Father Goriot
No, not to-morrow though. I do not want to be upset. Mme. de Beauseant’s
ball will be the day after to-morrow, and I must keep quiet, so as to
look my best and freshest, and do honor to my dear Eugene!... Come, let
us see his room.”
But as she spoke a carriage stopped in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve,
and the sound of Mme. de Restaud’s voice came from the staircase. “Is my
father in?” she asked of Sylvie.
This accident was luckily timed for Eugene, whose one idea had been to
throw himself down on the bed and pretend to be asleep.
“Oh, father, have you heard about Anastasie?” said Delphine, when she
heard her sister speak. “It looks as though some strange things had
happened in that family.”
“What sort of things?” asked Goriot. “This is like to be the death of
me. My poor head will not stand a double misfortune.”
“Good-morning, father,” said the Countess from the threshold. “Oh!
Delphine, are you here?”
Mme. de Restaud seemed taken aback by her sister’s presence.
“Good-morning, Nasie,” said the Baroness. “What is there so
extraordinary in my being here? _I_ see our father every day.”
“Since when?”
“If you came yourself you would know.”
“Don’t tease, Delphine,” said the Countess fretfully. “I am very
miserable, I am lost. Oh! my poor father, it is hopeless this time!”
“What is it, Nasie?” cried Goriot. “Tell us all about it, child! How
white she is! Quick, do something, Delphine; be kind to her, and I will
love you even better, if that were possible.”
“Poor Nasie!” said Mme. de Nucingen, drawing her sister to a chair. “We
are the only two people in the world whose love is always sufficient to
forgive you everything. Family affection is the surest, you see.”
The Countess inhaled the salts and revived.
“This will kill me!” said their father. “There,” he went on, stirring
the smouldering fire, “come nearer, both of you. It is cold. What is it,
Nasie? Be quick and tell me, this is enough to----”
“Well, then, my husband knows everything,” said the Countess. “Just
imagine it; do you remember, father, that bill of Maxime’s some time
ago? Well, that was not the first. I had paid ever so many before that.
About the beginning of January M. de Trailles seemed very much troubled.
He said nothing to me; but it is so easy to read the hearts of those you
love, a mere trifle is enough; and then you feel things instinctively.
Indeed, he was more tender and affectionate than ever, and I was happier
than I had ever been before. Poor Maxime! in himself he was really
saying good-bye to me, so he has told me since; he meant to blow his
brains out! At last I worried him so, and begged and implored so hard;
for two hours I knelt at his knees and prayed and entreated, and at last
he told me--that he owed a hundred thousand francs. Oh! papa! a hundred
thousand francs! I was beside myself! You had not the money, I knew, I
had eaten up all that you had----”
“No,” said Goriot; “I could not have got it for you unless I had stolen
it. But I would have done that for you, Nasie! I will do it yet.”
The words came from him like a sob, a hoarse sound like the death
rattle of a dying man; it seemed indeed like the agony of death when
the father’s love was powerless. There was a pause, and neither of the
sisters spoke. It must have been selfishness indeed that could hear
unmoved that cry of anguish that, like a pebble thrown over a precipice,
revealed the depths of his despair.
“I found the money, father, by selling what was not mine to sell,” and
the Countess burst into tears.
Delphine was touched; she laid her head on her sister’s shoulder, and
cried too.
“Then it is all true,” she said.
Anastasie bowed her head, Mme. de Nucingen flung her arms about her,
kissed her tenderly, and held her sister to her heart.
“I shall always love you and never judge you, Nasie,” she said.
“My angels,” murmured Goriot faintly. “Oh, why should it be trouble that
draws you together?”
This warm and palpitating affection seemed to give the Countess courage.
“To save Maxime’s life,” she said, “to save all my own happiness, I
went to the money-lender you know of, a man of iron forged in hell-fire;
nothing can melt him; I took all the family diamonds that M. de Restaud
is so proud of--his and mine too--and sold them to that M. Gobseck.
_Sold them!_ Do you understand? I saved Maxime, but I am lost. Restaud
found it all out.”
“How? Who told him? I will kill him,” cried Goriot.
“Yesterday he sent to tell me to come to his room. I went. ...
‘Anastasie,’ he said in a voice--oh! such a voice; that was enough, it
told me everything--‘where are your diamonds?’--‘In my room----’--‘No,’
he said, looking straight at me, ‘there they are on that chest of
drawers----’ and he lifted his handkerchief and showed me the casket.
‘Do you know where they came from?’ he said. I fell at his feet.... I
cried; I besought him to tell me the death he wished to see me die.”
“You said that!” cried Goriot. “By God in heaven, whoever lays a hand on
either of you so long as I am alive may reckon on being roasted by slow
fires! Yes, I will cut him in pieces like...”
Goriot stopped; the words died away in his throat.
“And then, dear, he asked something worse than death of me. Oh! heaven
preserve all other women from hearing such words as I heard then!”
“I will murder that man,” said Goriot quietly. “But he has only one
life, and he deserves to die twice.--And then, what next?” he added,
looking at Anastasie.
“Then,” the Countess resumed, “there was a pause, and he looked at me.
‘Anastasie,’ he said, ‘I will bury this in silence; there shall be no
separation; there are the children. I will not kill M. de Trailles. I
might miss him if we fought, and as for other ways of getting rid of
him, I should come into collision with the law. If I killed him in your
arms, it would bring dishonor on _those_ children. But if you do not
want to see your children perish, nor their father nor me, you must
first of all submit to two conditions. Answer me. Have I a child of my
own?’ I answered, ‘Yes,’--‘Which?’--‘Ernest, our eldest boy.’--‘Very
well,’ he said, ‘and now swear to obey me in this particular from this
time forward.’ I swore. ‘You will make over your property to me when I
require you to do so.’”
“Do nothing of the kind!” cried Goriot. “Aha! M. de Restaud, you could
not make your wife happy; she has looked for happiness and found it
elsewhere, and you make her suffer for your own ineptitude? He will have
to reckon with me. Make yourself easy, Nasie. Aha! he cares about his
heir! Good, very good. I will get hold of the boy; isn’t he my grandson?
What the blazes! I can surely go to see the brat! I will stow him away
somewhere; I will take care of him, you may be quite easy. I will bring
Restaud to terms, the monster! I shall say to him, ‘A word or two with
you! If you want your son back again, give my daughter her property, and
leave her to do as she pleases.’”
“Father!”
“Yes. I am your father, Nasie, a father indeed! That rogue of a great
lord had better not ill-treat my daughter. _Tonnerre!_ What is it in my
veins? There is the blood of a tiger in me; I could tear those two men
to pieces! Oh! children, children! so this is what your lives are! Why,
it is death!... What will become of you when I shall be here no longer?
Fathers ought to live as long as their children. Ah! Lord God in heaven!
how ill Thy world is ordered! Thou hast a Son, if what they tell us
is true, and yet Thou leavest us to suffer so through our children. My
darlings, my darlings! to think that trouble only should bring you to
me, that I should only see you with tears on your faces! Ah! yes, yes,
you love me, I see that you love me. Come to me and pour out your griefs
to me; my heart is large enough to hold them all. Oh! you might rend my
heart in pieces, and every fragment would make a father’s heart. If only
I could bear all your sorrows for you! ... Ah! you were so happy when
you were little and still with me....”
“We have never been happy since,” said Delphine. “Where are the old days
when we slid down the sacks in the great granary?”
“That is not all, father,” said Anastasie in Goriot’s ear. The old man
gave a startled shudder. “The diamonds only sold for a hundred thousand
francs. Maxime is hard pressed. There are twelve thousand francs still
to pay. He has given me his word that he will be steady and give up play
in future. His love is all that I have left in the world. I have paid
such a fearful price for it that I should die if I lose him now. I have
sacrificed my fortune, my honor, my peace of mind, and my children for
him. Oh! do something, so that at the least Maxime may be at large and
live undisgraced in the world, where he will assuredly make a career for
himself. Something more than my happiness is at stake; the children have
nothing, and if he is sent to Sainte-Pelagie all his prospects will be
ruined.”
“I haven’t the money, Nasie. I have _nothing_--nothing left. This is
the end of everything. Yes, the world is crumbling into ruin, I am sure.
Fly! Save yourselves! Ah!--I have still my silver buckles left, and
half-a-dozen silver spoons and forks, the first I ever had in my
life. But I have nothing else except my life annuity, twelve hundred
francs...”
“Then what has become of your money in the funds?”
“I sold out, and only kept a trifle for my wants. I wanted twelve
thousand francs to furnish some rooms for Delphine.”
“In your own house?” asked Mme. de Restaud, looking at her sister.
“What does it matter where they were?” asked Goriot. “The money is spent
now.”
“I see how it is,” said the Countess. “Rooms for M. de Rastignac. Poor
Delphine, take warning by me!”
“M. de Rastignac is incapable of ruining the woman he loves, dear.”
“Thanks! Delphine. I thought you would have been kinder to me in my
troubles, but you never did love me.”
“Yes, yes, she loves you, Nasie,” cried Goriot; “she was saying so only
just now. We were talking about you, and she insisted that you were
beautiful, and that she herself was only pretty!”
“Pretty!” said the Countess. “She is as hard as a marble statue.”
“And if I am?” cried Delphine, flushing up, “how have you treated me?
You would not recognize me; you closed the doors of every house against
me; you have never let an opportunity of mortifying me slip by. And
when did I come, as you were always doing, to drain our poor father, a
thousand francs at a time, till he is left as you see him now? That
is all your doing, sister! I myself have seen my father as often as I
could. I have not turned him out of the house, and then come and fawned
upon him when I wanted money. I did not so much as know that he had
spent those twelve thousand francs on me. I am economical, as you know;
and when papa has made me presents, it has never been because I came and
begged for them.”
“You were better off than I. M. de Marsay was rich, as you have reason
to know. You always were as slippery as gold. Good-bye; I have neither
sister nor----”
“Oh! hush, hush, Nasie!” cried her father.
“Nobody else would repeat what everybody has ceased to believe. You are
an unnatural sister!” cried Delphine.
“Oh, children, children! hush! hush! or I will kill myself before your
eyes.”
“There, Nasie, I forgive you,” said Mme. de Nucingen; “you are very
unhappy. But I am kinder than you are. How could you say _that_ just
when I was ready to do anything in the world to help you, even to be
reconciled with my husband, which for my own sake I----Oh! it is just
like you; you have behaved cruelly to me all through these nine years.”
“Children, children, kiss each other!” cried the father. “You are
angels, both of you.”
“No. Let me alone,” cried the Countess shaking off the hand that her