Father Goriot
social injustice. Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering
on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine
humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness. Do we not, one and
all, like to feel our strength even at the expense of some one or of
something? The poorest sample of humanity, the street arab, will pull
the bell handle at every street door in bitter weather, and scramble up
to write his name on the unsullied marble of a monument.
In the year 1813, at the age of sixty-nine or thereabouts, “Father
Goriot” had sold his business and retired--to Mme. Vauquer’s boarding
house. When he first came there he had taken the rooms now occupied by
Mme. Couture; he had paid twelve hundred francs a year like a man to
whom five louis more or less was a mere trifle. For him Mme. Vauquer had
made various improvements in the three rooms destined for his use, in
consideration of a certain sum paid in advance, so it was said, for the
miserable furniture, that is to say, for some yellow cotton curtains, a
few chairs of stained wood covered with Utrecht velvet, several wretched
colored prints in frames, and wall papers that a little suburban tavern
would have disdained. Possibly it was the careless generosity with which
Father Goriot allowed himself to be overreached at this period of his
life (they called him Monsieur Goriot very respectfully then) that gave
Mme. Vauquer the meanest opinion of his business abilities; she looked
on him as an imbecile where money was concerned.
Goriot had brought with him a considerable wardrobe, the gorgeous
outfit of a retired tradesman who denies himself nothing. Mme. Vauquer’s
astonished eyes beheld no less than eighteen cambric-fronted shirts, the
splendor of their fineness being enhanced by a pair of pins each bearing
a large diamond, and connected by a short chain, an ornament which
adorned the vermicelli-maker’s shirt front. He usually wore a coat of
corn-flower blue; his rotund and portly person was still further set
off by a clean white waistcoat, and a gold chain and seals which dangled
over that broad expanse. When his hostess accused him of being “a bit
of a beau,” he smiled with the vanity of a citizen whose foible is
gratified. His cupboards (_ormoires_, as he called them in the popular
dialect) were filled with a quantity of plate that he brought with him.
The widow’s eyes gleamed as she obligingly helped him to unpack the
soup ladles, table-spoons, forks, cruet-stands, tureens, dishes,
and breakfast services--all of silver, which were duly arranged upon
shelves, besides a few more or less handsome pieces of plate, all
weighing no inconsiderable number of ounces; he could not bring himself
to part with these gifts that reminded him of past domestic festivals.
“This was my wife’s present to me on the first anniversary of our
wedding day,” he said to Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little silver
posset dish, with two turtle-doves billing on the cover. “Poor dear! she
spent on it all the money she had saved before we were married. Do
you know, I would sooner scratch the earth with my nails for a living,
madame, than part with that. But I shall be able to take my coffee out
of it every morning for the rest of my days, thank the Lord! I am not to
be pitied. There’s not much fear of my starving for some time to come.”
Finally, Mme. Vauquer’s magpie’s eye had discovered and read certain
entries in the list of shareholders in the funds, and, after a rough
calculation, was disposed to credit Goriot (worthy man) with something
like ten thousand francs a year. From that day forward Mme. Vauquer
(_nee_ de Conflans), who, as a matter of fact, had seen forty-eight
summers, though she would only own to thirty-nine of them--Mme. Vauquer
had her own ideas. Though Goriot’s eyes seemed to have shrunk in their
sockets, though they were weak and watery, owing to some glandular
affection which compelled him to wipe them continually, she considered
him to be a very gentlemanly and pleasant-looking man. Moreover, the
widow saw favorable indications of character in the well-developed
calves of his legs and in his square-shaped nose, indications still
further borne out by the worthy man’s full-moon countenance and look
of stupid good-nature. This, in all probability, was a strongly-build
animal, whose brains mostly consisted in a capacity for affection. His
hair, worn in _ailes de pigeon_, and duly powdered every morning by the
barber from the Ecole Polytechnique, described five points on his low
forehead, and made an elegant setting to his face. Though his manners
were somewhat boorish, he was always as neat as a new pin and he took
his snuff in a lordly way, like a man who knows that his snuff-box is
always likely to be filled with maccaboy, so that when Mme. Vauquer lay
down to rest on the day of M. Goriot’s installation, her heart, like a
larded partridge, sweltered before the fire of a burning desire to shake
off the shroud of Vauquer and rise again as Goriot. She would marry
again, sell her boarding-house, give her hand to this fine flower of
citizenship, become a lady of consequence in the quarter, and ask for
subscriptions for charitable purposes; she would make little Sunday
excursions to Choisy, Soissy, Gentilly; she would have a box at the
theatre when she liked, instead of waiting for the author’s tickets that
one of her boarders sometimes gave her, in July; the whole Eldorado of
a little Parisian household rose up before Mme. Vauquer in her
dreams. Nobody knew that she herself possessed forty thousand francs,
accumulated _sou by sou_, that was her secret; surely as far as money
was concerned she was a very tolerable match. “And in other respects,
I am quite his equal,” she said to herself, turning as if to assure
herself of the charms of a form that the portly Sylvie found moulded in
down feathers every morning.
For three months from that day Mme. Veuve Vauquer availed herself of
the services of M. Goriot’s coiffeur, and went to some expense over her
toilette, expense justifiable on the ground that she owed it to herself
and her establishment to pay some attention to appearances when such
highly-respectable persons honored her house with their presence. She
expended no small amount of ingenuity in a sort of weeding process of
her lodgers, announcing her intention of receiving henceforward none but
people who were in every way select. If a stranger presented himself,
she let him know that M. Goriot, one of the best known and most
highly-respected merchants in Paris, had singled out her boarding-house
for a residence. She drew up a prospectus headed MAISON VAUQUER, in
which it was asserted that hers was “_one of the oldest and most highly
recommended boarding-houses in the Latin Quarter_.” “From the windows
of the house,” thus ran the prospectus, “there is a charming view of
the Vallee des Gobelins (so there is--from the third floor), and a
_beautiful_ garden, _extending_ down to _an avenue of lindens_ at the
further end.” Mention was made of the bracing air of the place and its
quiet situation.
It was this prospectus that attracted Mme. la Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil,
a widow of six and thirty, who was awaiting the final settlement of her
husband’s affairs, and of another matter regarding a pension due to her
as the wife of a general who had died “on the field of battle.” On this
Mme. Vauquer saw to her table, lighted a fire daily in the sitting-room
for nearly six months, and kept the promise of her prospectus, even
going to some expense to do so. And the Countess, on her side, addressed
Mme. Vauquer as “my dear,” and promised her two more boarders, the
Baronne de Vaumerland and the widow of a colonel, the late Comte de
Picquoisie, who were about to leave a boarding-house in the Marais,
where the terms were higher than at the Maison Vauquer. Both these
ladies, moreover, would be very well to do when the people at the
War Office had come to an end of their formalities. “But Government
departments are always so dilatory,” the lady added.
After dinner the two widows went together up to Mme. Vauquer’s room, and
had a snug little chat over some cordial and various delicacies reserved
for the mistress of the house. Mme. Vauquer’s ideas as to Goriot were
cordially approved by Mme. de l’Ambermesnil; it was a capital notion,
which for that matter she had guessed from the very first; in her
opinion the vermicelli maker was an excellent man.
“Ah! my dear lady, such a well-preserved man of his age, as sound as my
eyesight--a man who might make a woman happy!” said the widow.
The good-natured Countess turned to the subject of Mme. Vauquer’s dress,
which was not in harmony with her projects. “You must put yourself on a
war footing,” said she.
After much serious consideration the two widows went shopping
together--they purchased a hat adorned with ostrich feathers and a cap
at the Palais Royal, and the Countess took her friend to the Magasin de
la Petite Jeannette, where they chose a dress and a scarf. Thus equipped
for the campaign, the widow looked exactly like the prize animal hung
out for a sign above an a la mode beef shop; but she herself was so much
pleased with the improvement, as she considered it, in her appearance,
that she felt that she lay under some obligation to the Countess; and,
though by no means open-handed, she begged that lady to accept a hat
that cost twenty francs. The fact was that she needed the Countess’
services on the delicate mission of sounding Goriot; the countess must
sing her praises in his ears. Mme. de l’Ambermesnil lent herself very
good-naturedly to this manoeuvre, began her operations, and succeeded in
obtaining a private interview; but the overtures that she made, with a
view to securing him for herself, were received with embarrassment, not
to say a repulse. She left him, revolted by his coarseness.
“My angel,” said she to her dear friend, “you will make nothing of that
man yonder. He is absurdly suspicious, and he is a mean curmudgeon, an
idiot, a fool; you would never be happy with him.”
After what had passed between M. Goriot and Mme. de l’Ambermesnil, the
Countess would no longer live under the same roof. She left the next
day, forgot to pay for six months’ board, and left behind her wardrobe,
cast-off clothing to the value of five francs. Eagerly and persistently
as Mme. Vauquer sought her quondam lodger, the Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil
was never heard of again in Paris. The widow often talked of this
deplorable business, and regretted her own too confiding disposition. As
a matter of fact, she was as suspicious as a cat; but she was like many
other people, who cannot trust their own kin and put themselves at the
mercy of the next chance comer--an odd but common phenomenon, whose
causes may readily be traced to the depths of the human heart.
Perhaps there are people who know that they have nothing more to look
for from those with whom they live; they have shown the emptiness of
their hearts to their housemates, and in their secret selves they are
conscious that they are severely judged, and that they deserve to
be judged severely; but still they feel an unconquerable craving for
praises that they do not hear, or they are consumed by a desire to
appear to possess, in the eyes of a new audience, the qualities which
they have not, hoping to win the admiration or affection of strangers at
the risk of forfeiting it again some day. Or, once more, there are other
mercenary natures who never do a kindness to a friend or a relation
simply because these have a claim upon them, while a service done to a
stranger brings its reward to self-love. Such natures feel but little
affection for those who are nearest to them; they keep their kindness