第 四十 章 · 第40章

He carried off Rastignac with him by main force, and they departed in as

great a hurry as a pair of eloping lovers.

“Now, let us have dinner,” cried the painter, and every one drew his

chair to the table.

“Well, I never,” said the portly Sylvie. “Nothing goes right to-day! The

haricot mutton has caught! Bah! you will have to eat it, burned as it

is, more’s the pity!”

Mme. Vauquer was so dispirited that she could not say a word as she

looked round the table and saw only ten people where eighteen should

be; but every one tried to comfort and cheer her. At first the dinner

contingent, as was natural, talked about Vautrin and the day’s events;

but the conversation wound round to such topics of interest as duels,

jails, justice, prison life, and alterations that ought to be made

in the laws. They soon wandered miles away from Jacques Collin and

Victorine and her brother. There might be only ten of them, but they

made noise enough for twenty; indeed, there seemed to be more of them

than usual; that was the only difference between yesterday and to-day.

Indifference to the fate of others is a matter of course in this selfish

world, which, on the morrow of tragedy, seeks among the events of

Paris for a fresh sensation for its daily renewed appetite, and this

indifference soon gained the upper hand. Mme. Vauquer herself grew

calmer under the soothing influence of hope, and the mouthpiece of hope

was the portly Sylvie.

That day had gone by like a dream for Eugene, and the sense of unreality

lasted into the evening; so that, in spite of his energetic character

and clear-headedness, his ideas were a chaos as he sat beside Goriot in

the cab. The old man’s voice was full of unwonted happiness, but Eugene

had been shaken by so many emotions that the words sounded in his ears

like words spoken in a dream.

“It was finished this morning! All three of us are going to dine

there together, together! Do you understand? I have not dined with my

Delphine, my little Delphine, these four years, and I shall have her

for a whole evening! We have been at your lodging the whole time since

morning. I have been working like a porter in my shirt sleeves, helping

to carry in the furniture. Aha! you don’t know what pretty ways she

has; at table she will look after me, ‘Here, papa, just try this, it is

nice.’ And I shall not be able to eat. Oh, it is a long while since I

have been with her in quiet every-day life as we shall have her.”

“It really seems as if the world has been turned upside down.”

“Upside down?” repeated Father Goriot. “Why, the world has never been so

right-side up. I see none but smiling faces in the streets, people who

shake hands cordially and embrace each other, people who all look as

happy as if they were going to dine with their daughter, and gobble down

a nice little dinner that she went with me to order of the chef at the

Cafe des Anglais. But, pshaw! with her beside you gall and wormwood

would be as sweet as honey.”

“I feel as if I were coming back to life again,” said Eugene.

“Why, hurry up there!” cried Father Goriot, letting down the window in

front. “Get on faster; I will give you five francs if you get to the

place I told you of in ten minutes time.”

With this prospect before him the cabman crossed Paris with miraculous

celerity.

“How that fellow crawls!” said Father Goriot.

“But where are you taking me?” Eugene asked him.

“To your own house,” said Goriot.

The cab stopped in the Rue d’Artois. Father Goriot stepped out first and

flung ten francs to the man with the recklessness of a widower returning

to bachelor ways.

“Come along upstairs,” he said to Rastignac. They crossed a courtyard,

and climbed up to the third floor of a new and handsome house. There

they stopped before a door; but before Goriot could ring, it was opened

by Therese, Mme. de Nucingen’s maid. Eugene found himself in a charming

set of chambers; an ante-room, a little drawing-room, a bedroom, and a

study, looking out upon a garden. The furniture and the decorations of

the little drawing-room were of the most daintily charming description,

the room was full of soft light, and Delphine rose up from a low chair

by the fire and stood before him. She set her fire-screen down on the

chimney-piece, and spoke with tenderness in every tone of her voice.

“So we had to go in search of you, sir, you who are so slow to

understand!”

Therese left the room. The student took Delphine in his arms and held

her in a tight clasp, his eyes filled with tears of joy. This last

contrast between his present surroundings and the scenes he had just

witnessed was too much for Rastignac’s over-wrought nerves, after the

day’s strain and excitement that had wearied heart and brain; he was

almost overcome by it.

“I felt sure myself that he loved you,” murmured Father Goriot, while

Eugene lay back bewildered on the sofa, utterly unable to speak a word

or to reason out how and why the magic wand had been waved to bring

about this final transformation scene.

“But you must see your rooms,” said Mme. de Nucingen. She took his hand

and led him into a room carpeted and furnished like her own; indeed,

down to the smallest details, it was a reproduction in miniature of

Delphine’s apartment.

“There is no bed,” said Rastignac.

“No, monsieur,” she answered, reddening, and pressing his hand. Eugene,

looking at her, understood, young though he yet was, how deeply modesty

is implanted in the heart of a woman who loves.

“You are one of those beings whom we cannot choose but to adore for

ever,” he said in her ear. “Yes, the deeper and truer love is, the more

mysterious and closely veiled it should be; I can dare to say so, since

we understand each other so well. No one shall learn our secret.”

“Oh! so I am nobody, I suppose,” growled the father.

“You know quite well that ‘we’ means you.”

“Ah! that is what I wanted. You will not mind me, will you? I shall go

and come like a good fairy who makes himself felt everywhere without

being seen, shall I not? Eh, Delphinette, Ninette, Dedel--was it not a

good idea of mine to say to you, ‘There are some nice rooms to let in

the Rue d’Artois; let us furnish them for him?’ And she would not hear

of it! Ah! your happiness has been all my doing. I am the author of your

happiness and of your existence. Fathers must always be giving if they

would be happy themselves; always giving--they would not be fathers

else.”

“Was that how it happened?” asked Eugene.

“Yes. She would not listen to me. She was afraid that people would

talk, as if the rubbish that they say about you were to be compared with

happiness! Why, all women dream of doing what she has done----”

Father Goriot found himself without an audience, for Mme. de Nucingen

had led Rastignac into the study; he heard a kiss given and taken, low

though the sound was.

The study was furnished as elegantly as the other rooms, and nothing was

wanting there.

“Have we guessed your wishes rightly?” she asked, as they returned to

the drawing-room for dinner.

“Yes,” he said, “only too well, alas! For all this luxury so well

carried out, this realization of pleasant dreams, the elegance that

satisfies all the romantic fancies of youth, appeals to me so strongly

that I cannot but feel that it is my rightful possession, but I cannot

accept it from you, and I am too poor as yet to----”

“Ah! ah! you say me nay already,” she said with arch imperiousness,

and a charming little pout of the lips, a woman’s way of laughing away

scruples.

But Eugene had submitted so lately to that solemn self-questioning, and

Vautrin’s arrest had so plainly shown him the depths of the pit that lay

ready to his feet, that the instincts of generosity and honor had been

strengthened in him, and he could not allow himself to be coaxed into

abandoning his high-minded determinations. Profound melancholy filled

his mind.

“Do you really mean to refuse?” said Mme. de Nucingen. “And do you know

what such a refusal means? That you are not sure of yourself, that you

do not dare to bind yourself to me. Are you really afraid of betraying

my affection? If you love me, if I--love you, why should you shrink back

from such a slight obligation? If you but knew what a pleasure it has

been to see after all the arrangements of this bachelor establishment,

you would not hesitate any longer, you would ask me to forgive you for

your hesitation. I had some money that belonged to you, and I have made

good use of it, that is all. You mean this for magnanimity, but it is

very little of you. You are asking me for far more than this.... Ah!”

she cried, as Eugene’s passionate glance was turned on her, “and you are

making difficulties about the merest trifles. Of, if you feel no love

whatever for me, refuse, by all means. My fate hangs on a word from you.

Speak!--Father,” she said after a pause, “make him listen to reason. Can

he imagine that I am less nice than he is on the point of honor?”

Father Goriot was looking on and listening to this pretty quarrel with a

placid smile, as if he had found some balm for all the sorrows of life.

“Child that you are!” she cried again, catching Eugene’s hand. “You are

just beginning life; you find barriers at the outset that many a man

finds insurmountable; a woman’s hand opens the way and you shrink back!

Why, you are sure to succeed! You will have a brilliant future. Success

is written on that broad forehead of yours, and will you not be able to

repay me my loan of to-day? Did not a lady in olden times arm her knight

with sword and helmet and coat of mail, and find him a charger, so that

he might fight for her in the tournament? Well, then, Eugene, these

things that I offer you are the weapons of this age; every one who

means to be something must have such tools as these. A pretty place your

garret must be if it is like papa’s room! See, dinner is waiting all

this time. Do you want to make me unhappy?--Why don’t you answer?” she

said, shaking his hand. “_Mon Dieu!_ papa, make up his mind for him, or

I will go away and never see him any more.”

“I will make up your mind,” said Goriot, coming down from the clouds.

“Now, my dear M. Eugene, the next thing is to borrow money of the Jews,

isn’t it?”