第 四十一 章 · 第41章

“There is positively no help for it,” said Eugene.

“All right, I will give you credit,” said the other, drawing out a cheap

leather pocket-book, much the worse for wear. “I have turned Jew myself;

I paid for everything; here are the invoices. You do not owe a penny

for anything here. It did not come to very much--five thousand francs at

most, and I am going to lend you the money myself. I am not a woman--you

can refuse me. You shall give me a receipt on a scrap of paper, and you

can return it some time or other.”

Delphine and Eugene looked at each other in amazement, tears sprang to

their eyes. Rastignac held out his hand and grasped Goriot’s warmly.

“Well, what is all this about? Are you not my children?”

“Oh! my poor father,” said Mme. de Nucingen, “how did you do it?”

“Ah! now you ask me. When I made up my mind to move him nearer to you,

and saw you buying things as if they were wedding presents, I said to

myself, ‘She will never be able to pay for them.’ The attorney says that

those law proceedings will last quite six months before your husband can

be made to disgorge your fortune. Well and good. I sold out my property

in the funds that brought in thirteen hundred and fifty livres a year,

and bought a safe annuity of twelve hundred francs a year for fifteen

thousand francs. Then I paid your tradesmen out of the rest of the

capital. As for me, children, I have a room upstairs for which I pay

fifty crowns a year; I can live like a prince on two francs a day, and

still have something left over. I shall not have to spend anything much

on clothes, for I never wear anything out. This fortnight past I have

been laughing in my sleeve, thinking to myself, ‘How happy they are

going to be!’ and--well, now, are you not happy?”

“Oh papa! papa!” cried Mme. de Nucingen, springing to her father, who

took her on his knee. She covered him with kisses, her fair hair brushed

his cheek, her tears fell on the withered face that had grown so bright

and radiant.

“Dear father, what a father you are! No, there is not another father

like you under the sun. If Eugene loved you before, what must he feel

for you now?”

“Why, children, why Delphinette!” cried Goriot, who had not felt his

daughter’s heart beat against his breast for ten years, “do you want me

to die of joy? My poor heart will break! Come, Monsieur Eugene, we are

quits already.” And the old man strained her to his breast with such

fierce and passionate force that she cried out.

“Oh! you are hurting me!” she said.

“I am hurting you!” He grew pale at the words. The pain expressed in his

face seemed greater than it is given to humanity to know. The agony of

this Christ of paternity can only be compared with the masterpieces of

those princes of the palette who have left for us the record of their

visions of an agony suffered for a whole world by the Saviour of men.

Father Goriot pressed his lips very gently against the waist than his

fingers had grasped too roughly.

“Oh! no, no,” he cried. “I have not hurt you, have I?” and his smile

seemed to repeat the question. “YOU have hurt me with that cry just

now.--The things cost rather more than that,” he said in her ear, with

another gentle kiss, “but I had to deceive him about it, or he would

have been angry.”

Eugene sat dumb with amazement in the presence of this inexhaustible

love; he gazed at Goriot, and his face betrayed the artless admiration

which shapes the beliefs of youth.

“I will be worthy of all this,” he cried.

“Oh! my Eugene, that is nobly said,” and Mme. de Nucingen kissed the law

student on the forehead.

“He gave up Mlle. Taillefer and her millions for you,” said Father

Goriot. “Yes, the little thing was in love with you, and now that her

brother is dead she is as rich as Croesus.”

“Oh! why did you tell her?” cried Rastignac.

“Eugene,” Delphine said in his ear, “I have one regret now this evening.

Ah! how I will love you! and for ever!”

“This is the happiest day I have had since you two were married!” cried

Goriot. “God may send me any suffering, so long as I do not suffer

through you, and I can still say, ‘In this short month of February I had

more happiness than other men have in their whole lives.’--Look at me,

Fifine!” he said to his daughter. “She is very beautiful, is she not?

Tell me, now, have you seen many women with that pretty soft color--that

little dimple of hers? No, I thought not. Ah, well, and but for me this

lovely woman would never have been. And very soon happiness will make

her a thousand times lovelier, happiness through you. I could give up

my place in heaven to you, neighbor, if needs be, and go down to hell

instead. Come, let us have dinner,” he added, scarcely knowing what he

said, “everything is ours.”

“Poor dear father!”

He rose and went over to her, and took her face in his hands, and set a

kiss on the plaits of hair. “If you only knew, little one, how happy you

can make me--how little it takes to make me happy! Will you come and see

me sometimes? I shall be just above, so it is only a step. Promise me,

say that you will!”

“Yes, dear father.”

“Say it again.”

“Yes, I will, my kind father.”

“Hush! hush! I should make you say it a hundred times over if I followed

my own wishes. Let us have dinner.”

The three behaved like children that evening, and Father Goriot’s

spirits were certainly not the least wild. He lay at his daughter’s

feet, kissed them, gazed into her eyes, rubbed his head against her

dress; in short, no young lover could have been more extravagant or more

tender.

“You see!” Delphine said with a look at Eugene, “so long as my father is

with us, he monopolizes me. He will be rather in the way sometimes.”

Eugene had himself already felt certain twinges of jealousy, and could

not blame this speech that contained the germ of all ingratitude.

“And when will the rooms be ready?” asked Eugene, looking round. “We

must all leave them this evening, I suppose.”

“Yes, but to-morrow you must come and dine with me,” she answered, with

an eloquent glance. “It is our night at the Italiens.”

“I shall go to the pit,” said her father.

It was midnight. Mme. de Nucingen’s carriage was waiting for her, and

Father Goriot and the student walked back to the Maison Vauquer, talking

of Delphine, and warming over their talk till there grew up a curious

rivalry between the two violent passions. Eugene could not help seeing

that the father’s self-less love was deeper and more steadfast than

his own. For this worshiper Delphine was always pure and fair, and her

father’s adoration drew its fervor from a whole past as well as a future

of love.

They found Mme. Vauquer by the stove, with Sylvie and Christophe to keep

her company; the old landlady, sitting like Marius among the ruins of

Carthage, was waiting for the two lodgers that yet remained to her, and

bemoaning her lot with the sympathetic Sylvie. Tasso’s lamentations as

recorded in Byron’s poem are undoubtedly eloquent, but for sheer force

of truth they fall far short of the widow’s cry from the depths.

“Only three cups of coffee in the morning, Sylvie! Oh dear! to have your

house emptied in this way is enough to break your heart. What is life,

now my lodgers are gone? Nothing at all. Just think of it! It is just as

if all the furniture had been taken out of the house, and your furniture

is your life. How have I offended heaven to draw down all this trouble

upon me? And haricot beans and potatoes laid in for twenty people!

The police in my house too! We shall have to live on potatoes now, and

Christophe will have to go!”

The Savoyard, who was fast asleep, suddenly woke up at this, and said,

“Madame,” questioningly.

“Poor fellow!” said Sylvie, “he is like a dog.”

“In the dead season, too! Nobody is moving now. I would like to know

where the lodgers are to drop down from. It drives me distracted. And

that old witch of a Michonneau goes and takes Poiret with her! What can

she have done to make him so fond of her? He runs about after her like a

little dog.”

“Lord!” said Sylvie, flinging up her head, “those old maids are up to

all sorts of tricks.”

“There’s that poor M. Vautrin that they made out to be a convict,” the

widow went on. “Well, you know that is too much for me, Sylvie; I

can’t bring myself to believe it. Such a lively man as he was, and paid

fifteen francs a month for his coffee of an evening, paid you very penny

on the nail too.”

“And open-handed he was!” said Christophe.

“There is some mistake,” said Sylvie.

“Why, no there isn’t! he said so himself!” said Mme. Vauquer. “And to

think that all these things have happened in my house, and in a quarter

where you never see a cat go by. On my word as an honest woman, it’s

like a dream. For, look here, we saw Louis XVI. meet with his mishap;

we saw the fall of the Emperor; and we saw him come back and fall again;

there was nothing out of the way in all that, but lodging-houses are not

liable to revolutions. You can do without a king, but you must eat all

the same; and so long as a decent woman, a de Conflans born and bred,

will give you all sorts of good things for dinner, nothing short of the

end of the world ought to--but there, it is the end of the world, that

is just what it is!”

“And to think that Mlle. Michonneau who made all this mischief is to

have a thousand crowns a year for it, so I hear,” cried Sylvie.

“Don’t speak of her, she is a wicked woman!” said Mme. Vauquer. “She

is going to the Buneaud, who charges less than cost. But the Buneaud

is capable of anything; she must have done frightful things, robbed

and murdered people in her time. _She_ ought to be put in jail for life

instead of that poor dear----”

Eugene and Goriot rang the door-bell at that moment.

“Ah! here are my two faithful lodgers,” said the widow, sighing.

But the two faithful lodgers, who retained but shadowy recollections

of the misfortunes of their lodging-house, announced to their hostess

without more ado that they were about to remove to the Chaussee d’Antin.

“Sylvie!” cried the widow, “this is the last straw.--Gentlemen, this

will be the death of me! It has quite upset me! There’s a weight on my

chest! I am ten years older for this day! Upon my word, I shall go out

of my senses! And what is to be done with the haricots!--Oh, well, if

I am to be left here all by myself, you shall go to-morrow,

Christophe.--Good-night, gentlemen,” and she went.