Father Goriot
of some use in sparing my modesty,” she said to Poiret, “instead of
standing there like a stock.”
Vautrin was turned over; Mlle. Michonneau gave his shoulder a sharp
slap, and the two portentous letters appeared, white against the red.
“There, you have earned your three thousand francs very easily,”
exclaimed Poiret, supporting Vautrin while Mlle. Michonneau slipped
on the shirt again.--“Ouf! How heavy he is,” he added, as he laid the
convict down.
“Hush! Suppose there is a strong-box here!” said the old maid briskly;
her glances seemed to pierce the walls, she scrutinized every article of
the furniture with greedy eyes. “Could we find some excuse for opening
that desk?”
“It mightn’t be quite right,” responded Poiret to this.
“Where is the harm? It is money stolen from all sorts of people, so
it doesn’t belong to any one now. But we haven’t time, there is the
Vauquer.”
“Here is the ether,” said that lady. “I must say that this is an
eventful day. Lord! that man can’t have had a stroke; he is as white as
curds.”
“White as curds?” echoed Poiret.
“And his pulse is steady,” said the widow, laying her hand on his
breast.
“Steady?” said the astonished Poiret.
“He is all right.”
“Do you think so?” asked Poiret.
“Lord! Yes, he looks as if he were sleeping. Sylvie has gone for a
doctor. I say, Mlle. Michonneau, he is sniffing the ether. Pooh! it is
only a spasm. His pulse is good. He is as strong as a Turk. Just look,
mademoiselle, what a fur tippet he has on his chest; that is the sort
of man to live till he is a hundred. His wig holds on tightly, however.
Dear me! it is glued on, and his own hair is red; that is why he wears
a wig. They say that red-haired people are either the worst or the best.
Is he one of the good ones, I wonder?”
“Good to hang,” said Poiret.
“Round a pretty woman’s neck, you mean,” said Mlle Michonneau, hastily.
“Just go away, M. Poiret. It is a woman’s duty to nurse you men when you
are ill. Besides, for all the good you are doing, you may as well take
yourself off,” she added. “Mme. Vauquer and I will take great care of
dear M. Vautrin.”
Poiret went out on tiptoe without a murmur, like a dog kicked out of the
room by his master.
Rastignac had gone out for the sake of physical exertion; he wanted
to breathe the air, he felt stifled. Yesterday evening he had meant to
prevent the murder arranged for half-past eight that morning. What had
happened? What ought he to do now? He trembled to think that he himself
might be implicated. Vautrin’s coolness still further dismayed him.
“Yet, how if Vautrin should die without saying a word?” Rastignac asked
himself.
He hurried along the alleys of the Luxembourg Gardens as if the hounds
of justice were after him, and he already heard the baying of the pack.
“Well?” shouted Bianchon, “you have seen the _Pilote_?”
The _Pilote_ was a Radical sheet, edited by M. Tissot. It came out
several hours later than the morning papers, and was meant for the
benefit of country subscribers; for it brought the morning news into
provincial districts twenty-four hours sooner than the ordinary local
journals.
“There is a wonderful history in it,” said the house student of the
Hopital Cochin. “Young Taillefer called out Count Franchessini, of
the Old Guard, and the Count put a couple of inches of steel into his
forehead. And here is little Victorine one of the richest heiresses in
Paris! If we had known that, eh? What a game of chance death is! They
say Victorine was sweet on you; was there any truth in it?”
“Shut up, Bianchon; I shall never marry her. I am in love with a
charming woman, and she is in love with me, so----”
“You said that as if you were screwing yourself up to be faithful
to her. I should like to see the woman worth the sacrifice of Master
Taillefer’s money!”
“Are all the devils of hell at my heels?” cried Rastignac.
“What is the matter with you? Are you mad? Give us your hand,” said
Bianchon, “and let me feel your pulse. You are feverish.”
“Just go to Mother Vauquer’s,” said Rastignac; “that scoundrel Vautrin
has dropped down like one dead.”
“Aha!” said Bianchon, leaving Rastignac to his reflections, “you confirm
my suspicions, and now I mean to make sure for myself.”
The law student’s long walk was a memorable one for him. He made in
some sort a survey of his conscience. After a close scrutiny, after
hesitation and self-examination, his honor at any rate came out
scatheless from this sharp and terrible ordeal, like a bar of iron
tested in the English fashion. He remembered Father Goriot’s confidences
of the evening before; he recollected the rooms taken for him in the Rue
d’Artois, so that he might be near Delphine; and then he thought of his
letter, and read it again and kissed it.
“Such a love is my anchor of safety,” he said to himself. “How the old
man’s heart must have been wrung! He says nothing about all that he has
been through; but who could not guess? Well, then, I will be like a
son to him; his life shall be made happy. If she cares for me, she will
often come to spend the day with him. That grand Comtesse de Restaud is
a heartless thing; she would make her father into her hall porter. Dear
Delphine! she is kinder to the old man; she is worthy to be loved. Ah!
this evening I shall be very happy!”
He took out his watch and admired it.
“I have had nothing but success! If two people mean to love each other
for ever, they may help each other, and I can take this. Besides,
I shall succeed, and I will pay her a hundredfold. There is nothing
criminal in this _liaison_; nothing that could cause the most austere
moralist to frown. How many respectable people contract similar unions!
We deceive nobody; it is deception that makes a position humiliating.
If you lie, you lower yourself at once. She and her husband have lived
apart for a long while. Besides, how if I called upon that Alsatian to
resign a wife whom he cannot make happy?”
Rastignac’s battle with himself went on for a long while; and though the
scruples of youth inevitably gained the day, an irresistible curiosity
led him, about half-past four, to return to the Maison Vauquer through
the gathering dusk.
Bianchon had given Vautrin an emetic, reserving the contents of the
stomach for chemical analysis at the hospital. Mlle. Michonneau’s
officious alacrity had still further strengthened his suspicions of her.
Vautrin, moreover, had recovered so quickly that it was impossible
not to suspect some plot against the leader of all frolics at the
lodging-house. Vautrin was standing in front of the stove in the
dining-room when Rastignac came in. All the lodgers were assembled
sooner than usual by the news of young Taillefer’s duel. They were
anxious to hear any detail about the affair, and to talk over the
probable change in Victorine’s prospects. Father Goriot alone was
absent, but the rest were chatting. No sooner did Eugene come into the
room, than his eyes met the inscrutable gaze of Vautrin. It was the same
look that had read his thoughts before--the look that had such power to
waken evil thoughts in his heart. He shuddered.
“Well, dear boy,” said the escaped convict, “I am likely to cheat death
for a good while yet. According to these ladies, I have had a stroke
that would have felled an ox, and come off with flying colors.”
“A bull you might say,” cried the widow.
“You really might be sorry to see me still alive,” said Vautrin in
Rastignac’s ear, thinking that he guessed the student’s thoughts. “You
must be mighty sure of yourself.”
“Mlle. Michonneau was talking the day before yesterday about a gentleman
named _Trompe-la-Mort_,” said Bianchon; “and, upon my word, that name
would do very well for you.”
Vautrin seemed thunderstruck. He turned pale, and staggered back.
He turned his magnetic glance, like a ray of vivid light, on Mlle.
Michonneau; the old maid shrank and trembled under the influence of that
strong will, and collapsed into a chair. The mask of good-nature had
dropped from the convict’s face; from the unmistakable ferocity of that
sinister look, Poiret felt that the old maid was in danger, and hastily
stepped between them. None of the lodgers understood this scene in the
least, they looked on in mute amazement. There was a pause. Just then
there was a sound of tramping feet outside; there were soldiers there,
it seemed, for there was a ring of several rifles on the pavement of
the street. Collin was mechanically looking round the walls for a way of
escape, when four men entered by way of the sitting-room.
“In the name of the King and the Law!” said an officer, but the words
were almost lost in a murmur of astonishment.
Silence fell on the room. The lodgers made way for three of the men, who
had each a hand on a cocked pistol in a side pocket. Two policemen, who
followed the detectives, kept the entrance to the sitting-room, and two
more men appeared in the doorway that gave access to the staircase. A
sound of footsteps came from the garden, and again the rifles of several
soldiers rang on the cobblestones under the window. All chance of
salvation by flight was cut off for Trompe-la-Mort, to whom all eyes
instinctively turned. The chief walked straight up to him, and commenced
operations by giving him a sharp blow on the head, so that the wig fell
off, and Collin’s face was revealed in all its ugliness. There was
a terrible suggestion of strength mingled with cunning in the short,
brick-red crop of hair, the whole head was in harmony with his powerful
frame, and at that moment the fires of hell seemed to gleam from his
eyes. In that flash the real Vautrin shone forth, revealed at once
before them all; they understood his past, his present, and future, his
pitiless doctrines, his actions, the religion of his own good pleasure,
the majesty with which his cynicism and contempt for mankind invested
him, the physical strength of an organization proof against all trials.
The blood flew to his face, and his eyes glared like the eyes of a wild
cat. He started back with savage energy and a fierce growl that drew
exclamations of alarm from the lodgers. At that leonine start the police
caught at their pistols under cover of the general clamor. Collin saw
the gleaming muzzles of the weapons, saw his danger, and instantly gave
proof of a power of the highest order. There was something horrible and
majestic in the spectacle of the sudden transformation in his face; he
could only be compared to a cauldron full of the steam that can send
mountains flying, a terrific force dispelled in a moment by a drop
of cold water. The drop of water that cooled his wrathful fury was a
reflection that flashed across his brain like lightning. He began to
smile, and looked down at his wig.
“You are not in the politest of humors to-day,” he remarked to the
chief, and he held out his hands to the policemen with a jerk of his
head.
“Gentlemen,” he said, “put on the bracelets or the handcuffs. I call on
those present to witness that I make no resistance.”
A murmur of admiration ran through the room at the sudden outpouring
like fire and lava flood from this human volcano, and its equally sudden
cessation.
“There’s a sell for you, master crusher,” the convict added, looking at
the famous director of police.
“Come, strip!” said he of the Petite Rue Saint-Anne, contemptuously.
“Why?” asked Collin. “There are ladies present; I deny nothing, and
surrender.”
He paused, and looked round the room like an orator who is about to
overwhelm his audience.
“Take this down, Daddy Lachapelle,” he went on, addressing a little,
white-haired old man who had seated himself at the end of the table; and
after drawing a printed form from the portfolio, was proceeding to draw