บทที่ บทที่ 45 · 第45章

“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

father had laid on her arm. “She is more merciless than my husband. Any

one might think she was a model of all the virtues herself!”

“I would rather have people think that I owed money to M. de Marsay

than own that M. de Trailles had cost me more than two hundred thousand

francs,” retorted Mme. de Nucingen.

“_Delphine!_” cried the Countess, stepping towards her sister.

“I shall tell you the truth about yourself if you begin to slander me,”

said the Baroness coldly.

“Delphine! you are a ----”

Father Goriot sprang between them, grasped the Countess’ hand, and laid

his own over her mouth.

“Good heavens, father! What have you been handling this morning?” said

Anastasie.

“Ah! well, yes, I ought not to have touched you,” said the poor father,

wiping his hands on his trousers, “but I have been packing up my things;

I did not know that you were coming to see me.”

He was glad that he had drawn down her wrath upon himself.

“Ah!” he sighed, as he sat down, “you children have broken my heart

between you. This is killing me. My head feels as if it were on fire.

Be good to each other and love each other! This will be the death of

me! Delphine! Nasie! come, be sensible; you are both in the wrong. Come,

Dedel,” he added, looking through his tears at the Baroness, “she must

have twelve thousand francs, you see; let us see if we can find them for

her. Oh, my girls, do not look at each other like that!” and he sank on

his knees beside Delphine. “Ask her to forgive you--just to please

me,” he said in her ear. “She is more miserable than you are. Come now,

Dedel.”

“Poor Nasie!” said Delphine, alarmed at the wild extravagant grief in

her father’s face, “I was in the wrong, kiss me----”

“Ah! that is like balm to my heart,” cried Father Goriot. “But how are

we to find twelve thousand francs? I might offer myself as a substitute

in the army----”

“Oh! father dear!” they both cried, flinging their arms about him. “No,

no!”

“God reward you for the thought. We are not worth it, are we, Nasie?”

asked Delphine.

“And besides, father dear, it would only be a drop in the bucket,”

observed the Countess.

“But is flesh and blood worth nothing?” cried the old man in his

despair. “I would give body and soul to save you, Nasie. I would do a

murder for the man who would rescue you. I would do, as Vautrin did, go

to the hulks, go----” he stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt, and put

both hands to his head. “Nothing left!” he cried, tearing his hair. “If

I only knew of a way to steal money, but it is so hard to do it, and

then you can’t set to work by yourself, and it takes time to rob a bank.

Yes, it is time I was dead; there is nothing left me to do but to die. I

am no good in the world; I am no longer a father! No. She has come to me

in her extremity, and, wretch that I am, I have nothing to give her. Ah!

you put your money into a life annuity, old scoundrel; and had you not

daughters? You did not love them. Die, die in a ditch, like the dog that

you are! Yes, I am worse than a dog; a beast would not have done as I

have done! Oh! my head... it throbs as if it would burst.”

“Papa!” cried both the young women at once, “do, pray, be reasonable!”

and they clung to him to prevent him from dashing his head against the

wall. There was a sound of sobbing.

Eugene, greatly alarmed, took the bill that bore Vautrin’s signature,

saw that the stamp would suffice for a larger sum, altered the figures,

made it into a regular bill for twelve thousand francs, payable to

Goriot’s order, and went to his neighbor’s room.

“Here is the money, madame,” he said, handing the piece of paper to her.

“I was asleep; your conversation awoke me, and by this means I learned

all that I owed to M. Goriot. This bill can be discounted, and I shall

meet it punctually at the due date.”

The Countess stood motionless and speechless, but she held the bill in

her fingers.

“Delphine,” she said, with a white face, and her whole frame quivering

with indignation, anger, and rage, “I forgave you everything; God is my

witness that I forgave you, but I cannot forgive this! So this gentleman

was there all the time, and you knew it! Your petty spite has let you

to wreak your vengeance on me by betraying my secrets, my life, my

children’s lives, my shame, my honor! There, you are nothing to me any

longer. I hate you. I will do all that I can to injure you. I will...”

Anger paralyzed her; the words died in her dry parched throat.

“Why, he is my son, my child; he is your brother, your preserver!” cried

Goriot. “Kiss his hand, Nasie! Stay, I will embrace him myself,” he

said, straining Eugene to his breast in a frenzied clasp. “Oh my boy! I

will be more than a father to you; if I had God’s power, I would fling

worlds at your feet. Why don’t you kiss him, Nasie? He is not a man, but

an angel, a angel out of heaven.”

“Never mind her, father; she is mad just now.”

“Mad! am I? And what are you?” cried Mme. de Restaud.

“Children, children, I shall die if you go on like this,” cried the

old man, and he staggered and fell on the bed as if a bullet had struck

him.--“They are killing me between them,” he said to himself.

The Countess fixed her eyes on Eugene, who stood stock still; all his

faculties were numbed by this violent scene.

“Sir?...” she said, doubt and inquiry in her face, tone, and bearing;

she took no notice now of her father nor of Delphine, who was hastily

unfastening his waistcoat.

“Madame,” said Eugene, answering the question before it was asked, “I

will meet the bill, and keep silence about it.”

“You have killed our father, Nasie!” said Delphine, pointing to Goriot,

who lay unconscious on the bed. The Countess fled.

“I freely forgive her,” said the old man, opening his eyes; “her

position is horrible; it would turn an older head than hers. Comfort

Nasie, and be nice to her, Delphine; promise it to your poor father

before he dies,” he asked, holding Delphine’s hand in a convulsive

clasp.

“Oh! what ails you, father?” she cried in real alarm.

“Nothing, nothing,” said Goriot; “it will go off. There is something

heavy pressing on my forehead, a little headache.... Ah! poor Nasie,

what a life lies before her!”

Just as he spoke, the Countess came back again and flung herself on her

knees before him. “Forgive me!” she cried.

“Come,” said her father, “you are hurting me still more.”

“Monsieur,” the Countess said, turning to Rastignac, “misery made me

unjust to you. You will be a brother to me, will you not?” and she held

out her hand. Her eyes were full of tears as she spoke.