. It
was madness to think of going to our father, Anastasie and I have bled
him dry; our poor father would have sold himself if he could have raised
six thousand francs that way. I should have driven him frantic to no
purpose. You have saved me from shame and death; I was beside myself
with anguish. Ah! monsieur, I owed you this explanation after my mad
ravings. When you left me just now, as soon as you were out of sight, I
longed to escape, to run away... where, I did not know. Half the women
in Paris lead such lives as mine; they live in apparent luxury, and in
their souls are tormented by anxiety. I know of poor creatures even
more miserable than I; there are women who are driven to ask their
tradespeople to make out false bills, women who rob their husbands. Some
men believe that an Indian shawl worth a thousand louis only cost five
hundred francs, others that a shawl costing five hundred francs is worth
a hundred louis. There are women, too, with narrow incomes, who scrape
and save and starve their children to pay for a dress. I am innocent
of these base meannesses. But this is the last extremity of my torture.
Some women will sell themselves to their husbands, and so obtain their
way, but I, at any rate, am free. If I chose, Nucingen would cover me
with gold, but I would rather weep on the breast of a man whom I can
respect. Ah! tonight, M. de Marsay will no longer have a right to think
of me as a woman whom he has paid.” She tried to conceal her tears from
him, hiding her face in her hands; Eugene drew them away and looked at
her; she seemed to him sublime at that moment.
“It is hideous, is it not,” she cried, “to speak in a breath of money
and affection. You cannot love me after this,” she added.
The incongruity between the ideas of honor which make women so great,
and the errors in conduct which are forced upon them by the constitution
of society, had thrown Eugene’s thoughts into confusion; he uttered
soothing and consoling words, and wondered at the beautiful woman before
him, and at the artless imprudence of her cry of pain.
“You will not remember this against me?” she asked; “promise me that you
will not.”
“Ah! madame, I am incapable of doing so,” he said. She took his hand and
held it to her heart, a movement full of grace that expressed her deep
gratitude.
“I am free and happy once more, thanks to you,” she said. “Oh! I have
felt lately as if I were in the grasp of an iron hand. But after this
I mean to live simply and to spend nothing. You will think me just as
pretty, will you not, my friend? Keep this,” she went on, as she took
only six of the banknotes. “In conscience I owe you a thousand crowns,
for I really ought to go halves with you.”
Eugene’s maiden conscience resisted; but when the Baroness said, “I
am bound to look on you as an accomplice or as an enemy,” he took the
money.
“It shall be a last stake in reserve,” he said, “in case of misfortune.”
“That was what I was dreading to hear,” she cried, turning pale. “Oh,
if you would that I should be anything to you, swear to me that you will
never re-enter a gaming-house. Great Heaven! that I should corrupt you!
I should die of sorrow!”
They had reached the Rue Saint-Lazare by this time. The contrast between
the ostentation of wealth in the house, and the wretched condition of
its mistress, dazed the student; and Vautrin’s cynical words began to
ring in his ears.
“Seat yourself there,” said the Baroness, pointing to a low chair beside
the fire. “I have a difficult letter to write,” she added. “Tell me what
to say.”
“Say nothing,” Eugene answered her. “Put the bills in an envelope,
direct it, and send it by your maid.”
“Why, you are a love of a man,” she said. “Ah! see what it is to have
been well brought up. That is the Beauseant through and through,” she
went on, smiling at him.
“She is charming,” thought Eugene, more and more in love. He looked
round him at the room; there was an ostentatious character about the
luxury, a meretricious taste in the splendor.
“Do you like it?” she asked, as she rang for the maid.
“Therese, take this to M. de Marsay, and give it into his hands
yourself. If he is not at home, bring the letter back to me.”
Therese went, but not before she had given Eugene a spiteful glance.
Dinner was announced. Rastignac gave his arm to Mme. de Nucingen, she
led the way into a pretty dining-room, and again he saw the luxury of
the table which he had admired in his cousin’s house.
“Come and dine with me on opera evenings, and we will go to the Italiens
afterwards,” she said.
“I should soon grow used to the pleasant life if it could last, but I am
a poor student, and I have my way to make.”
“Oh! you will succeed,” she said laughing. “You will see. All that you
wish will come to pass. _I_ did not expect to be so happy.”
It is the wont of women to prove the impossible by the possible, and to
annihilate facts by presentiments. When Mme. de Nucingen and Rastignac
took their places in her box at the Bouffons, her face wore a look of
happiness that made her so lovely that every one indulged in those small
slanders against which women are defenceless; for the scandal that
is uttered lightly is often seriously believed. Those who know Paris,
believe nothing that is said, and say nothing of what is done there.
Eugene took the Baroness’ hand in his, and by some light pressure of the
fingers, or a closer grasp of the hand, they found a language in which
to express the sensations which the music gave them. It was an evening
of intoxicating delight for both; and when it ended, and they went out
together, Mme. de Nucingen insisted on taking Eugene with her as far as
the Pont Neuf, he disputing with her the whole of the way for a single
kiss after all those that she had showered upon him so passionately at
the Palais-Royal; Eugene reproached her with inconsistency.
“That was gratitude,” she said, “for devotion that I did not dare to
hope for, but now it would be a promise.”
“And will you give me no promise, ingrate?”
He grew vexed. Then, with one of those impatient gestures that fill a
lover with ecstasy, she gave him her hand to kiss, and he took it with a
discontented air that delighted her.
“I shall see you at the ball on Monday,” she said.
As Eugene went home in the moonlight, he fell to serious reflections.
He was satisfied, and yet dissatisfied. He was pleased with an adventure
which would probably give him his desire, for in the end one of the
prettiest and best-dressed women in Paris would be his; but, as a
set-off, he saw his hopes of fortune brought to nothing; and as soon as
he realized this fact, the vague thoughts of yesterday evening began to
take a more decided shape in his mind. A check is sure to reveal to us
the strength of our hopes. The more Eugene learned of the pleasures of
life in Paris, the more impatient he felt of poverty and obscurity. He
crumpled the banknote in his pocket, and found any quantity of plausible
excuses for appropriating it.
He reached the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve at last, and from the
stairhead he saw a light in Goriot’s room; the old man had lighted a
candle, and set the door ajar, lest the student should pass him by, and
go to his room without “telling him all about his daughter,” to use
his own expression. Eugene, accordingly, told him everything without
reserve.
“Then they think that I am ruined!” cried Father Goriot, in an agony of
jealousy and desperation. “Why, I have still thirteen hundred livres a
year! _Mon Dieu!_ Poor little girl! why did she not come to me? I would
have sold my rentes; she should have had some of the principal, and I
would have bought a life-annuity with the rest. My good neighbor, why
did not _you_ come to tell me of her difficulty? How had you the
heart to go and risk her poor little hundred francs at play? This is
heart-breaking work. You see what it is to have sons-in-law. Oh! if I
had hold of them, I would wring their necks. _Mon Dieu! crying!_ Did you
say she was crying?”
“With her head on my waistcoat,” said Eugene.
“Oh! give it to me,” said Father Goriot. “What! my daughter’s tears have
fallen there--my darling Delphine, who never used to cry when she was
a little girl! Oh! I will buy you another; do not wear it again; let me
have it. By the terms of her marriage-contract, she ought to have the
use of her property. To-morrow morning I will go and see Derville; he is
an attorney. I will demand that her money should be invested in her own
name. I know the law. I am an old wolf, I will show my teeth.”
“Here, father; this is a banknote for a thousand francs that she wanted
me to keep out of our winnings. Keep them for her, in the pocket of the
waistcoat.”
Goriot looked hard at Eugene, reached out and took the law student’s
hand, and Eugene felt a tear fall on it.
“You will succeed,” the old man said. “God is just, you see. I know an
honest man when I see him, and I can tell you, there are not many men
like you. I am to have another dear child in you, am I? There, go to
sleep; you can sleep; you are not yet a father. She was crying! and I
have to be told about it!--and I was quietly eating my dinner, like an
idiot, all the time--I, who would sell the Father, Son and Holy Ghost to
save one tear to either of them.”
“An honest man!” said Eugene to himself as he lay down. “Upon my word, I
think I will be an honest man all my life; it is so pleasant to obey
the voice of conscience.” Perhaps none but believers in God do good in
secret; and Eugene believed in a God.
The next day Rastignac went at the appointed time to Mme. de Beauseant,
who took him with her to the Duchesse de Carigliano’s ball. The
Marechale received Eugene most graciously. Mme. de Nucingen was there.
Delphine’s dress seemed to suggest that she wished for the admiration
of others, so that she might shine the more in Eugene’s eyes; she
was eagerly expecting a glance from him, hiding, as she thought, this
eagerness from all beholders. This moment is full of charm for one who
can guess all that passes in a woman’s mind. Who has not refrained from
giving his opinion, to prolong her suspense, concealing his pleasure
from a desire to tantalize, seeking a confession of love in her
uneasiness, enjoying the fears that he can dissipate by a smile? In
the course of the evening the law student suddenly comprehended his
position; he saw that, as the cousin of Mme. de Beauseant, he was a
personage in this world. He was already credited with the conquest
of Mme. de Nucingen, and for this reason was a conspicuous figure;
he caught the envious glances of other young men, and experienced the