Father Goriot

She took Rastignac’s arm, and went towards a sofa in the card-room.

“I want you to go to the Marquis,” she said. “Jacques, my footman, will go with you; he has a letter that you will take. I am asking the Marquis to give my letters back to me. He will give them all up, I like to think that. When you have my letters, go up to my room with them. Some one shall bring me word.”

She rose to go to meet the Duchesse de Langeais, her most intimate friend, who had come like the rest of the world.

Rastignac went. He asked for the Marquis d’Ajuda at the Hotel Rochefide, feeling certain that the latter would be spending his evening there, and so it proved. The Marquis went to his own house with Rastignac, and gave a casket to the student, saying as he did so, “They are all there.”

He seemed as if he was about to say something to Eugene, to ask about the ball, or the Vicomtesse; perhaps he was on the brink of the confession that, even then, he was in despair, and knew that his marriage had been a fatal mistake; but a proud gleam shone in his eyes, and with deplorable courage he kept his noblest feelings a secret.

“Do not even mention my name to her, my dear Eugene.” He grasped Rastignac’s hand sadly and affectionately, and turned away from him. Eugene went back to the Hotel Beauseant, the servant took him to the Vicomtesse’s room. There were signs there of preparations for a journey. He sat down by the fire, fixed his eyes on the cedar wood casket, and fell into deep mournful musings. Mme. de Beauseant loomed large in these imaginings, like a goddess in the Iliad.

“Ah! my friend!..” said the Vicomtesse; she crossed the room and laid her hand on Rastignac’s shoulder. He saw the tears in his cousin’s uplifted eyes, saw that one hand was raised to take the casket, and that the fingers of the other trembled. Suddenly she took the casket, put it in the fire, and watched it burn.

“They are dancing,” she said. “They all came very early; but death will be long in coming. Hush! my friend,” and she laid a finger on Rastignac’s lips, seeing that he was about to speak. “I shall never see Paris again. I am taking my leave of the world. At five o’clock this morning I shall set out on my journey; I mean to bury myself in the remotest part of Normandy. I have had very little time to make my arrangements; since three o’clock this afternoon I have been busy signing documents, setting my affairs in order; there was no one whom I could send to…”

She broke off.

“He was sure to be…”

Again she broke off; the weight of her sorrow was more than she could bear. In such moments as these everything is agony, and some words are impossible to utter.

“And so I counted upon you to do me this last piece of service this evening,” she said. “I should like to give you some pledge of friendship. I shall often think of you. You have seemed to me to be kind and noble, fresh-hearted and true, in this world where such qualities are seldom found. I should like you to think sometimes of me. Stay,” she said, glancing about her, “there is this box that has held my gloves. Every time I opened it before going to a ball or to the theatre, I used to feel that I must be beautiful, because I was so happy; and I never touched it except to lay some gracious memory in it: there is so much of my old self in it, of a Madame de Beauseant who now lives no longer. Will you take it? I will leave directions that it is to be sent to you in the Rue d’Artois. – Mme. de Nucingen looked very charming this evening. Eugene, you must love her. Perhaps we may never see each other again, my friend; but be sure of this, that I shall pray for you who have been kind to me. – Now, let us go downstairs. People shall not think that I am weeping. I have all time and eternity before me, and where I am going I shall be alone, and no one will ask me the reason of my tears. One last look round first.”

She stood for a moment. Then she covered her eyes with her hands for an instant, dashed away the tears, bathed her face with cold water, and took the student’s arm.

“Let us go!” she said.

This suffering, endured with such noble fortitude, shook Eugene with a more violent emotion than he had felt before. They went back to the ballroom, and Mme. de Beauseant went through the rooms on Eugene’s arm – the last delicately gracious act of a gracious woman. In another moment he saw the sisters, Mme. de Restaud and Mme. de Nucingen. The Countess shone in all the glory of her magnificent diamonds; every stone must have scorched like fire, she was never to wear them again. Strong as love and pride might be in her, she found it difficult to meet her husband’s eyes. The sight of her was scarcely calculated to lighten Rastignac’s sad thoughts; through the blaze of those diamonds he seemed to see the wretched pallet-bed on which Father Goriot was lying. The Vicomtesse misread his melancholy; she withdrew her hand from his arm.

“Come,” she said, “I must not deprive you of a pleasure.”

Eugene was soon claimed by Delphine. She was delighted by the impression that she had made, and eager to lay at her lover’s feet the homage she had received in this new world in which she hoped to live and move henceforth.

“What do you think of Nasie?” she asked him.

“She has discounted everything, even her own father’s death,” said Rastignac.

Towards four o’clock in the morning the rooms began to empty. A little later the music ceased, and the Duchesse de Langeais and Rastignac were left in the great ballroom. The Vicomtesse, who thought to find the student there alone, came back there at last. She had taken leave of M. de Beauseant, who had gone off to bed, saying again as he went, “It is a great pity, my dear, to shut yourself up at your age! Pray stay among us.”

Mme. de Beauseant saw the Duchesse, and, in spite of herself, an exclamation broke from her.

“I saw how it was, Clara,” said Mme. de Langeais. “You are going from among us, and you will never come back. But you must not go until you have heard me, until we have understood each other.”

She took her friend’s arm, and they went together into the next room. There the Duchess looked at her with tears in her eyes; she held her friend in close embrace and kissed her cheek.

“I could not let you go without a word, dearest; the remorse would have been too hard to bear. You can count upon me as surely as upon yourself. You have shown yourself great this evening; I feel that I am worthy of our friendship, and I mean to prove myself worthy of it. I have not always been kind; I was in the wrong; forgive me, dearest; I wish I could unsay anything that may have hurt you; I take back those words. One common sorrow has brought us together again, for I do not know which of us is the more miserable. M. de Montriveau was not here to-night; do you understand what that means? – None of those who saw you to-night, Clara, will ever forget you. I mean to make one last effort. If I fail, I shall go into a convent. Clara, where are you going?”

“Into Normandy, to Courcelles. I shall love and pray there until the day when God shall take me from this world. – M. de Rastignac!” called the Vicomtesse, in a tremulous voice, remembering that the young man was waiting there.

The student knelt to kiss his cousin’s hand.

“Good-bye, Antoinette!” said Mme. de Beauseant. “May you be happy.” – She turned to the student. “You are young,” she said; “you have some beliefs still left. I have been privileged, like some dying people, to find sincere and reverent feeling in those about me as I take my leave of this world.”

It was nearly five o’clock that morning when Rastignac came away. He had put Mme. de Beauseant into her traveling carriage, and received her last farewells, spoken amid fast-falling tears; for no greatness is so great that it can rise above the laws of human affection, or live beyond the jurisdiction of pain, as certain demagogues would have the people believe. Eugene returned on foot to the Maison Vauquer through the cold and darkness. His education was nearly complete.

“There is no hope for poor Father Goriot,” said Bianchon, as Rastignac came into the room. Eugene looked for a while at the sleeping man, then he turned to his friend. “Dear fellow, you are content with the modest career you have marked out for yourself; keep to it. I am in hell, and I must stay there. Believe everything that you hear said of the world, nothing is too impossibly bad. No Juvenal could paint the horrors hidden away under the covering of gems and gold.”

At two o’clock in the afternoon Bianchon came to wake Rastignac, and begged him to take charge of Goriot, who had grown worse as the day wore on. The medical student was obliged to go out.

“Poor old man, he has not two days to live, maybe not many hours,” he said; “but we must do our utmost, all the same, to fight the disease. It will be a very troublesome case, and we shall want money. We can nurse him between us, of course, but, for my own part, I have not a penny. I have turned out his pockets, and rummaged through his drawers – result, nix. I asked him about it while his mind was clear, and he told me he had not a farthing of his own. What have you?”

“I have twenty francs left,” said Rastignac; “but I will take them to the roulette table, I shall be sure to win.”

“And if you lose?”

“Then I shall go to his sons-in-law and his daughters and ask them for money.”

“And suppose they refuse?” Bianchon retorted. “The most pressing thing just now is not really money; we must put mustard poultices, as hot as they can be made, on his feet and legs. If he calls out, there is still some hope for him. You know how to set about doing it, and besides, Christophe will help you. I am going round to the dispensary to persuade them to let us have the things we want on credit. It is a pity that we could not move him to the hospital; poor fellow, he would be better there. Well, come along, I leave you in charge; you must stay with him till I come back.”

The two young men went back to the room where the old man was lying. Eugene was startled at the change in Goriot’s face, so livid, distorted, and feeble.

“How are you, papa?” he said, bending over the pallet-bed. Goriot turned his dull eyes upon Eugene, looked at him attentively, and did not recognize him. It was more than the student could bear; the tears came into his eyes.

“Bianchon, ought we to have the curtains put up in the windows?”

“No, the temperature and the light do not affect him now. It would be a good thing for him if he felt heat or cold; but we must have a fire in any case to make tisanes and heat the other things. I will send round a few sticks; they will last till we can have in some firewood. I burned all the bark fuel you had left, as well as his, poor man, yesterday and during the night. The place is so damp that the water stood in drops on the walls; I could hardly get the room dry. Christophe came in and swept the floor, but the place is like a stable; I had to burn juniper, the smell was something horrible.

“Mon Dieu!” said Rastignac. “To think of those daughters of his.”

“One moment, if he asks for something to drink, give him this,” said the house student, pointing to a large white jar. “If he begins to groan, and the belly feels hot and hard to the touch, you know what to do; get Christophe to help you. If he should happen to grow much excited, and begin to talk a good deal and even to ramble in his talk, do not be alarmed. It would not be a bad symptom. But send Christophe to the Hospice Cochin. Our doctor, my chum, or I will come and apply moxas. We had a great consultation this morning while you were asleep. A surgeon, a pupil of Gall’s came, and our house surgeon, and the head physician from the Hotel-Dieu. Those gentlemen considered that the symptoms were very unusual and interesting; the case must be carefully watched, for it throws a light on several obscure and rather important scientific problems. One of the authorities says that if there is more pressure of serum on one or other portion of the brain, it should affect his mental capacities in such and such directions. So if he should talk, notice very carefully what kind of ideas his mind seems to run on; whether memory, or penetration, or the reasoning faculties are exercised; whether sentiments or practical questions fill his thoughts; whether he makes forecasts or dwells on the past; in fact; you must be prepared to give an accurate report of him. It is quite likely that the extravasation fills the whole brain, in which case he will die in the imbecile state in which he is lying now. You cannot tell anything about these mysterious nervous diseases. Suppose the crash came here,” said Bianchon, touching the back of the head, “very strange things have been known to happen; the brain sometimes partially recovers, and death is delayed. Or the congested matter may pass out of the brain altogether through channels which can only be determined by a post-mortem examination. There is an old man at the Hospital for Incurables, an imbecile patient, in his case the effusion has followed the direction of the spinal cord; he suffers horrid agonies, but he lives.”

“Did they enjoy themselves?” It was Father Goriot who spoke. He had recognized Eugene.

“Oh! he thinks of nothing but his daughters,” said Bianchon. “Scores of times last night he said to me, ‘They are dancing now! She has her dress.’ He called them by their names. He made me cry, the devil take it, calling with that tone in his voice, for ‘Delphine! my little Delphine! and Nasie!’ Upon my word,” said the medical student, “it was enough to make any one burst out crying.”

“Delphine,” said the old man, “she is there, isn’t she? I knew she was there,” and his eyes sought the door.

“I am going down now to tell Sylvie to get the poultices ready,” said Bianchon. “They ought to go on at once.”

Rastignac was left alone with the old man. He sat at the foot of the bed, and gazed at the face before him, so horribly changed that it was shocking to see.

“Noble natures cannot dwell in this world,” he said; “Mme de Beauseant has fled from it, and there he lies dying. What place indeed is there in the shallow petty frivolous thing called society for noble thoughts and feelings?”

Pictures of yesterday’s ball rose up in his memory, in strange contrast to the deathbed before him. Bianchon suddenly appeared.

“I say, Eugene, I have just seen our head surgeon at the hospital, and I ran all the way back here. If the old man shows any signs of reason, if he begins to talk, cover him with a mustard poultice from the neck to the base of the spine, and send round for us.”

“Dear Bianchon,” exclaimed Eugene.

“Oh! it is an interesting case from a scientific point of view,” said the medical student, with all the enthusiasm of a neophyte.

“So!” said Eugene. “Am I really the only one who cares for the poor old man for his own sake?”

“You would not have said so if you had seen me this morning,” returned Bianchon, who did not take offence at this speech. “Doctors who have seen a good deal of practice never see anything but the disease, but, my dear fellow, I can see the patient still.”

He went. Eugene was left alone with the old man, and with an apprehension of a crisis that set in, in fact, before very long.

“Ah! dear boy, is that you?” said Father Goriot, recognizing Eugene.

“Do you feel better?” asked the law student, taking his hand.

“Yes. My head felt as if it were being screwed up in a vise, but now it is set free again. Did you see my girls? They will be here directly; as soon as they know that I am ill they will hurry here at once; they used to take such care of me in the Rue de la Jussienne! Great Heavens! if only my room was fit for them to come into! There has been a young man here, who has burned up all my bark fuel.”

“I can hear Christophe coming upstairs,” Eugene answered. “He is bringing up some firewood that that young man has sent you.”

“Good, but how am I to pay for the wood. I have not a penny left, dear boy. I have given everything, everything. I am a pauper now. Well, at least the golden gown was grand, was it not? (Ah! what pain this is!) Thanks, Christophe! God will reward you, my boy; I have nothing left now.”

Eugene went over to Christophe and whispered in the man’s ear, “I will pay you well, and Sylvie too, for your trouble.”

“My daughters told you that they were coming, didn’t they, Christophe? Go again to them, and I will give you five francs. Tell them that I am not feeling well, that I should like to kiss them both and see them once again before I die. Tell them that, but don’t alarm them more than you can help.”

Rastignac signed to Christophe to go, and the man went.

“They will come before long,” the old man went on. “I know them so well. My tender-hearted Delphine! If I am going to die, she will feel it so much! And so will Nasie. I do not want to die; they will cry if I die; and if I die, dear Eugene, I shall not see them any more. It will be very dreary there where I am going. For a father it is hell to be without your children; I have served my apprenticeship already since they married. My heaven was in the Rue de la Jussienne. Eugene, do you think that if I go to heaven I can come back to earth, and be near them in spirit? I have heard some such things said. It is true? It is as if I could see them at this moment as they used to be when we all lived in the Rue de la Jussienne. They used to come downstairs of a morning. ‘Good-morning, papa!’ they used to say, and I would take them on my knees; we had all sorts of little games of play together, and they had such pretty coaxing ways. We always had breakfast together, too, every morning, and they had dinner with me – in fact, I was a father then. I enjoyed my children. They did not think for themselves so long as they lived in the Rue de la Jussienne; they knew nothing of the world; they loved me with all their hearts. Mon Dieu! why could they not always be little girls? (Oh! my head! this racking pain in my head!) Ah! ah! forgive me, children, this pain is fearful; it must be agony indeed, for you have used me to endure pain. Mon Dieu! if only I held their hands in mine, I should not feel it at all. – Do you think that they are on the way? Christophe is so stupid; I ought to have gone myself. He will see them. But you went to the ball yesterday; just tell me how they looked. They did not know that I was ill, did they, or they would not have been dancing, poor little things? Oh! I must not be ill any longer. They stand too much in need of me; their fortunes are in danger. And such husbands as they are bound to! I must get well! (Oh! what pain this is! what pain this is! … ah! ah!) – I must get well, you see; for they must have money, and I know how to set about making some. I will go to Odessa and manufacture starch there. I am an old hand, I will make millions. (Oh! this is agony!)”

Goriot was silent for a moment; it seemed to require his whole strength to endure the pain.

“If they were here, I should not complain,” he said. “So why should I complain now?”

He seemed to grow drowsy with exhaustion, and lay quietly for a long time. Christophe came back; and Rastignac, thinking that Goriot was asleep, allowed the man to give his story aloud.

“First of all, sir, I went to Madame la Comtesse,” he said; “but she and her husband were so busy that I couldn’t get to speak to her. When I insisted that I must see her, M. de Restaud came out to me himself, and went on like this: ‘M. Goriot is dying, is he? Very well, it is the best thing he can do. I want Mme. de Restaud to transact some important business, when it is all finished she can go.’ The gentleman looked angry, I thought. I was just going away when Mme. de Restaud came out into an ante-chamber through a door that I did not notice, and said, ‘Christophe, tell my father that my husband wants me to discuss some matters with him, and I cannot leave the house, the life or death of my children is at stake; but as soon as it is over, I will come.’ As for Madame la Baronne, that is another story! I could not speak to her either, and I did not even see her. Her waiting-woman said, ‘Ah yes, but madame only came back from a ball at a quarter to five this morning; she is asleep now, and if I wake her before mid-day she will be cross. As soon as she rings, I will go and tell her that her father is worse. It will be time enough then to tell her bad news!’ I begged and I prayed, but, there! it was no good. Then I asked for M. le Baron, but he was out.”

“To think that neither of his daughters should come!” exclaimed Rastignac. “I will write to them both.”

“Neither of them!” cried the old man, sitting upright in bed. “They are busy, they are asleep, they will not come! I knew that they would not. Not until you are dying do you know your children… Oh! my friend, do not marry; do not have children! You give them life; they give you your deathblow. You bring them into the world, and they send you out of it. No, they will not come. I have known that these ten years. Sometimes I have told myself so, but I did not dare to believe it.”

The tears gathered and stood without overflowing the red sockets.

“Ah! if I were rich still, if I had kept my money, if I had not given all to them, they would be with me now; they would fawn on me and cover my cheeks with their kisses! I should be living in a great mansion; I should have grand apartments and servants and a fire in my room; and they would be about me all in tears, and their husbands and their children. I should have had all that; now – I have nothing. Money brings everything to you; even your daughters. My money. Oh! where is my money? If I had plenty of money to leave behind me, they would nurse me and tend me; I should hear their voices, I should see their faces. Ah, God! who knows? They both of them have hearts of stone. I loved them too much; it was not likely that they should love me. A father ought always to be rich; he ought to keep his children well in hand, like unruly horses. I have gone down on my knees to them. Wretches! this is the crowning act that brings the last ten years to a proper close. If you but knew how much they made of me just after they were married. (Oh! this is cruel torture!) I had just given them each eight hundred thousand francs; they were bound to be civil to me after that, and their husbands too were civil. I used to go to their houses: it was ‘My kind father’ here, ‘My dear father’ there. There was always a place for me at their tables. I used to dine with their husbands now and then, and they were very respectful to me. I was still worth something, they thought. How should they know? I had not said anything about my affairs. It is worth while to be civil to a man who has given his daughters eight hundred thousand francs apiece; and they showed me every attention then – but it was all for my money. Grand people are not great. I found that out by experience! I went to the theatre with them in their carriage; I might stay as long as I cared to stay at their evening parties. In fact, they acknowledged me their father; publicly they owned that they were my daughters. But I was always a shrewd one, you see, and nothing was lost upon me. Everything went straight to the mark and pierced my heart. I saw quite well that it was all sham and pretence, but there is no help for such things as these. I felt less at my ease at their dinner-table than I did downstairs here. I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand folks would ask in my son-in-law’s ear, ‘Who may that gentleman be?’ – ‘The father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.’ – ‘The devil, he is!’ they would say, and look again at me with the respect due to my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly for my mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one sore!) Dear Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man might die of the pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the pain I endured when Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said something stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all my veins. I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did learn thoroughly – I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.

“The next day I went to Delphine for comfort, and what should I do there but make some stupid blunder that made her angry with me. I was like one driven out of his senses. For a week I did not know what to do; I did not dare to go to see them for fear they should reproach me. And that was how they both turned me out of the house.