الفصل الفصل 39 · 第39章

He was silent for a moment, and looked round at the lodgers’ faces.

“What dolts you are, all of you! Have you never seen a convict before?

A convict of Collin’s stamp, whom you see before you, is a man less

weak-kneed than others; he lifts up his voice against the colossal fraud

of the Social Contract, as Jean Jacques did, whose pupil he is proud

to declare himself. In short, I stand here single-handed against a

Government and a whole subsidized machinery of tribunals and police, and

I am a match for them all.”

“Ye gods!” cried the painter, “what a magnificent sketch one might make

of him!”

“Look here, you gentlemen-in-waiting to his highness the gibbet, master

of ceremonies to the widow” (a nickname full of sombre poetry, given

by prisoners to the guillotine), “be a good fellow, and tell me if it

really was Fil-de-Soie who sold me. I don’t want him to suffer for some

one else, that would not be fair.”

But before the chief had time to answer, the rest of the party returned

from making their investigations upstairs. Everything had been opened

and inventoried. A few words passed between them and the chief, and the

official preliminaries were complete.

“Gentlemen,” said Collin, addressing the lodgers, “they will take me

away directly. You have all made my stay among you very agreeable, and I

shall look back upon it with gratitude. Receive my adieux, and permit me

to send you figs from Provence.”

He advanced a step or two, and then turned to look once more at

Rastignac.

“Good-bye, Eugene,” he said, in a sad and gentle tone, a strange

transition from his previous rough and stern manner. “If you should

be hard up, I have left you a devoted friend,” and, in spite of his

shackles, he managed to assume a posture of defence, called, “One, two!”

like a fencing-master, and lunged. “If anything goes wrong, apply in

that quarter. Man and money, all at your service.”

The strange speaker’s manner was sufficiently burlesque, so that no

one but Rastignac knew that there was a serious meaning underlying the

pantomime.

As soon as the police, soldiers, and detectives had left the house,

Sylvie, who was rubbing her mistress’ temples with vinegar, looked round

at the bewildered lodgers.

“Well,” said she, “he was a man, he was, for all that.”

Her words broke the spell. Every one had been too much excited, too much

moved by very various feelings to speak. But now the lodgers began

to look at each other, and then all eyes were turned at once on Mlle.

Michonneau, a thin, shriveled, dead-alive, mummy-like figure, crouching

by the stove; her eyes were downcast, as if she feared that the green

eye-shade could not shut out the expression of those faces from her.

This figure and the feeling of repulsion she had so long excited were

explained all at once. A smothered murmur filled the room; it was so

unanimous, that it seemed as if the same feeling of loathing had pitched

all the voices in one key. Mlle. Michonneau heard it, and did not stir.

It was Bianchon who was the first to move; he bent over his neighbor,

and said in a low voice, “If that creature is going to stop here, and

have dinner with us, I shall clear out.”

In the twinkling of an eye it was clear that every one in the room, save

Poiret, was of the medical student’s opinion, so that the latter, strong

in the support of the majority, went up to that elderly person.

“You are more intimate with Mlle. Michonneau than the rest of us,” he

said; “speak to her, make her understand that she must go, and go at

once.”

“At once!” echoed Poiret in amazement.

Then he went across to the crouching figure, and spoke a few words in

her ear.

“I have paid beforehand for the quarter; I have as much right to be here

as any one else,” she said, with a viperous look at the boarders.

“Never mind that! we will club together and pay you the money back,”

said Rastignac.

“Monsieur is taking Collin’s part” she said, with a questioning,

malignant glance at the law student; “it is not difficult to guess why.”

Eugene started forward at the words, as if he meant to spring upon her

and wring her neck. That glance, and the depths of treachery that it

revealed, had been a hideous enlightenment.

“Let her alone!” cried the boarders.

Rastignac folded his arms and was silent.

“Let us have no more of Mlle. Judas,” said the painter, turning to Mme.

Vauquer. “If you don’t show the Michonneau the door, madame, we shall

all leave your shop, and wherever we go we shall say that there are only

convicts and spies left there. If you do the other thing, we will hold

our tongues about the business; for when all is said and done, it might

happen in the best society until they brand them on the forehead, when

they send them to the hulks. They ought not to let convicts go about

Paris disguised like decent citizens, so as to carry on their antics

like a set of rascally humbugs, which they are.”

At this Mme. Vauquer recovered miraculously. She sat up and folded her

arms; her eyes were wide open now, and there was no sign of tears in

them.

“Why, do you really mean to be the ruin of my establishment, my dear

sir? There is M. Vautrin----Goodness,” she cried, interrupting herself,

“I can’t help calling him by the name he passed himself off by for an

honest man! There is one room to let already, and you want me to

turn out two more lodgers in the middle of the season, when no one is

moving----”

“Gentlemen, let us take our hats and go and dine at Flicoteaux’s in the

Place Sorbonne,” cried Bianchon.

Mme. Vauquer glanced round, and saw in a moment on which side her

interest lay. She waddled across to Mlle. Michonneau.

“Come, now,” she said; “you would not be the ruin of my establishment,

would you, eh? There’s a dear, kind soul. You see what a pass these

gentlemen have brought me to; just go up to your room for this evening.”

“Never a bit of it!” cried the boarders. “She must go, and go this

minute!”

“But the poor lady has had no dinner,” said Poiret, with piteous

entreaty.

“She can go and dine where she likes,” shouted several voices.

“Turn her out, the spy!”

“Turn them both out! Spies!”

“Gentlemen,” cried Poiret, his heart swelling with the courage that love

gives to the ovine male, “respect the weaker sex.”

“Spies are of no sex!” said the painter.

“A precious sexorama!”

“Turn her into the streetorama!”

“Gentlemen, this is not manners! If you turn people out of the house,

it ought not to be done so unceremoniously and with no notice at all. We

have paid our money, and we are not going,” said Poiret, putting on his

cap, and taking a chair beside Mlle. Michonneau, with whom Mme. Vauquer

was remonstrating.

“Naughty boy!” said the painter, with a comical look; “run away, naughty

little boy!”

“Look here,” said Bianchon; “if you do not go, all the rest of us will,”

and the boarders, to a man, made for the sitting-room-door.

“Oh! mademoiselle, what is to be done?” cried Mme. Vauquer. “I am a

ruined woman. You can’t stay here; they will go further, do something

violent.”

Mlle. Michonneau rose to her feet.

“She is going!--She is not going!--She is going!--No, she isn’t.”

These alternate exclamations, and a suggestion of hostile intentions,

borne out by the behavior of the insurgents, compelled Mlle. Michonneau

to take her departure. She made some stipulations, speaking in a low

voice in her hostess’ ear, and then--“I shall go to Mme. Buneaud’s,” she

said, with a threatening look.

“Go where you please, mademoiselle,” said Mme. Vauquer, who regarded

this choice of an opposition establishment as an atrocious insult. “Go

and lodge with the Buneaud; the wine would give a cat the colic, and the

food is cheap and nasty.”

The boarders stood aside in two rows to let her pass; not a word was

spoken. Poiret looked so wistfully after Mlle. Michonneau, and so

artlessly revealed that he was in two minds whether to go or stay, that

the boarders, in their joy at being quit of Mlle. Michonneau, burst out

laughing at the sight of him.

“Hist!--st!--st! Poiret,” shouted the painter. “Hallo! I say, Poiret,

hallo!” The _employe_ from the Museum began to sing:

“Partant pour la Syrie,

Le jeune et beau Dunois...”

“Get along with you; you must be dying to go, _trahit sua quemque

voluptas!_” said Bianchon.

“Every one to his taste--free rendering from Virgil,” said the tutor.

Mlle. Michonneau made a movement as if to take Poiret’s arm, with an

appealing glance that he could not resist. The two went out together,

the old maid leaning upon him, and there was a burst of applause,

followed by peals of laughter.

“Bravo, Poiret!”

“Who would have thought it of old Poiret!”

“Apollo Poiret!”

“Mars Poiret!”

“Intrepid Poiret!”

A messenger came in at that moment with a letter for Mme. Vauquer, who

read it through, and collapsed in her chair.

“The house might as well be burned down at once,” cried she, “if there

are to be any more of these thunderbolts! Young Taillefer died at three

o’clock this afternoon. It serves me right for wishing well to those

ladies at that poor man’s expense. Mme. Couture and Victorine want me

to send their things, because they are going to live with her father.

M. Taillefer allows his daughter to keep old Mme. Couture as her lady

companion. Four rooms to let! and five lodgers gone!...”

She sat up, and seemed about to burst into tears.

“Bad luck has come to lodge here, I think,” she cried.

Once more there came a sound of wheels from the street outside.

“What! another windfall for somebody!” was Sylvie’s comment.

But it was Goriot who came in, looking so radiant, so flushed with

happiness, that he seemed to have grown young again.

“Goriot in a cab!” cried the boarders; “the world is coming to an end.”

The good soul made straight for Eugene, who was standing wrapped in

thought in a corner, and laid a hand on the young man’s arm.

“Come,” he said, with gladness in his eyes.

“Then you haven’t heard the news?” said Eugene. “Vautrin was an escaped

convict; they have just arrested him; and young Taillefer is dead.”

“Very well, but what business is it of ours?” replied Father Goriot. “I

am going to dine with my daughter in _your house_, do you understand?

She is expecting you. Come!”