Father Goriot, Honoré de Balzac [different e readers .txt] 📗

and was just sitting down to dinner as he came in. Bianchon had placed himself where he could watch the old man carefully; and when the old vermicelli maker took up his square of bread and smelled it to find out the quality of the flour, the medical student, studying him closely, saw that the action was purely mechanical, and shook his head.

“Just come and sit over here, hospitaller of Cochin,” said Eugène.

Bianchon went the more willingly because his change of place brought him next to the old lodger.

“What is wrong with him?” asked Rastignac.

“It is all up with him, or I am much mistaken! Something very extraordinary must have taken place; he looks to me as if he were in imminent danger of serous apoplexy. The lower part of his face is composed enough, but the upper part is drawn and distorted. Then there is that peculiar look about the eyes that indicates an effusion of serum in the brain; they look as though they were covered with a film of fine dust, do you notice? I shall know more about it by tomorrow morning.”

“Is there any cure for it?”

“None. It might be possible to stave death off for a time if a way could be found of setting up a reaction in the lower extremities; but if the symptoms do not abate by tomorrow evening, it will be all over with him, poor old fellow! Do you know what has happened to bring this on? There must have been some violent shock, and his mind has given way.”

“Yes, there was,” said Rastignac, remembering how the two daughters had struck blow on blow at their father’s heart.

“But Delphine at any rate loves her father,” he said to himself.

That evening at the opera Rastignac chose his words carefully, lest he should give Mme. de Nucingen needless alarm.

“Do not be anxious about him,” she said, however, as soon as Eugène began, “our father has really a strong constitution, but this morning we gave him a shock. Our whole fortunes were in peril, so the thing was serious, you see. I could not live if your affection did not make me insensible to troubles that I should once have thought too hard to bear. At this moment I have but one fear left, but one misery to dread⁠—to lose the love that has made me feel glad to live. Everything else is as nothing to me compared with our love; I care for nothing else, for you are all the world to me. If I feel glad to be rich, it is for your sake. To my shame be it said, I think of my lover before my father. Do you ask why? I cannot tell you, but all my life is in you. My father gave me a heart, but you have taught it to beat. The whole world may condemn me; what does it matter if I stand acquitted in your eyes, for you have no right to think ill of me for the faults which a tyrannous love has forced me to commit for you! Do you think me an unnatural daughter? Oh! no, no one could help loving such a dear kind father as ours. But how could I hide the inevitable consequences of our miserable marriages from him? Why did he allow us to marry when we did? Was it not his duty to think for us and foresee for us? Today I know he suffers as much as we do, but how can it be helped? And as for comforting him, we could not comfort him in the least. Our resignation would give him more pain and hurt him far more than complaints and upbraidings. There are times in life when everything turns to bitterness.”

Eugène was silent, the artless and sincere outpouring made an impression on him.

Parisian women are often false, intoxicated with vanity, selfish and self-absorbed, frivolous and shallow; yet of all women, when they love, they sacrifice their personal feelings to their passion; they rise but so much the higher for all the pettiness overcome in their nature, and become sublime. Then Eugène was struck by the profound discernment and insight displayed by this woman in judging of natural affection, when a privileged affection had separated and set her at a distance apart. Mme. de Nucingen was piqued by the silence.

“What are you thinking about?” she asked.

“I am thinking about what you said just now. Hitherto I have always felt sure that I cared far more for you than you did for me.”

She smiled, and would not give way to the happiness she felt, lest their talk should exceed the conventional limits of propriety. She had never heard the vibrating tones of a sincere and youthful love; a few more words, and she feared for her self-control.

“Eugène,” she said, changing the conversation, “I wonder whether you know what has been happening? All Paris will go to Mme. de Beauséant’s tomorrow. The Rochefides and the Marquis d’Ajuda have agreed to keep the matter a profound secret, but tomorrow the king will sign the marriage-contract, and your poor cousin the Vicomtesse knows nothing of it as yet. She cannot put off her ball, and the Marquis will not be there. People are wondering what will happen?”

“The world laughs at baseness and connives at it. But this will kill Mme. de Beauséant.”

“Oh, no,” said Delphine, smiling, “you do not know that kind of woman. Why, all Paris will be there, and so shall I; I ought to go there for your sake.”

“Perhaps, after all, it is one of those absurd reports that people set in circulation here.”

“We shall know the truth tomorrow.”

Eugène did not return to the Maison Vauquer. He could not forego the pleasure of occupying his new rooms in the Rue d’Artois. Yesterday evening he had been obliged to leave Delphine soon after midnight, but that night it was Delphine who stayed with him until two o’clock in the morning. He rose late, and waited for Mme. de Nucingen, who