Pere Goriot

by Honoré de Balzac

  “There is an uncommon frozerama outside,” said Vautrin. “Make room there, Père Goriot! Confound it, your foot covers the whole front of the stove.”

  “Illustrious M. Vautrin,” put in Bianchon, “why do you say frozerama? It is incorrect; it should be frozenrama.”

  “No, it shouldn‘t,” said the official from the Museum; “frozerama is right by the same rule that you say ‘My feet are froze. ”’

  “Ah! ah!”

  “Here is his Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the Law of Contraries,” cried Bianchon, seizing Eugène by the throat, and almost throttling him.

  “Hallo there! hallo!”

  Mlle. Michonneau came noiselessly in, bowed to the rest of the party, and took her place beside the three women without saying a word.

  “That old bat always makes me shudder,” said Bianchon in a low voice, indicating Mlle. Michonneau to Vautrin. “I have studied Gall’s system,5 and I am sure she has the bump of Judas.”

  “Then you have seen a case before?” said Vautrin.

  “Who has not?” answered Bianchon. “Upon my word, that ghastly old maid looks just like one of the long worms that will gnaw a beam through, give them time enough.”

  “That is the way, young man,” returned he of the forty years and the dyed whiskers:“The rose has lived the life of a rose—

  A morning’s space“x

  “Aha! here is a magnificent soupe-au-rama,” cried Poiret as Christophe came in bearing the soup with cautious heed.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mme. Vauquer; “it is soupe aux choux.”

  All the young men roared with laughter.

  “Had you there, Poiret!”

  “Poir-r-r-rette! she had you there!”

  “Score two points to Mamma Vauquer,” said Vautrin.

  “Did any one notice the fog this morning?” asked the official.

  “It was a frantic fog,” said Bianchon, “a fog unparalleled, doleful, melancholy, sea-green, asthmatical—a Goriot of a fog!”

  “A Goriorama,” said the art student, “because you couldn’t see a thing in it.”

  “Hey! Milord Gâôriotte, they air talking about yoo-o-ou!” Père Goriot, seated at the lower end of the table, close to the door through which the servants entered, raised his face; he had smelt at a scrap of bread that lay under his table napkin, an old trick acquired in his commercial capacity, that still showed itself at times.

  “Well,” Madame Vauquer cried in sharp tones, that rang above the rattle of spoons and plates and the sound of other voices, “and is there anything the matter with the bread?”

  “Nothing whatever, madame,” he answered; “on the contrary, it is made of the best quality of corn; flour from Etampes.”

  “How could you tell?” asked Eugène.

  “By the color, by the flavor.”

  “You knew the flavor by the smell, I suppose,” said Mme. Vauquer. “You have grown so economical, you will find out how to live on the smell of cooking at last.”

  “Take out a patent for it, then,” cried the Museum official;

  “you would make a handsome fortune.”

  “Never mind him,” said the artist; “he does that sort of thing to delude us into thinking that he was a vermicelli maker.”

  “Your nose is a corn-sampler, it appears?” inquired the official.

  “Corn what?’ asked Bianchon.

  “Corn-el.”

  “Corn-et.”

  “Corn-elian.”

  “Corn-ice.”

  “Corn-ucopia.”

  “Corn-crake.”

  “Corn-cockle.”

  “Corn-orama.”

  The eight responses came like a rolling fire from every part of the room, and the laughter that followed was the more uproarious because poor Père Goriot stared at the others with a puzzled look, like a foreigner trying to catch the meaning of words in a language which he does not understand.

  “Corn? ...” he said, turning to Vautrin, his next neighbor.

  “Corn on your foot, old man!” said Vautrin, and he drove Père Goriot’s cap down over his eyes by a blow on the crown.

  The poor old man thus suddenly attacked was for a moment too bewildered to do anything. Christophe carried off his plate, thinking that he had finished his soup, so that when Goriot had pushed back his cap from his eyes his spoon encountered the table. Every one burst out laughing. “You are a disagreeable joker, sir,” said the old man, “and if you take any further liberties with me——”

  “Well, what then, old boy?” Vautrin interrupted.

  “Well, then, you shall pay dearly for it some day——”

  “Down below, eh?” said the artist, “in the little dark corner where they put naughty boys.”

  “Well, mademoiselle,” Vautrin said, turning to Victorine, “you are eating nothing. So papa was refractory, was he?”

  “A monster!” said Mme. Couture.

  “Mademoiselle might make application for aliment pending her suit; she is not eating anything. Eh! eh! just see how Père Goriot is staring at Mlle. Victorine.”

  The old man had forgotten his dinner, he was so absorbed in gazing at the poor girl; the sorrow in her face was unmistakable, —the slighted love of a child whose father would not recognize her.

  “We are mistaken about Père Goriot, my dear boy,” said Eugene in a low voice. “He is not an idiot, nor wanting in energy. Try your Gall system on him, and let me know what you think. I saw him crush a silver dish last night as if it had been made of wax; there seems to be something extraordinary going on in his mind just now, to judge by his face. His life is so mysterious that it must be worth studying. Oh! you may laugh, Bianchon; I am not joking.”

  “The man is a subject, is he?” said Bianchon; “all right! I will dissect him, if he will give me a chance.”

  “No; feel his bumps.”

  “Hm!—his stupidity might perhaps be contagious.”

  The next day Rastignac dressed himself very elegantly, and about three o’clock in the afternoon went to call on Mme. de Restaud. On the way thither he indulged in the wild intoxicating dreams which fill a young head so full of delicious excitement. Young men at his age take no account of obstacles nor of dangers; they see success in every direction: imagination has free play, and turns their lives into a romance; they are saddened or discouraged by the collapse of one of the wild visionary schemes that have no existence save in their heated fancy. If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.

  Eugène took unheard-of pains to keep himself in a spotless condition, but on his way through the streets he began to think about Mme. de Restaud and what he should say to her. He equipped himself with wit, rehearsed repartees in the course of an imaginary conversation, and prepared certain neat speeches à la Talleyrand,y conjuring up a series of small events which should prepare the way for the declaration on which he had based his future; and during these musings the law student was bespattered with mud, and by the time he reached the Palais Royal he was obliged to have his boots blacked and his trousers brushed.

  “If I were rich” he said, as he changed the five-franc piece he had brought with him in case anything might happen, “I would take a cab, then I could think at my ease.”

  At last he reached the Rue du Helder, and asked for the Comtesse de Restaud. He bore the contemptuous glances of the servants, who had seen him cross the court on foot, with the cold fury of a man who knows that he will succeed some day. He understood the meaning of their glances at once, for he had felt his inferiority as soon as he entered the court, where a smart cab was waiting. All the delights of life in Paris seemed to be implied by this visible and manifest sign of luxury and extravagance. A fine horse, in magnificent harness, was pawing the ground, and all at once the law student felt out of humor with himself. Every compartment in his brain which he had thought to find so full of wit was bolted fast; he grew positively stupid. He sent up his name to the Countess, and waited in the ante-chamb
er, standing on one foot before a window that looked out upon the court; mechanically he leaned his elbow against the sash, and stared before him. The time seemed long; he would have left the house but for the southern tenacity of purpose which works miracles when it is single-minded.

  “Madame is in her boudoir, and cannot see any one at present, sir,” said the servant. “She gave me no answer; but if you will go into the dining-room, there is some one already there.”

  Rastignac was impressed with a sense of the formidable power of the lackey who can accuse or condemn his masters by a word; he coolly opened the door by which the man had just entered the ante-chamber, meaning, no doubt, to show these insolent flunkeys that he was familiar with the house; but he found that he had thoughtlessly precipitated himself into a small room full of dressers, where lamps were standing, and hot-water pipes, on which towels were being dried; a dark passage and a back staircase lay beyond it. Stifled laughter from the ante-chamber added to his confusion.

  “This way to the drawing-room, sir,” said the servant, with the exaggerated respect which seemed to be one more jest at his expense.

  Eugène turned so quickly that he stumbled against a bath. By good luck, he managed to keep his hat on his head, and saved it from immersion in the water; but just as he turned, a door opened at the further end of the dark passage, dimly lighted by a small lamp. Rastignac heard voices and the sound of a kiss; one of the speakers was Mme. de Restaud, the other was Père Goriot. Eugène followed the servant through the dining-room into the drawing-room; he went to a window that looked out into the courtyard, and stood there for a while. He meant to know whether this Goriot was really the Goriot that he knew. His heart beat unwontedly fast; he remembered Vautrin’s hideous insinuations. A well-dressed young man suddenly emerged from the room almost as Eugène entered it, saying impatiently to the servant who stood at the door: “I am going, Maurice. Tell Madame la Comtesse that I waited more than half an hour for her.”

  Whereupon this insolent being, who, doubtless, had a right to be insolent, sang an Italian trill, and went towards the window where Eugène was standing, moved thereto quite as much by a desire to see the student’s face as by a wish to look out into the courtyard.

  “But M. le Comte had better wait a moment longer; madame is disengaged,” said Maurice, as he returned to the ante-chamber.

  Just at that moment Père Goriot appeared close to the gate; he had emerged from a door at the foot of the back staircase. The worthy soul was preparing to open his umbrella regardless of the fact that the great gate had opened to admit a tilbury, in which a young man with a ribbon at his button-hole was seated. Père Goriot had scarcely time to start back and save himself. The horse took fright at the umbrella, swerved, and dashed forward towards the flight of steps. The young man looked round in annoyance, saw Père Goriot, and greeted him as he went out with constrained courtesy, such as people usually show to a money-lender so long as they require his services, or the sort of respect they feel it necessary to show for some one whose reputation has been blown upon, so that they blush to acknowledge his acquaintance. Père Goriot gave him a little friendly nod and a good-natured smile. All this happened with lightning speed. Eugène was so deeply interested that he forgot that he was not alone till he suddenly heard the Countess’ voice.

  “Oh! Maxime, were you going away?” she said reproachfully, with a shade of pique in her manner. The Countess had not seen the incident nor the entrance of the tilbury. Rastignac turned abruptly and saw her standing before him, coquettishly dressed in a loose white cashmere gown with knots of rose-colored ribbon here and there; her hair was carelessly coiled about her head, as is the wont of Parisian women in the morning ; there was a soft fragrance about her—doubtless she was fresh from a bath;—her graceful form seemed more flexible, her beauty more luxuriant. Her eyes glistened. A young man can see everything at a glance; he feels the radiant influence of woman as a plant discerns and absorbs its nutriment from the air; he did not need to touch her hands to feel their cool freshness. He saw faint rose tints through the cashmere of the dressing gown; it had fallen slightly open, giving glimpses of a bare throat, on which the student’s eyes rested. The Countess had no need of the adventitious aid of corsets; her girdle defined the outlines of her slender waist; her throat was a challenge to love; her feet, thrust into slippers, were daintily small. As Maxime took her hand and kissed it, Eugène became aware of Maxime’s existence, and the Countess saw Eugène.

  “Oh! is that you, M. de Rastignac? I am very glad to see you,” she said, but there was something in her manner that a shrewd observer would have taken as a hint to depart.

  Maxime, as the Countess Anastasie had called the young man with the haughty insolence of bearing, looked from Eugene to the lady, and from the lady to Eugène; it was sufficiently evident that he wished to be rid of the latter. An exact and faithful rendering of the glance might be given in the words: “Look here, my dear; I hope you intend to send this little whipper-snapper about his business.”

  The Countess consulted the young man’s face with an intent submissiveness that betrays all the secrets of a woman’s heart, and Rastignac all at once began to hate him violently. To begin with, the sight of the fair carefully arranged curls on the other’s comely head had convinced him that his own crop was hideous; Maxime’s boots, moreover, were elegant and spotless, while his own, in spite of all his care, bore some traces of his recent walk; and, finally, Maxime’s overcoat fitted the outline of his figure gracefully, he looked like a pretty woman, while Eugène was wearing a black coat at half-past two. The quickwitted child of the Charente felt the disadvantage at which he was placed beside this tall, slender dandy, with the clear gaze and the pale face, one of those men who would ruin orphan children without scruple. Mme. de Restaud fled into the next room without waiting for Eugène to speak; shaking out the skirts of her dressing-gown in her flight, so that she looked like a white butterfly, and Maxime hurried after her. Eugène, in a fury, followed Maxime and the Countess, and the three stood once more face to face by the hearth in the large drawingroom. The law student felt quite sure that the odious Maxime found him in the way, and even at the risk of displeasing Mme. de Restaud, he meant to annoy the dandy. It had struck him all at once that he had seen the young man before at Mme. de Beauséant’s ball; he guessed the relation between Maxime and Mme. de Restaud; and with the youthful audacity that commits prodigious blunders or achieves signal success, he said to himself, “This is my rival; I mean to cut him out.”

  Rash resolve! He did not know that M. le Comte Maxime de Trailles would wait till he was insulted, so as to fire first and kill his man. Eugène was a sportsman and a good shot, but he had not yet hit the bull’s eye twenty times out of twenty-two. The young Count dropped into a low chair by the hearth, took up the tongs, and made up the fire so violently and so sulkily, that Anastasie’s fair face suddenly clouded over. She turned to Eugene, with a cool, questioning glance that asked plainly, “Why do you not go?” a glance which well-bred people regard as a cue to make their exit.

  Eugène assumed an amiable expression.

  “Madame,” he began, “I hastened to call upon you——”

  He stopped short. The door opened, and the owner of the tilbury suddenly appeared. He had left his hat outside, and did not greet the Countess; he looked meditatively at Rastignac, and held out his hand to Maxime with a cordial “Good morning,” that astonished Eugène not a little. The young provincial did not understand the amenities of a triple alliance.

  “M. de Restaud,” said the Countess, introducing her husband to the law student.

  Eugène bowed profoundly.

  “This gentleman,” she continued, presenting Eugène to her husband, “is M. de Rastignac; he is related to Mme. la Vicomtesse de Beauséant through the Marcillacs; I had the pleasure of meeting him at her last ball.”

  Related to Mme. la Vicomtesse de Beauséant through the Marcillacs! These words, on which the countess threw ever so slight an
emphasis, by reason of the pride that the mistress of a house takes in showing that she only receives people of distinction as visitors in her house, produced a magical effect. The Count’s stiff manner relaxed at once as he returned the student’s bow.

  “Delighted to have an opportunity of making your acquaintance,” he said.

  Maxime de Trailles himself gave Eugène an uneasy glance, and suddenly dropped his insolent manner. The mighty name had all the power of a fairy’s wand; those closed compartments in the southern brain flew open again; Rastignac’s carefully drilled faculties returned. It was as if a sudden light had pierced the obscurity of this upper world of Paris, and he began to see, though everything was indistinct as yet. Mme. Vauquer’s lodging-house and Père Goriot were very far remote from his thoughts.

  “I thought that the Marcillacs were extinct,” the Comte de Restaud said, addressing Eugène.

  “Yes, they are extinct,” answered the law student. “My greatuncle, the Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress of the Marcillac family. They had only one daughter, who married the Maréchal de Clarimbault, Mme. de Beauséant’s grandfather on the mother’s side. We are the younger branch of the family, and the younger branch is all the poorer because my great-uncle, the Vice-Admiral, lost all that he had in the King’s service. The Government during the Revolution refused to admit our claims when the Compagnie des Indesz was liquidated.”

  “Was not your great-uncle in command of the Vengeuraa before 1789?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then he would be acquainted with my grandfather, who commanded the Warwick.”

  Maxime looked at Mme. de Restaud and shrugged his shoulders, as who should say, “If he is going to discuss nautical matters with that fellow, it is all over with us.” Anastasie understood the glance that M. de Trailles gave her. With a woman’s admirable tact, she began to smile, and said:

  “Come with me, Maxime; I have something to say to you. We will leave you two gentlemen to sail in company on board the Warwick and the Vengeur.”