第 五十三 章 · 第53章

Eugene hurried up to Goriot’s room.

“Bianchon,” he cried, “the money for the watch?”

“There it is on the table, or the three hundred and sixty odd francs

that are left of it. I paid up all the old scores out of it before they

let me have the things. The pawn ticket lies there under the money.”

Rastignac hurried downstairs.

“Here, madame” he said in disgust, “let us square accounts. M. Goriot

will not stay much longer in your house, nor shall I----”

“Yes, he will go out feet foremost, poor old gentleman,” she said,

counting the francs with a half-facetious, half-lugubrious expression.

“Let us get this over,” said Rastignac.

“Sylvie, look out some sheets, and go upstairs to help the gentlemen.”

“You won’t forget Sylvie,” said Mme. Vauquer in Eugene’s ear; “she has

been sitting up these two nights.”

As soon as Eugene’s back was turned, the old woman hurried after her

handmaid.

“Take the sheets that have had the sides turned into the middle, number

7. Lord! they are plenty good enough for a corpse,” she said in Sylvie’s

ear.

Eugene, by this time, was part of the way upstairs, and did not overhear

the elderly economist.

“Quick,” said Bianchon, “let us change his shirt. Hold him upright.”

Eugene went to the head of the bed and supported the dying man, while

Bianchon drew off his shirt; and then Goriot made a movement as if he

tried to clutch something to his breast, uttering a low inarticulate

moaning the while, like some dumb animal in mortal pain.

“Ah! yes!” cried Bianchon. “It is the little locket and the chain

made of hair that he wants; we took it off a while ago when we put the

blisters on him. Poor fellow! he must have it again. There it lies on

the chimney-piece.”

Eugene went to the chimney-piece and found the little plait of faded

golden hair--Mme. Goriot’s hair, no doubt. He read the name on the

little round locket, ANASTASIE on the one side, DELPHINE on the other.

It was the symbol of his own heart that the father always wore on his

breast. The curls of hair inside the locket were so fine and soft that

is was plain they had been taken from two childish heads. When the old

man felt the locket once more, his chest heaved with a long deep sigh

of satisfaction, like a groan. It was something terrible to see, for it

seemed as if the last quiver of the nerves were laid bare to their eyes,

the last communication of sense to the mysterious point within whence

our sympathies come and whither they go. A delirious joy lighted up the

distorted face. The terrific and vivid force of the feeling that had

survived the power of thought made such an impression on the students,

that the dying man felt their hot tears falling on him, and gave a

shrill cry of delight.

“Nasie! Fifine!”

“There is life in him yet,” said Bianchon.

“What does he go on living for?” said Sylvie.

“To suffer,” answered Rastignac.

Bianchon made a sign to his friend to follow his example, knelt down and

pressed his arms under the sick man, and Rastignac on the other side did

the same, so that Sylvie, standing in readiness, might draw the sheet

from beneath and replace it with the one that she had brought. Those

tears, no doubt, had misled Goriot; for he gathered up all his remaining

strength in a last effort, stretched out his hands, groped for the

students’ heads, and as his fingers caught convulsively at their hair,

they heard a faint whisper:

“Ah! my angels!”

Two words, two inarticulate murmurs, shaped into words by the soul which

fled forth with them as they left his lips.

“Poor dear!” cried Sylvie, melted by that exclamation; the expression of

the great love raised for the last time to a sublime height by that most

ghastly and involuntary of lies.

The father’s last breath must have been a sigh of joy, and in that sigh

his whole life was summed up; he was cheated even at the last. They laid

Father Goriot upon his wretched bed with reverent hands. Thenceforward

there was no expression on his face, only the painful traces of the

struggle between life and death that was going on in the machine; for

that kind of cerebral consciousness that distinguishes between pleasure

and pain in a human being was extinguished; it was only a question of

time--and the mechanism itself would be destroyed.

“He will lie like this for several hours, and die so quietly at last,

that we shall not know when he goes; there will be no rattle in the

throat. The brain must be completely suffused.”

As he spoke there was a footstep on the staircase, and a young woman

hastened up, panting for breath.

“She has come too late,” said Rastignac.

But it was not Delphine; it was Therese, her waiting-woman, who stood in

the doorway.

“Monsieur Eugene,” she said, “monsieur and madame have had a terrible

scene about some money that Madame (poor thing!) wanted for her father.

She fainted, and the doctor came, and she had to be bled, calling

out all the while, ‘My father is dying; I want to see papa!’ It was

heartbreaking to hear her----”

“That will do, Therese. If she came now, it would be trouble thrown

away. M. Goriot cannot recognize any one now.”

“Poor, dear gentleman, is he as bad at that?” said Therese.

“You don’t want me now, I must go and look after my dinner; it is

half-past four,” remarked Sylvie. The next instant she all but collided

with Mme. de Restaud on the landing outside.

There was something awful and appalling in the sudden apparition of

the Countess. She saw the bed of death by the dim light of the single

candle, and her tears flowed at the sight of her father’s passive

features, from which the life had almost ebbed. Bianchon with thoughtful

tact left the room.

“I could not escape soon enough,” she said to Rastignac.

The student bowed sadly in reply. Mme. de Restaud took her father’s hand

and kissed it.

“Forgive me, father! You used to say that my voice would call you back

from the grave; ah! come back for one moment to bless your penitent

daughter. Do you hear me? Oh! this is fearful! No one on earth will ever

bless me henceforth; every one hates me; no one loves me but you in all

the world. My own children will hate me. Take me with you, father; I

will love you, I will take care of you. He does not hear me ... I am

mad...”

She fell on her knees, and gazed wildly at the human wreck before her.

“My cup of misery is full,” she said, turning her eyes upon Eugene.

“M. de Trailles has fled, leaving enormous debts behind him, and I have

found out that he was deceiving me. My husband will never forgive me,

and I have left my fortune in his hands. I have lost all my illusions.

Alas! I have forsaken the one heart that loved me (she pointed to her

father as she spoke), and for whom? I have held his kindness cheap,

and slighted his affection; many and many a time I have given him pain,

ungrateful wretch that I am!”

“He knew it,” said Rastignac.

Just then Goriot’s eyelids unclosed; it was only a muscular contraction,

but the Countess’ sudden start of reviving hope was no less dreadful

than the dying eyes.

“Is it possible that he can hear me?” cried the Countess. “No,” she

answered herself, and sat down beside the bed. As Mme. de Restaud seemed

to wish to sit by her father, Eugene went down to take a little food.

The boarders were already assembled.

“Well,” remarked the painter, as he joined them, “it seems that there is

to be a death-orama upstairs.”

“Charles, I think you might find something less painful to joke about,”

said Eugene.

“So we may not laugh here?” returned the painter. “What harm does it do?

Bianchon said that the old man was quite insensible.”

“Well, then,” said the _employe_ from the Museum, “he will die as he has

lived.”

“My father is dead!” shrieked the Countess.

The terrible cry brought Sylvie, Rastignac, and Bianchon; Mme.

de Restaud had fainted away. When she recovered they carried her

downstairs, and put her into the cab that stood waiting at the door.

Eugene sent Therese with her, and bade the maid take the Countess to

Mme. de Nucingen.

Bianchon came down to them.

“Yes, he is dead,” he said.

“Come, sit down to dinner, gentlemen,” said Mme. Vauquer, “or the soup

will be cold.”

The two students sat down together.

“What is the next thing to be done?” Eugene asked of Bianchon.

“I have closed his eyes and composed his limbs,” said Bianchon. “When

the certificate has been officially registered at the Mayor’s office,

we will sew him in his winding sheet and bury him somewhere. What do you

think we ought to do?”

“He will not smell at his bread like this any more,” said the painter,

mimicking the old man’s little trick.

“Oh, hang it all!” cried the tutor, “let Father Goriot drop, and let us

have something else for a change. He is a standing dish, and we have had

him with every sauce this hour or more. It is one of the privileges of

the good city of Paris that anybody may be born, or live, or die there

without attracting any attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the

advantages of civilization. There are fifty or sixty deaths every day;

if you have a mind to do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over

whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Father Goriot has gone off the hooks,

has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it

to yourselves, and let the rest of us feed in peace.”

“Oh, to be sure,” said the widow, “it is all the better for him that he

is dead. It looks as though he had had trouble enough, poor soul, while

he was alive.”

And this was all the funeral oration delivered over him who had been for

Eugene the type and embodiment of Fatherhood.

The fifteen lodgers began to talk as usual. When Bianchon and Eugene had

satisfied their hunger, the rattle of spoons and forks, the boisterous

conversation, the expressions on the faces that bespoke various degrees

of want of feeling, gluttony, or indifference, everything about them

made them shiver with loathing. They went out to find a priest to watch

that night with the dead. It was necessary to measure their last pious

cares by the scanty sum of money that remained. Before nine o’clock that

evening the body was laid out on the bare sacking of the bedstead in

the desolate room; a lighted candle stood on either side, and the priest

watched at the foot. Rastignac made inquiries of this latter as to the

expenses of the funeral, and wrote to the Baron de Nucingen and the

Comte de Restaud, entreating both gentlemen to authorize their man of

business to defray the charges of laying their father-in-law in the

grave. He sent Christophe with the letters; then he went to bed, tired

out, and slept.