Kabanata Kabanata 8 · 第8章

The table was upturned, and Goriot had doubtless in some way secured a

silver plate and cup to the bar before knotting a thick rope round them;

he was pulling at this rope with such enormous force that they were

being crushed and twisted out of shape; to all appearance he meant to

convert the richly wrought metal into ingots.

“_Peste!_ what a man!” said Rastignac, as he watched Goriot’s muscular

arms; there was not a sound in the room while the old man, with the aid

of the rope, was kneading the silver like dough. “Was he then, indeed,

a thief, or a receiver of stolen goods, who affected imbecility and

decrepitude, and lived like a beggar that he might carry on his pursuits

the more securely?” Eugene stood for a moment revolving these questions,

then he looked again through the keyhole.

Father Goriot had unwound his coil of rope; he had covered the table

with a blanket, and was now employed in rolling the flattened mass

of silver into a bar, an operation which he performed with marvelous

dexterity.

“Why, he must be as strong as Augustus, King of Poland!” said Eugene to

himself when the bar was nearly finished.

Father Goriot looked sadly at his handiwork, tears fell from his

eyes, he blew out the dip which had served him for a light while he

manipulated the silver, and Eugene heard him sigh as he lay down again.

“He is mad,” thought the student.

“_Poor child!_” Father Goriot said aloud. Rastignac, hearing those

words, concluded to keep silence; he would not hastily condemn his

neighbor. He was just in the doorway of his room when a strange sound

from the staircase below reached his ears; it might have been made

by two men coming up in list slippers. Eugene listened; two men there

certainly were, he could hear their breathing. Yet there had been no

sound of opening the street door, no footsteps in the passage. Suddenly,

too, he saw a faint gleam of light on the second story; it came from M.

Vautrin’s room.

“There are a good many mysteries here for a lodging-house!” he said to

himself.

He went part of the way downstairs and listened again. The rattle of

gold reached his ears. In another moment the light was put out, and

again he distinctly heard the breathing of two men, but no sound of a

door being opened or shut. The two men went downstairs, the faint sounds

growing fainter as they went.

“Who is there?” cried Mme. Vauquer out of her bedroom window.

“I, Mme. Vauquer,” answered Vautrin’s deep bass voice. “I am coming in.”

“That is odd! Christophe drew the bolts,” said Eugene, going back to his

room. “You have to sit up at night, it seems, if you really mean to know

all that is going on about you in Paris.”

These incidents turned his thought from his ambitious dreams; he betook

himself to his work, but his thought wandered back to Father Goriot’s

suspicious occupation; Mme. de Restaud’s face swam again and again

before his eyes like a vision of a brilliant future; and at last he lay

down and slept with clenched fists. When a young man makes up his mind

that he will work all night, the chances are that seven times out of

ten he will sleep till morning. Such vigils do not begin before we are

turned twenty.

The next morning Paris was wrapped in one of the dense fogs that throw

the most punctual people out in their calculations as to the time; even

the most business-like folk fail to keep their appointments in such

weather, and ordinary mortals wake up at noon and fancy it is eight

o’clock. On this morning it was half-past nine, and Mme. Vauquer

still lay abed. Christophe was late, Sylvie was late, but the two sat

comfortably taking their coffee as usual. It was Sylvie’s custom to take

the cream off the milk destined for the boarders’ breakfast for her

own, and to boil the remainder for some time, so that madame should not

discover this illegal exaction.

“Sylvie,” said Christophe, as he dipped a piece of toast into the

coffee, “M. Vautrin, who is not such a bad sort, all the same, had two

people come to see him again last night. If madame says anything, mind

you say nothing about it.”

“Has he given you something?”

“He gave me a five-franc piece this month, which is as good as saying,

‘Hold your tongue.’”

“Except him and Mme. Couture, who doesn’t look twice at every penny,

there’s no one in the house that doesn’t try to get back with the left

hand all that they give with the right at New Year,” said Sylvie.

“And, after all,” said Christophe, “what do they give you? A miserable

five-franc piece. There is Father Goriot, who has cleaned his shoes

himself these two years past. There is that old beggar Poiret, who goes

without blacking altogether; he would sooner drink it than put it on his

boots. Then there is that whipper-snapper of a student, who gives me a

couple of francs. Two francs will not pay for my brushes, and he sells

his old clothes, and gets more for them than they are worth. Oh! they’re

a shabby lot!”

“Pooh!” said Sylvie, sipping her coffee, “our places are the best in the

Quarter, that I know. But about that great big chap Vautrin, Christophe;

has any one told you anything about him?”

“Yes. I met a gentleman in the street a few days ago; he said to me,

‘There’s a gentleman in your place, isn’t there? a tall man that dyes

his whiskers?’ I told him, ‘No, sir; they aren’t dyed. A gay fellow

like him hasn’t the time to do it.’ And when I told M. Vautrin about

it afterwards, he said, ‘Quite right, my boy. That is the way to

answer them. There is nothing more unpleasant than to have your little

weaknesses known; it might spoil many a match.’”

“Well, and for my part,” said Sylvie, “a man tried to humbug me at the

market wanting to know if I had seen him put on his shirt. Such bosh!

There,” she cried, interrupting herself, “that’s a quarter to ten

striking at the Val-de-Grace, and not a soul stirring!”

“Pooh! they are all gone out. Mme. Couture and the girl went out at

eight o’clock to take the wafer at Saint-Etienne. Father Goriot started

off somewhere with a parcel, and the student won’t be back from his

lecture till ten o’clock. I saw them go while I was sweeping the stairs;

Father Goriot knocked up against me, and his parcel was as hard as iron.

What is the old fellow up to, I wonder? He is as good as a plaything for

the rest of them; they can never let him alone; but he is a good man,

all the same, and worth more than all of them put together. He doesn’t

give you much himself, but he sometimes sends you with a message to

ladies who fork out famous tips; they are dressed grandly, too.”

“His daughters, as he calls them, eh? There are a dozen of them.”

“I have never been to more than two--the two who came here.”

“There is madame moving overhead; I shall have to go, or she will raise

a fine racket. Just keep an eye on the milk, Christophe; don’t let the

cat get at it.”

Sylvie went up to her mistress’ room.

“Sylvie! How is this? It’s nearly ten o’clock, and you let me sleep like

a dormouse! Such a thing has never happened before.”

“It’s the fog; it is that thick, you could cut it with a knife.”

“But how about breakfast?”

“Bah! the boarders are possessed, I’m sure. They all cleared out before

there was a wink of daylight.”

“Do speak properly, Sylvie,” Mme. Vauquer retorted; “say a blink of

daylight.”

“Ah, well, madame, whichever you please. Anyhow, you can have breakfast

at ten o’clock. La Michonnette and Poiret have neither of them stirred.

There are only those two upstairs, and they are sleeping like the logs

they are.”

“But, Sylvie, you put their names together as if----”

“As if what?” said Sylvie, bursting into a guffaw. “The two of them make

a pair.”

“It is a strange thing, isn’t it, Sylvie, how M. Vautrin got in last

night after Christophe had bolted the door?”

“Not at all, madame. Christophe heard M. Vautrin, and went down and

undid the door. And here are you imagining that----?”

“Give me my bodice, and be quick and get breakfast ready. Dish up the

rest of the mutton with the potatoes, and you can put the stewed pears

on the table, those at five a penny.”

A few moments later Mme. Vauquer came down, just in time to see the cat

knock down a plate that covered a bowl of milk, and begin to lap in all

haste.

“Mistigris!” she cried.

The cat fled, but promptly returned to rub against her ankles.

“Oh! yes, you can wheedle, you old hypocrite!” she said. “Sylvie!

Sylvie!”

“Yes, madame; what is it?”

“Just see what the cat has done!”

“It is all that stupid Christophe’s fault. I told him to stop and lay

the table. What has become of him? Don’t you worry, madame; Father

Goriot shall have it. I will fill it up with water, and he won’t know

the difference; he never notices anything, not even what he eats.”

“I wonder where the old heathen can have gone?” said Mme. Vauquer,

setting the plates round the table.

“Who knows? He is up to all sorts of tricks.”

“I have overslept myself,” said Mme. Vauquer.

“But madame looks as fresh as a rose, all the same.”

The door bell rang at that moment, and Vautrin came through the

sitting-room, singing loudly:

“‘Tis the same old story everywhere,

A roving heart and a roving glance..

“Oh! Mamma Vauquer! good-morning!” he cried at the sight of his hostess,

and he put his arm gaily round her waist.

“There! have done----”

“‘Impertinence!’ Say it!” he answered. “Come, say it! Now, isn’t that

what you really mean? Stop a bit, I will help you to set the table. Ah!

I am a nice man, am I not?

“For the locks of brown and the golden hair

A sighing lover...

“Oh! I have just seen something so funny----

.... led by chance.”

“What?” asked the widow.

“Father Goriot in the goldsmith’s shop in the Rue Dauphine at half-past

eight this morning. They buy old spoons and forks and gold lace there,

and Goriot sold a piece of silver plate for a good round sum. It had

been twisted out of shape very neatly for a man that’s not used to the

trade.”

“Really? You don’t say so?”

“Yes. One of my friends is expatriating himself; I had been to see him

off on board the Royal Mail steamer, and was coming back here. I waited

after that to see what Father Goriot would do; it is a comical affair.

He came back to this quarter of the world, to the Rue des Gres, and went

into a money-lender’s house; everybody knows him, Gobseck, a stuck-up

rascal, that would make dominoes out of his father’s bones, a Turk,

a heathen, an old Jew, a Greek; it would be a difficult matter to rob

_him_, for he puts all his coin into the Bank.”