Bab Bab 18 · 第18章

This was all the information which Rastignac gained from a M. Muret

who had purchased Goriot’s business, information which confirmed

the Duchesse de Langeais’ suppositions, and herewith the preliminary

explanation of this obscure but terrible Parisian tragedy comes to an

end.

Towards the end of the first week in December Rastignac received two

letters--one from his mother, and one from his eldest sister. His heart

beat fast, half with happiness, half with fear, at the sight of the

familiar handwriting. Those two little scraps of paper contained life

or death for his hopes. But while he felt a shiver of dread as he

remembered their dire poverty at home, he knew their love for him so

well that he could not help fearing that he was draining their very

life-blood. His mother’s letter ran as follows:--

“MY DEAR CHILD,--I am sending you the money that you asked for.

Make a good use of it. Even to save your life I could not raise so

large a sum a second time without your father’s knowledge, and

there would be trouble about it. We should be obliged to mortgage

the land. It is impossible to judge of the merits of schemes of

which I am ignorant; but what sort of schemes can they be, that

you should fear to tell me about them? Volumes of explanation

would not have been needed; we mothers can understand at a word,

and that word would have spared me the anguish of uncertainty. I

do not know how to hide the painful impression that your letter

has made upon me, my dear son. What can you have felt when you

were moved to send this chill of dread through my heart? It must

have been very painful to you to write the letter that gave me so

much pain as I read it. To what courses are you committed? You are

going to appear to be something that you are not, and your whole

life and success depends upon this? You are about to see a society

into which you cannot enter without rushing into expense that you

cannot afford, without losing precious time that is needed for

your studies. Ah! my dear Eugene, believe your mother, crooked

ways cannot lead to great ends. Patience and endurance are the two

qualities most needed in your position. I am not scolding you; I

do not want any tinge of bitterness to spoil our offering. I am

only talking like a mother whose trust in you is as great as her

foresight for you. You know the steps that you must take, and I,

for my part, know the purity of heart, and how good your

intentions are; so I can say to you without a doubt, ‘Go forward,

beloved!’ If I tremble, it is because I am a mother, but my

prayers and blessings will be with you at every step. Be very

careful, dear boy. You must have a man’s prudence, for it lies

with you to shape the destinies of five others who are dear to

you, and must look to you. Yes, our fortunes depend upon you, and

your success is ours. We all pray to God to be with you in all

that you do. Your aunt Marcillac has been most generous beyond

words in this matter; she saw at once how it was, even down to

your gloves. ‘But I have a weakness for the eldest!’ she said

gaily. You must love your aunt very much, dear Eugene. I shall

wait till you have succeeded before telling you all that she has

done for you, or her money would burn your fingers. You, who are

young, do not know what it is to part with something that is a

piece of your past! But what would we not sacrifice for your

sakes? Your aunt says that I am to send you a kiss on the forehead

from her, and that kiss is to bring you luck again and again, she

says. She would have written you herself, the dear kind-hearted

woman, but she is troubled with the gout in her fingers just now.

Your father is very well. The vintage of 1819 has turned out

better than we expected. Good-bye, dear boy; I will say nothing

about your sisters, because Laure is writing to you, and I must

let her have the pleasure of giving you all the home news. Heaven

send that you may succeed! Oh! yes, dear Eugene, you must succeed.

I have come, through you, to a knowledge of a pain so sharp that I

do not think I could endure it a second time. I have come to know

what it is to be poor, and to long for money for my children’s

sake. There, good-bye! Do not leave us for long without news of

you; and here, at the last, take a kiss from your mother.”

By the time Eugene had finished the letter he was in tears. He thought

of Father Goriot crushing his silver keepsake into a shapeless mass

before he sold it to meet his daughter’s bill of exchange.

“Your mother has broken up her jewels for you,” he said to himself;

“your aunt shed tears over those relics of hers before she sold them

for your sake. What right have you to heap execrations on Anastasie? You

have followed her example; you have selfishly sacrificed others to your

own future, and she sacrifices her father to her lover; and of you two,

which is the worse?”

He was ready to renounce his attempts; he could not bear to take

that money. The fires of remorse burned in his heart, and gave him

intolerable pain, the generous secret remorse which men seldom take into

account when they sit in judgment upon their fellow-men; but perhaps

the angels in heaven, beholding it, pardon the criminal whom our justice

condemns. Rastignac opened his sister’s letter; its simplicity and

kindness revived his heart.

“Your letter came just at the right time, dear brother. Agathe and

I had thought of so many different ways of spending our money,

that we did not know what to buy with it; and now you have come

in, and, like the servant who upset all the watches that belonged

to the King of Spain, you have restored harmony; for, really and

truly, we did not know which of all the things we wanted we wanted

most, and we were always quarreling about it, never thinking, dear

Eugene, of a way of spending our money which would satisfy us

completely. Agathe jumped for you. Indeed, we have been like two

mad things all day, ‘to such a prodigious degree’ (as aunt would

say), that mother said, with her severe expression, ‘Whatever can

be the matter with you, mesdemoiselles?’ I think if we had been

scolded a little, we should have been still better pleased. A

woman ought to be very glad to suffer for one she loves! I,

however, in my inmost soul, was doleful and cross in the midst of

all my joy. I shall make a bad wife, I am afraid, I am too fond of

spending. I had bought two sashes and a nice little stiletto for

piercing eyelet-holes in my stays, trifles that I really did not

want, so that I have less than that slow-coach Agathe, who is so

economical, and hoards her money like a magpie. She had two

hundred francs! And I have only one hundred and fifty! I am nicely

punished; I could throw my sash down the well; it will be painful

to me to wear it now. Poor dear, I have robbed you. And Agathe was

so nice about it. She said, ‘Let us send the three hundred and

fifty francs in our two names!’ But I could not help telling you

everything just as it happened.

“Do you know how we managed to keep your commandments? We took our

glittering hoard, we went out for a walk, and when once fairly on

the highway we ran all the way to Ruffec, where we handed over the

coin, without more ado, to M. Grimbert of the Messageries Royales.

We came back again like swallows on the wing. ‘Don’t you think

that happiness has made us lighter?’ Agathe said. We said all

sorts of things, which I shall not tell you, Monsieur le Parisien,

because they were all about you. Oh, we love you dearly, dear

brother; it was all summed up in those few words. As for keeping

the secret, little masqueraders like us are capable of anything

(according to our aunt), even of holding our tongues. Our mother

has been on a mysterious journey to Angouleme, and the aunt went

with her, not without solemn councils, from which we were shut

out, and M. le Baron likewise. They are silent as to the weighty

political considerations that prompted their mission, and

conjectures are rife in the State of Rastignac. The Infantas are

embroidering a muslin robe with open-work sprigs for her Majesty

the Queen; the work progresses in the most profound secrecy. There

be but two more breadths to finish. A decree has gone forth that

no wall shall be built on the side of Verteuil, but that a hedge

shall be planted instead thereof. Our subjects may sustain some

disappointment of fruit and espaliers, but strangers will enjoy

a fair prospect. Should the heir-presumptive lack

pocket-handkerchiefs, be it known unto him that the dowager Lady

of Marcillac, exploring the recesses of her drawers and boxes

(known respectively as Pompeii and Herculaneum), having brought to

light a fair piece of cambric whereof she wotted not, the Princesses

Agathe and Laure place at their brother’s disposal their thread,

their needles, and hands somewhat of the reddest. The two young

Princes, Don Henri and Don Gabriel, retain their fatal habits of

stuffing themselves with grape-jelly, of teasing their sisters, of

taking their pleasure by going a-bird-nesting, and of cutting

switches for themselves from the osier-beds, maugre the laws of

the realm. Moreover, they list not to learn naught, wherefore the

Papal Nuncio (called of the commonalty, M. le Cure) threateneth

them with excommunication, since that they neglect the sacred

canons of grammatical construction for the construction of other

canon, deadly engines made of the stems of elder.

“Farewell, dear brother, never did letter carry so many wishes for

your success, so much love fully satisfied. You will have a great

deal to tell us when you come home! You will tell me everything,

won’t you? I am the oldest. From something the aunt let fall, we

think you must have had some success.

“Something was said of a lady, but nothing more was said...

“Of course not, in our family! Oh, by-the-by, Eugene, would you

rather that we made that piece of cambric into shirts for you

instead of pocket-handkerchiefs? If you want some really nice

shirts at once, we ought to lose no time in beginning upon them;

and if the fashion is different now in Paris, send us one for a

pattern; we want more particularly to know about the cuffs. Good-

bye! Good-bye! Take my kiss on the left side of your forehead, on

the temple that belongs to me, and to no one else in the world. I

am leaving the other side of the sheet for Agathe, who has

solemnly promised not to read a word that I have written; but, all

the same, I mean to sit by her side while she writes, so as to be

quite sure that she keeps her word.--Your loving sister,