CAT-O’-NINE-LIVES

Two days later, Poiret and Mademoiselle Michonneau found themselves sitting on a bench in the sun, on a secluded path in the Jardin des Plantes, talking to the gentleman whom, with some justification, the medical student had found suspicious.

‘Mademoiselle,’ Monsieur Gondureau was saying; ‘I see no reason for you to have any qualms. His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister of Police of the realm of France …’

‘Ah! His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister of Police of the realm of France …’ repeated Poiret.

‘Yes, His Excellency is handling this affair himself,’ said Gondureau.

It might seem improbable that Poiret, retired clerk, doubtless a man of sound middle-class values, although of limited initiative, should continue to listen to a self-styled man of private means living in the Rue de Buffon, once he had blown his cover by pronouncing the word ‘police’ and revealing the face of an operative from the Rue de Jérusalem¹⁶² under his mask of respectability. Yet nothing was more natural. Once we have shared a few comments made by certain observers, which have remained unpublished until now, we may gain a better understanding of the particular species to which Poiret belonged in the larger class of fools. His is the race of pen-pushers, who live crowded together on a budget ranging from the first degree of latitude – where wages of twelve hundred francs are found, a kind of administrative Greenland – to the third degree, where warmer wages of three to six thousand francs start to appear; a temperate region, one in which the bonus, although difficult to cultivate, may acclimatize and flourish. One of the characteristic features of this lesser breed, and one which best represents its unhealthy narrowness, is a sort of involuntary, mechanical, instinctive respect for that Grand Lama of any ministry, known to the clerk only as an illegible signature and the title HIS EXCELLENCY MONSEIGNEUR THE MINISTER, five words worth the Il Bondo Cani of the Caliph of Baghdad,¹⁶³ and which, in the eyes of this grovelling people, are imbued with a sacred, irrevocable power. Like the Pope for a Christian, Monseigneur is administratively infallible in the eyes of the clerk; his every deed, his every word, not to mention every word spoken in his name, drips with splendour; his name embroiders everything and legalizes whatever deed he orders done; his title ‘Excellency’, which testifies to the purity of his intentions and the sanctity of his desires, serves as a passport for the least admissible ideas. Whatever deed these poor people would never perform in their own interest, they rush to carry out as soon as the words ‘His Excellency’ are pronounced. The bureaucratic system has its own kind of passive obedience, just as the army does: a system which numbs a conscience, annihilates a human being and ends up fixing him like a screw or a cog in the machine of government. So it was that Monsieur Gondureau, who seemed to know a thing or two about the human race, soon identified Poiret as one of these bureaucratic fools and trotted out the deus ex machina, the magic words ‘His Excellency’. He did so at the point when, having unmasked his guns, he needed to dazzle Poiret, who struck him as being the male version of Michonneau, as Michonneau was the female version of Poiret.

‘His Excellency Monseigneur the Minister, in person, you say … ! Well! That changes everything,’ said Poiret.

‘You can hear what this gentleman is saying and you appear to have faith in his judgement,’ continued the bogus man of private means, addressing Mademoiselle Michonneau. ‘Well, His Excellency is now absolutely certain that the man who goes by the name of Vautrin, and lodges at the Maison Vauquer, is an escaped convict from the penal colony in Toulon,¹⁶⁴ where he was known as Cat-o’-Nine-Lives.’

‘Ah! Cat-o’-Nine-Lives! He must be a lucky man if he has earned that title.’

‘Yes indeed,’ continued the operative. ‘The nickname comes from his knack of escaping with his life every time he pulls off some incredible exploit. He’s a dangerous man, you understand! He has certain qualities which make him extraordinary. Even his conviction earned him infinite respect from his associates …’

‘So he’s a man of honour?’ asked Poiret.

‘In his own way. He took the rap for another man’s crime, a forgery committed by an extremely handsome young man he was fond of, a young Italian with a penchant for gambling, who has since enlisted in military service, where, as it happens, he hasn’t put a foot wrong.’

‘But if H.E. the Minister of Police is so sure that Monsieur Vautrin is this Cat-o’-Nine-Lives of yours, why does he need me?’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau.

‘Well! Yes, indeed,’ said Poiret, ‘if the minister, as you have done us the honour of telling us, is at all sure …’

‘I wouldn’t say he was sure; he has a hunch. You’ll soon understand the challenge we face. Jacques Collin, nicknamed Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, enjoys the trust of the convicts of the three penal colonies, who have chosen him to be their agent and banker. He earns a lot by taking on this kind of business, which necessarily requires a man of mark.’

‘A-ha! Did you follow the pun, Mademoiselle?’ said Poiret. ‘Monsieur calls him a man of mark, because he is a marked man.’

‘The fake Vautrin’, continued the operative, ‘receives capital from the convicts, invests it, keeps it safe for them and makes it available to those who escape, or to their families, to whom they bequeath it in their wills, or to their mistresses, to whom they give bills drawn upon him.’

‘Their mistresses! You mean their wives,’ remarked Poiret.

‘No, Monsieur. Convicts generally only have illegal wives, that we call “concubines”.’

‘You mean they all live in a state of concubinage?’

‘As you might expect.’

‘Well,’ said Poiret, ‘if I were Monseigneur, I wouldn’t put up with such things. Since you have the honour of seeing His Excellency, and as you appear to be of a philanthropic bent, it’s your duty to bring to his attention the immoral conduct of these people who set an extremely bad example to the rest of society.’

‘But Monsieur, the government is hardly holding them up to be models of all the virtues.’

‘True, true. However, Monsieur, if you’ll allow me to …’

‘Now, now, let the gentleman finish what he was saying, dearest,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau.

‘I’m sure you understand, Mademoiselle,’ continued Gondureau. ‘It might be very much in the government’s interest to seize this illicit fund, said to have swelled to a considerable amount. Cat-o’-Nine-Lives has amassed vast sums of money by not only holding capital belonging to various of his associates, but also that which comes from the Ten Thousand Club …’

‘Ten thousand thieves!’ cried Poiret, alarmed.

‘No, the Ten Thousand Club is a band of top thieves, men who work on the grand scale and never take on a job unless they stand to gain at least ten thousand francs. The members of this club are our highest class of customer – those whose cases go straight to the Assize Court.¹⁶⁵ They know the law and never risk being sentenced to death when they’re caught. Collin is their man of confidence, their representative. Thanks to his huge resources, the man has been able to create his own intelligence corps, a vast network of contacts shrouded in impenetrable secrecy. We’ve had him surrounded with spies for a year now, but still haven’t managed to see his hand. His coffers and his talents are therefore constantly in use, making vice pay, funding crime and maintaining an army of scoundrels who wage perpetual war against society. If we could only get our hands on Cat-o’-Nine-Lives and confiscate his bank, we would strike at the root of evil. Which is why the highest-ranking State officials have a stake in this affair, one likely to bring honour to those who contibute to its success. You, Monsieur, might enter the civil service again, becoming secretary to a Police Superintendent, a position which shouldn’t prevent you from drawing your pension.’

‘But’, said Mademoiselle Michonneau, ‘why doesn’t Cat-o’-Nine-Lives just make off with the cash?’

‘Well, if he stole from the penal colony,’ said the operative, ‘wherever he went, he’d be followed by a man whose job it was to kill him. And then, you can’t run off with a stash of money as easily as you can with a young lady from a good family. In any case, Collin isn’t the type to play that kind of trick; he would feel it brought him into disrepute.’

‘Monsieur,’ said Poiret, ‘you’re right: it would indeed bring him into disrepute.’

‘None of that tells us why you can’t just turn up and clap him in irons,’ remarked Mademoiselle Michonneau.

‘Well, Mademoiselle, I’ll tell you … But’, he said in her ear, ‘stop your man interrupting me or we’ll be here all day. He’s lucky anyone will listen to him, the old duffer. Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, on arriving here, slipped into the skin of an honest man, made himself an upright citizen of Paris, took lodgings in an obscure boarding house; he’s a man of cunning all right – we’ll never catch him without camouflage. So you see, Monsieur Vautrin is a highly regarded man, involved in affairs of high regard.’

‘Of course,’ Poiret said to himself.

‘Should a bona fide Monsieur Vautrin be arrested by accident, the Minister would rather not have all the businessmen in Paris on his back, never mind public opinion. Things are a little shaky for the Chief of Police, he has enemies. If a mistake were made, his rivals would make the most of all the liberal yapping and grousing to have him kicked out. We need to proceed here as we did in the Coignard Affair,¹⁶⁶ with that fellow who passed himself off as the Comte de Sainte-Hélène; if he’d turned out to be the real Comte de Sainte-Hélène, we’d have been in a fine mess. So we need to check that this is our man!’

‘Yes, and so you need a pretty woman for that,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau swiftly.

‘Cat-o’-Nine-Lives wouldn’t let a woman anywhere near him,’ said the operative. ‘I’ll tell you a secret: he doesn’t like women.’

‘Well in that case, I can’t see how I’d be able to carry out this check of yours, assuming of course that I agreed to do so, for two thousand francs.’

‘Nothing could be easier,’ said the stranger; ‘I’m going to give you a bottle containing one dose of a preparation which makes the blood rush to the brain, simulating an apoplectic fit, but without the slightest risk. The drug can be mixed with wine or with coffee. Have your man carried to bed immediately and undress him to make sure he’s not dying. As soon as you’re on your own, slap him on the shoulder – wham! – and the brand will reappear.’

‘Why, nothing could be simpler,’ said Poiret.

‘So, will you do it?’ Gondureau said to the spinster.

‘But, dear Monsieur,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau, ‘if there is no brand, will I still get my two thousand francs?’

‘No.’

‘So what would I be paid?’

‘Five hundred francs.’

‘So little to do a thing like that. My conscience will prick me equally whatever the outcome and I must appease my conscience, Monsieur.’

‘I can confirm’, said Poiret, ‘that Mademoiselle is endowed with a sizeable conscience, as well as being a very kind person, and an accomplished one.’

‘I’ll tell you what,’ continued Mademoiselle Michonneau: ‘give me three thousand francs if he’s Cat-o’-Nine-Lives and nothing if he’s a respectable citizen.’

‘Done,’ said Gondureau, ‘as long as you finish the job tomorrow.’

‘Not that soon, dear Monsieur; I need to see my confessor.’

‘You’re a wily bird!’ said the operative as he stood up. ‘Until tomorrow then. And if you need to speak to me urgently, come to the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne, at the far end of the Cour de la Sainte-Chapelle. There’s only one door beneath the arch. Ask for Monsieur Gondureau.’

The rather unusual name ‘Cat-o’-Nine-Lives’ caught Bianchon’s ear on his way back from Cuvier’s lecture, and he overheard the ‘Done!’ uttered by the famous Chief of the Sûreté.¹⁶⁷

‘Why don’t you get it over and done with; you’d have three hundred francs a year for the rest of your life,’ said Poiret to Mademoiselle Michonneau.

‘Why not?’ she asked. ‘Why, the matter needs some thought. If Monsieur Vautrin is this Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, there might be more advantage in coming to an agreement with him. However, asking him for money would tip him off and he’d be liable to scarper without paying his dues. And that would be a fine mess.’

‘Even if he was tipped off,’ continued Poiret, ‘didn’t the gentleman say that he was being watched? But you yourself would lose everything.’

‘What’s more,’ thought Mademoiselle Michonneau, ‘I don’t like that man one bit! He never has a civil word to say to me.’

‘But’, continued Poiret, ‘you’d be acting for the best. As he said, the gentleman – and he seems extremely respectable to me, as well as having friends in high places – if you rid society of a criminal, whatever his virtues, all you’re doing is obeying the law. Once a thief, always a thief. What if he took it into his head to murder us all? Why, dash it! We’d be guilty of those murders, not to mention being the first victims.’

But Mademoiselle Michonneau was so deep in thought she didn’t hear the sentences falling from Poiret’s mouth one by one, like drops of water oozing from a fountain with a faulty tap. Once the old man started stringing sentences together, and as Mademoiselle Michonneau didn’t interrupt him, he couldn’t stop, like some wound-up piece of clockwork. He launched into one subject, but then, straying into his parentheses, found himself having to deal with other, utterly opposed subjects, without ever finishing his clauses. By the time they arrived at the Maison Vauquer, he had twisted and turned through a series of transitory passages and quotations which had brought him to the story of his testimonial in the affair of Monsieur Ragoulleau and Madame Morin,¹⁶⁸ when he had appeared in court as witness for the defence. As they went in, his companion was quick to spot Eugène de Rastignac deep in an intimate conversation with Mademoiselle Taillefer, which the two of them found so enthralling that they paid absolutely no attention to the two elderly lodgers as they crossed the dining room.

‘That was bound to happen,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau to Poiret. ‘After them making eyes at each other fit to burst all week.’

‘Yes,’ he answered. ‘So she was found guilty.’

‘Who?’

‘Madame Morin.’

‘I’m talking about Mademoiselle Victorine,’ said Michonneau, walking into Poiret’s room without realizing; ‘and you answer me with Madame Morin. What has she got to do with anything?’

‘So what does Mademoiselle Victorine seem to be guilty of?’ asked Poiret.

‘She is guilty of loving Monsieur Eugène de Rastignac and is falling head over heels, without knowing where it will all end, the poor innocent!’

That morning, Eugène had been driven to despair by Madame de Nucingen. Deep down, he had completely surrendered to Vautrin, while remaining reluctant to probe either the motives behind the friendship this extraordinary man showed him, or the future of such a partnership. It would take a miracle now to pull him out of the abyss into which he had been sinking for an hour, as he exchanged the sweetest promises with Mademoiselle Taillefer. For Victorine, it was as if she was hearing the voice of an angel, the heavens were opening for her, the Maison Vauquer was decked out in the fantastic colours set-designers use for theatrical palaces: she loved, she was loved, or at least she believed she was! And what woman wouldn’t have believed what she did, had she seen Rastignac, had she listened to him for one hour, out of sight of all the Argus eyes¹⁶⁹ in the boarding house? As he tussled with his conscience, knowing that he was doing wrong and wanting to do wrong, telling himself that he would redeem this venial sin by making a woman happy, his despair made him more attractive and he glowed with all the fires of hell that burned in his breast. Fortunately for him, the miracle happened: Vautrin came in full of merriment and saw into the souls of the two young people he had wed through the machinations of his diabolical genius, but whose happiness he suddenly clouded by singing in his mocking, booming voice:

‘My Fanchette she is so charming

For she is a simple lass …’

Victorine fled, taking as much joy with her as she had previously born grief in her life. Poor girl! A squeeze of her hand, Rastignac’s hair brushing her cheek, a word spoken so close to her ear that she had felt the heat of the student’s lips, her waist clasped by a trembling arm, a stolen kiss on her neck – these were the pledges of her passion, that the threat of nearby big Sylvie, likely to enter that glorious dining room at any time, made all the more ardent, intense, seductive than the most elaborate expressions of love found in the most famous love stories. These first favours, in the quaint words of our forebears, seem like crimes to a devout young lady who goes to Confession every fortnight! In one hour, she had poured out more of her soul’s treasures than she would in later years, when she surrendered herself completely, rich and happy.

‘It’s in the bag,’ said Vautrin to Eugène. ‘Our two dandies have locked horns. Everything has gone according to plan. A difference of opinion. That pigeon of ours has called out my hawk. Tomorrow, city walls, Clignancourt. At half past eight, while she sits here quietly dipping bread and butter fingers in her coffee, Mademoiselle Taillefer will inherit her father’s love and fortune. Isn’t that the funniest thing? Young Taillefer is an excellent swordsman, he’s as sure of himself as a man with a four-ace hand; but we’ll bleed him with a stroke I invented myself, a trick of tilting up the sword and pinking your man’s forehead. I’ll show you that thrust of mine; it’s damned useful.’

Rastignac listened like a man in a trance, incapable of replying. At this point old man Goriot, Bianchon and some of the other boarders came in.

‘That’s the man I thought you were,’ Vautrin said to him. ‘You know what you’re doing. Good work, little eaglet! You’ll be a ruler of men yet; you’re strong, unswerving, stout of heart: you have my respect.’

Vautrin reached out to take his hand. Rastignac abruptly withdrew his own, turned white and sank onto a chair, with the vision of a pool of blood before him.

‘I see! So we’re still clinging to the virtue-stained rags of our swaddling clothes,’ said Vautrin in a low voice. ‘Papa d’Oliban has three million; I know what he’s worth. The dowry will wash you as white as a bridal gown, even in your own eyes.’

Rastignac made up his mind. He resolved to go and warn Taillefer father and son some time that evening. As Vautrin left, old man Goriot whispered in Eugène’s ear: ‘You look sad, dear child! I have something to cheer you up. Come with me!’ And the old vermicelli dealer lit his wax taper at one of the lamps. Eugène followed him, burning with curiosity.

‘Go into your room,’ said the old fellow, who had asked Sylvie for the student’s key. ‘This morning you thought she didn’t love you, eh!’ he continued. ‘She sent you on your way and you left her feeling angry and desperate. You ninny! She was waiting for me. Do you understand now? We had to go and put the final touches to a gem of an apartment which will be ready for you to live in in three days from now. Don’t let on I told. She wants to surprise you; but I can’t keep it from you any longer. You’ll be in the Rue d’Artois, a stone’s throw from the Rue Saint-Lazare. You’ll live like a prince there. We’ve had it fitted out with furniture worthy of a bride. We’ve done plenty this past month, without saying a word to you. My solicitor has set to work: my daughter will have her thirty-six thousand francs per year, the interest on her dowry, and I’m going to see that her eight hundred thousand francs are invested in good, solid property.’

Eugène remained silent and paced up and down, arms folded, in his shabby, untidy room. Choosing a moment when the student had his back to him, Old Goriot placed on the mantelpiece a red morocco-leather box on which the Rastignac coat-of-arms was embossed in gold.

‘My dear child,’ said the poor old fellow; ‘I’m in this affair up to my neck. But, you see, I also have a selfish reason to be interested in your change of quarters. You won’t refuse me, now, if I ask you for something?’

‘What is it you want?’

‘Above your apartment, on the fifth floor, is a connecting bedroom. That’s where I’ll stay, if I may? I’m getting old; I live too far from my daughters. I wouldn’t trouble you. I’d just be there. You’d tell me about them every night. You wouldn’t mind doing that, would you? When you come back, I’ll be in bed, I’ll hear you, I’ll say to myself: “He has just seen my little Delphine. He took her to the ball, he has made her happy.” If I were ill, it would gladden my heart to hear you coming in, bustling around, going out. There will be so much of my daughter in you! I’d only be a short step away from the Champs-Elysées; I’d be able to see them drive past every day, where now I sometimes turn up too late. And then perhaps she’ll come and see you! I’ll hear her, I’ll see her wrapped up warm in her morning gown, treading softly as a little cat. This last month, she has become the girl she was before, carefree and blithe. Her soul is on the mend, she owes her happiness to you. Oh! I would give you the earth. When we were on our way back, she said: “Papa, I’m so very happy!” When they stand on ceremony and call me Father, it makes my blood run cold; but when they say Papa, it’s as if I’m seeing my little girls again, all my memories come flooding back. I feel more like their father. I convince myself they still don’t belong to anyone!’ (The poor old fellow wiped his eyes, weeping.) ‘I hadn’t heard her call me that for a long time; it seems an age since she last gave me her arm. Dear me, yes, it’s ten years since I walked beside one of my daughters. How I love to feel her dress brush against me, to walk at her pace, to share her warmth! This morning, I escorted Delphine everywhere. I went into shops with her. And I brought her back home. Oh! Let me stay close to you both. You’ll need someone to help you out from time to time: I’ll be there. Oh, if only that great lump of an Alsatian would die; if his gout had the sense to rise into his stomach, my poor daughter would be happy. You would be my son-in-law, you would become her husband in the eyes of all. Bah! Her ignorance of the pleasures of this world is making her so unhappy that I forgive her everything. The good Lord must be on the side of loving fathers.’

After a pause he said, ‘She’s in love with you all right!’ nodding his head. ‘On the way there, she kept saying: “He’s a good man, Father, isn’t he! He has a kind heart! Does he talk about me?” Why, she hardly stopped for breath once between the Rue d’Artois and the Passage des Panoramas! She poured out her heart into mine. For one whole wonderful morning, I wasn’t old any more, I was as light as a feather. I told her you had given me the thousand-franc note. Oh! The sweet girl, she was moved to tears. Now then, what have you got there on your mantelpiece?’ said old man Goriot finally, dying of impatience, seeing Rastignac standing stock still.

Eugène, stunned, looked at his neighbour with a dazed expression. The duel, announced by Vautrin for the next day, presented such a brutal contrast to the fulfilment of his dearest hopes that he felt as if he was in a nightmare. He turned to face the mantelpiece, noticed the little square box, opened it and inside found a piece of paper tucked around a Bréguet watch. On the piece of paper was written:

This last word no doubt referred to some scene which had taken place between them. Eugène was moved to tears. His coat-of-arms was enamelled onto the gold inside the watch case. This piece of jewellery, coveted for so long, the chain, the key, the craftsmanship, the design, was everything he could have wished for. Old Goriot was radiant. He had no doubt promised to report back to his daughter every last detail of the surprise her gift would give Eugène, for he was a party to their first flush of feeling and felt no less happy than they did. He already loved Rastignac, for his daughter’s sake, and for his own.

‘You must go and see her this evening; she’ll be waiting for you. That great lump of an Alsatian is dining late with his dancer. Ha ha! What a fool he looked when my solicitor gave him the hard facts. So he claims to worship my daughter? If he lays a finger on her, I’ll kill him. The very idea that my Delphine belongs to …’ (he sighed) ‘… is enough to drive me to crime; but you couldn’t call it homicide – the man is a calf’s head on a pig’s body. You will take me with you, won’t you?’

‘Yes, dear old Goriot, you know how fond I am of you …’

‘I can see that; you’re not ashamed of me, at least! Let me embrace you.’ And he hugged the student tightly. ‘Promise me that you really will make her happy! You’ll go to her this evening, won’t you?’

‘Oh, yes! Although I have to go out and attend to some pressing business.’

‘Might I be able to help?’

‘Why, yes! While I go and see Madame de Nucingen, perhaps you could call on the elder Monsieur Taillefer and ask him to spare me a moment this evening to discuss a matter of the utmost importance.’

‘So it’s true then, young man,’ said old man Goriot, his expression changing, ‘that you’re courting his daughter, as those fools downstairs have been saying? Hell-fire! Have you any idea how hard a Goriot fist can hit? And if you were to deceive us both, it would come to blows. Oh! It’s unthinkable.’

‘I swear to you, there’s only one woman in the world that I love,’ said the student; ‘I only realized it quite recently.’

‘Ah, now you’ve made me happy!’ exclaimed old man Goriot.

‘But’, the student went on, ‘Taillefer’s son is to fight a duel tomorrow, and I’ve heard it said that he’ll be killed.’

‘What is it to you?’ said Goriot.

‘Why, he has to be told to stop his son from going …’ cried Eugène.

At this point, he was interrupted by Vautrin, whose voice was heard at the door of his room, singing:

‘Oh Richard, oh my King!

The whole world has deserted you.¹⁷⁰

Broom! broom! broom! broom! broom!

I’ve been a-roving all over the world

And I’ve been seen …

Tra la, la, la, la …’

‘Gentlemen!’ shouted Christophe, ‘the soup is ready and we’re waiting for you; everyone else is sitting down.’

‘Ah, there you are!’ said Vautrin; ‘come up here and bring down a bottle of my Bordeaux.’

‘It’s a handsome watch, isn’t it?’ said old man Goriot. ‘She’s got good taste, eh?’

Vautrin, old Goriot and Rastignac went downstairs at the same time and, as they were all late, found themselves sitting next to each other at the dinner table. Eugène pointedly gave Vautrin the cold shoulder throughout dinner, even though that man, whom Madame Vauquer found so very agreeable, had never been so entertaining. He sparkled with wit and put all his fellow guests in good spirits. His confidence and composure filled Eugène with dismay.

‘Well, you certainly got out of bed on the right side today,’ Madame Vauquer said to him. ‘You’re as happy as a lark.’

‘I’m always happy when I’ve done a good deal.’

‘Deal?’ asked Eugène.

‘Why, yes. I’ve delivered an instalment of goods, which ought to earn me a fine commission. Mademoiselle Michonneau,’ he said, becoming aware of the spinster’s scrutiny; ‘is there something about my face you don’t like for you to turn your beady eye on me like that? Say the word! I’ll change it to please you.

‘Poiret, we won’t fall out over this one, eh?’ he said, out-staring the elderly clerk.

‘Strewth! You could model as a clown and strongman,’ said the young painter to Vautrin.

‘Why not! As long as Mademoiselle Michonneau will pose as the Père-Lachaise Venus,’ replied Vautrin.

‘And Poiret?’ said Bianchon.

‘Oh! Poiret will pose as Poiret. He’ll be the god of gardens!’ quipped Vautrin. ‘Deriving from pear …’

‘Rot!’ retorted Bianchon. ‘Leaving you to come between the pear and the cheese.’

‘Now, that’s enough nonsense,’ said Madame Vauquer; ‘you’d be better off opening that bottle of Bordeaux wine of yours which I can see poking its nose out! That would perk us all up, besides being good for the flabbergastation.’

‘Gentlemen,’ said Vautrin, ‘Her Honour is calling us to order. Madame Couture and Mademoiselle Victorine won’t mind our banter; but have some respect for the innocence of old man Goriot. How about a nice bottle-orama of Bordeaux, going by the name of Laffitte and therefore twice as famous, although of course politics doesn’t come into it.¹⁷¹ Come along, cork-brain!’ he said looking at Christophe, who didn’t move. ‘Over here, Christophe! What, can’t you even hear your own name? Bring the fluids, cork-brain!’

‘Here you are, sir,’ said Christophe, presenting the bottle.

After filling Eugène’s glass and that of old man Goriot, he slowly poured himself a few drops which he tasted as his two neighbours were drinking, and then suddenly made a face.

‘Damn! damn! It’s corked. Take it for yourself, Christophe, and go and fetch us some more; on the right, you know where I mean? There are sixteen of us; bring down eight bottles.’

‘Seeing as you’re shelling out,’ said the painter, ‘I’ll pay for a hundred chestnuts.’

‘Ho ho!’

‘Boo!’

‘Prrrr!’

Exclamations shot from all sides like rockets from a Catherine wheel.

‘Go on, Ma Vauquer, two of your champagne,’ Vautrin shouted across to her.

‘Hah, that’s right! Why not ask for the house? Two of your champagne! At twelve francs apiece! I don’t earn enough, indeed I don’t! But if Monsieur Eugène wants to pay for them, I’ll throw in some cassis.’

‘That cassis of hers clears you out like manna,’¹⁷² said the medical student under his breath.

‘Do be quiet, Bianchon,’ exclaimed Rastignac. ‘Whenever you mention manna it makes my stomach … Yes, bring out the champagne, I’ll pay for it,’ added the student.

‘Sylvie,’ said Madame Vauquer, ‘hand around the biscuits and little cakes.’

‘Your little cakes have grown too big,’ said Vautrin; ‘they have beards. But let’s have your biscuits.’

Before long, the Bordeaux was being passed around; the boarders came to life, their spirits rose twice as high. Raucous laughter was heard, suddenly cut across by a series of mimicked animal calls. When the museum clerk took it into his head to reproduce a Paris street-cry resembling nothing so much as the screeching of a lovesick cat, eight voices simultaneously bawled out the following phrases: ‘Knives to grind!’ – ‘Chi-icky chickweed for your songbirds!’ – ‘Cream horns, ladies, cream horns!’ – ‘China to mend?’ – ‘Oysters, oysters!’ – ‘Beat your wives, beat your clothes!’ – ‘Old braid, hats or coats!’ – ‘Ripe cherry ripe!’ Bianchon brought the house down with his nasal cry of ‘Umbrella seller!’ In no time at all, there was a head-splitting row, with everyone talking at once, a live opera conducted by Vautrin, with one eye on Eugène and old Goriot, who already seemed the worse for wear. Leaning back in their chairs, they watched the unusually raucous proceedings with a serious air, drinking little; both were thinking about what they had to do that evening and yet neither felt able to stand up. Vautrin, following each change in their appearance with sidelong glances, chose the moment when their eyelids were fluttering and starting to close, to lean over and murmur in Rastignac’s ear: ‘A clever boy we might be, but we ain’t cunning enough to outwit our uncle Vautrin, and he’s too fond of you to let you go and do something foolish. Once I’ve set my mind on a thing, only the Almighty is strong enough to stop me. Hah! So we wanted to go and warn old Taillefer, did we, snitch like a schoolboy? The oven’s hot, the flour’s kneaded, the bread’s on the shovel; tomorrow we’ll bite into it and make the crumbs fly over our heads; and we want to stop it going into the oven … ? No, no, we’ll bake it, every bit! If we happen to have a few little pangs of remorse, digestion will soon take care of them. While we’re having forty winks, Colonel Comte Franchessini, with the tip of his sword, will drop Michel Taillefer’s estate into your lap. As her brother’s inheritor, Victorine will receive the tidy sum of fifteen thousand francs per year. I’ve already made my enquiries and I know that her mother’s estate is worth more than three hundred thousand …’

Eugène heard but could not reply to these words: his tongue was stuck to his palate and he felt overwhelmed by drowsiness; he could only just make out the table and the other boarders’ faces through a bright fog. The rumpus gradually abated and, one by one, the boarders left the room. Then, when only Madame Vauquer, Madame Couture, Mademoiselle Victorine, Vautrin and old Goriot were left, Rastignac, as if in a dream, became aware of Madame Vauquer busily emptying out the dregs of the old bottles to make full new ones.

‘Dear me! So wild, so young!’ said the widow.

This was the last phrase that Eugène managed to take in.

‘Only Monsieur Vautrin could have pulled off a stunt like that,’ said Sylvie. ‘Just look at Christophe snoring like a pig.’

‘Farewell, Ma,’ said Vautrin. ‘I’m off to the boulevard to admire Monsieur Marty in Wild Mountain, a fine play based on The Loner. I’ll take you, if you like, along with these ladies.’

‘Thank you, but no,’ said Madame Couture.

‘What, neighbour!’ cried Madame Vauquer; ‘you’re turning down the chance to see a play based on The Loner, by Atala de Chateaubriand,¹⁷³ which we enjoyed reading more than anything, which was so pretty that we cried our eyes out over Elodie under the ly-ums last summer, indeed, a moral work which might be instructive for your young lady?’

‘We aren’t allowed to go to the theatre,’ replied Victorine.

‘Well, those two are certainly out for the count,’ said Vautrin, comically waggling old Goriot’s and Eugène’s heads. Then, moving the student’s head and setting it down on the chair so he could sleep comfortably, he kissed him warmly on the forehead, singing:

‘Sleep, sleep, sweet loves!

I’ll watch over you for ever.’¹⁷⁴

‘I hope he’s not ill,’ said Victorine.

‘In that case, you should stay and look after him,’ replied Vautrin. ‘That’, he breathed in her ear, ‘is your duty as a good little woman. The young man adores you and you’ll be his sweet wife, that’s my prediction. In the end,’ he continued aloud, ‘they were loved throughout the land, had lots of children and lived happily ever after. That’s the way all love stories end. Come along Ma,’ he said, turning to Madame Vauquer and putting an arm round her; ‘put on your hat, that pretty dress with the flowers and the comtesse’s scarf. Meanwhile Himself will go and find a carriage for you.’ And he left, singing:

‘Sun, sun, glorious sun,

You who ripen all the pumpkins …’

‘Dear me! Madame Couture, I swear that man would make me happy if I had to live on the roof. As for him,’ she said, turning towards the vermicelli dealer, ‘that old niggard never thought to take me nowhere. Well, he’s going to come down to earth with a bump, he is! A man of his age losing his faculties, it’s indecent, that’s what it is! Next you’ll be telling me you never lose what you never had. Sylvie, take him up to his room.’

Sylvie held the old man under his arms, made him walk and threw him fully dressed across his bed like a parcel.

‘Poor young man,’ said Madame Couture, parting Eugène’s hair to stop it falling into his eyes; ‘he’s like a young girl, he doesn’t know the meaning of excess.’

‘Ah! Let me tell you, in the thirty-one years I’ve run this boarding house,’ said Madame Vauquer, ‘plenty of young men have been through my hands, so to speak; but I’ve never seen one as kind, as genteel as Monsieur Eugène. How handsome he looks, asleep! Put his head on your shoulder, Madame Couture. A-ha! He’s fallen onto Mademoiselle Victorine’s: there’s a god for children. A bit further over and he’d have banged his head on the chair top. They make a fine couple, the two of them.’

‘Dear neighbour, do please be quiet,’ cried Madame Couture; ‘you musn’t say such things …’

‘Pah!’ retorted Madame Vauquer; ‘he can’t hear. Now Sylvie, come and help me dress. I’m going to wear my long-waisted corset.’

‘Very good! Your long-waisted corset, on a full stomach, Madame,’ said Sylvie. ‘No, you’ll have to find someone else to lace you in, I won’t be your murderer. A piece of foolishness like that could cost you your life.’

‘I don’t care. I must do Monsieur Vautrin credit.’

‘Do you love your heirs that dearly?’

‘Come along, Sylvie, stop arguing,’ said the widow as she went out.

‘At her age too,’ the cook said to Victorine, gesturing after her mistress.

Madame Couture and her ward, upon whose shoulder Eugène was fast asleep, were left alone in the dining room. Christophe’s snoring echoed through the silent building, making Eugène’s breathing seem all the more peaceful: he slept with the grace of a child. Glad to be able to permit herself one of those acts of kindness through which a woman gives vent to her feelings, one which allowed her to sense, without guilt, the young man’s heart beating next to her own, Victorine took on a protective, maternal air, which made her look proud. A surge of sensual delight suddenly broke across the thousand emotions swelling her heart, stirred by the pure, youthful heat passing between them.

‘Poor, dear girl!’ said Madame Couture, pressing her hand.

The old lady looked with wonder and affection at that candid and long-suffering face, upon which a halo of happiness had now descended. Victorine resembled one of those naive medieval paintings, whose artist ignores all that is incidental and saves the magic of his brush – those calm, proud strokes – for the face, painted a shade of yellow, but in which the golden rays of heaven seem to be reflected.

‘But he can’t have drunk more than two glasses, Mama,’ said Victorine, running her fingers through Eugène’s thick hair.

‘Well, if he was truly debauched, Daughter, he’d have held his wine like all the others. His drunkenness does him credit.’

The sound of a carriage was heard in the street.

‘Mama,’ said the young lady, ‘Monsieur Vautrin is coming. Please move Monsieur Eugène over to your side. I don’t want that man to see me like this: he says things that taint the soul and his looks make a woman feel as uncomfortable as if he were undressing her.’

‘Not at all,’ said Madame Couture, ‘you’re mistaken! Monsieur Vautrin is a decent man, not unlike the late Monsieur Couture: brusque but good, gruff but kind.’

Vautrin came in softly on cue and looked at the pretty scene made by the young man and woman, caught in the caressing glow of the lamp.

‘Well, well,’ he said, crossing his arms, ‘here’s a scene that would have inspired some fine pages from the good Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, who wrote Paul et Virginie.¹⁷⁵ Youth is a beautiful thing, Madame Couture. Sleep, poor child,’ he said, looking at Eugène; ‘good things sometimes happen while we sleep. Madame,’ he continued, addressing the widow, ‘what draws me to this young man, what moves me, is knowing that his soul is matched in beauty only by his face. Look, isn’t he the picture of a cherub leaning on an angel’s shoulder? Now there’s a man who deserves to be loved! If I were a woman, I’d want to die … (no, that would be foolish) … live for him. Looking at them like this, Madame,’ he murmured in the widow’s ear, leaning in close, ‘I can’t help thinking that God has made them for each other. Providence moves in mysterious ways, plumbs the depths of hearts and minds,’ he said aloud. ‘Seeing you together, children, united by the same purity, by every human feeling, it seems impossible that you should ever be parted in future. God is just. Now,’ he said to the girl, ‘I think I’ve seen your lines of prosperity before. Will you let me look at your hand, Mademoiselle Victorine? I know a bit about palm reading, I’ve often told people’s fortunes. Come along, don’t be afraid. Oh! what do I see here? I swear, as I’m an honest man, that you’ll soon be one of the richest heiresses in Paris. You’ll shower the man you love with happiness. Your father will call for you to be near him. You’ll marry a titled and handsome young man who adores you.’

At this point, Vautrin’s prophecies were interrupted by the heavy tread of the coquettish widow coming down the stairs.

‘Here comes Ma Vauquer, glittering like a star, rolled as tight as a cigar. Aren’t we suffocating, just a little?’ he said, placing his hand at the top of her stays; ‘that’s a well-trussed breast, Ma. If we start crying, there’ll be an explosion, but I’ll pick up the pieces as carefully as any archaeologist.’

‘Now there’s a man knows the language of French gallantry!’ hissed the widow in Madame Couture’s ear.

‘Farewell, children,’ continued Vautrin, turning towards Eugène and Victorine. ‘You have my blessing,’ he said, laying his hands on their heads. ‘Believe me, Mademoiselle, an honest man’s vows do count; they’re bound to bring good luck, as God hears them.’

‘Farewell, dear friend,’ said Madame Vauquer to her lodger. ‘Do you think’, she added in a low voice, ‘that Monsieur Vautrin has intentions towards my person?’

‘Ahem, er … !’

‘Ah! dearest Mother,’ said Victorine, sighing and looking at her hands, when the two women were alone; ‘if only good Monsieur Vautrin was speaking the truth!’

‘Well, it wouldn’t take much’, replied the old lady, ‘just for that monster of a brother of yours to fall off his horse.’

‘Mother!’

‘Goodness, perhaps it’s a sin to wish your enemy ill,’ continued the widow. ‘Well, I’ll do penance for it. In all honesty, I’ll happily put flowers on his grave. The miserable coward! He’s not brave enough to stand up for his mother and he’s cheating you out of your share of her inheritance so he can keep it all for himself. My cousin had a huge fortune. It’s just bad luck for you that her share wasn’t noted in the marriage contract.’

‘I couldn’t bear my own happiness if it cost someone else their life,’ said Victorine. ‘And if, to be happy, my brother had to disappear, I’d still rather be here.’

‘Lord above, as good Monsieur Vautrin says, and he’s a religious man, as you’ve seen,’ continued Madame Couture. ‘I was pleased to learn he’s not an unbeliever like the others. The way they talk, they seem to have more respect for the devil than for God. Well, who knows which paths Providence will lead us down?’

With Sylvie’s help, the two women ended up carrying Eugène to his room, where they laid him down on his bed and the cook loosened his clothes to make him comfortable. As they left, when her guardian had her back turned, Victorine placed a kiss on Eugène’s forehead with as much pleasure as this petty theft could bring her. She looked around his room, scooped up the thousand joys of the day in a single thought, so to speak, and made it into a picture that she studied at length before falling asleep the happiest creature in Paris.

The festivities, which Vautrin had used as a cover to lace Eugène and old man Goriot’s wine, were his downfall. Bianchon, somewhat tipsy, forgot to ask Mademoiselle Michonneau about Cat-o’-Nine-Lives. Had he spoken that name aloud, he would certainly have alerted Vautrin, or, to give him his real name, Jacques Collin, the celebrated convict. Then, being nicknamed the Père-Lachaise Venus made Mademoiselle Michonneau decide to shop the convict, just at the point when, in anticipation of his generosity, she was weighing up whether she might be better off warning him and letting him escape during the night. She had just gone out, Poiret at her side, to meet the famous Chief of the Sûreté, in the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne, still believing herself to be dealing with a senior official by the name of Gondureau. The head of the detective division gave her a charming reception. Once they had settled the final details, Mademoiselle Michonneau asked for the potion she would use to carry out her mission and check for the brand. Judging by the satisfaction with which the great man of the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne reached into the drawer of his desk and took out the phial, Mademoiselle Michonneau guessed that there was more at stake in this raid than the straightforward arrest of a convict. After racking her brains, she began to suspect that the police had been tipped off by certain disclosures made by traitors in the penal colony and hoped to arrive in time to seize substantial sums of money. When she put her hypothesis to the old fox, he started to smile and tried to deflect the spinster’s suspicions.

‘You’re mistaken,’ he replied. ‘Collin is the most dangerous sorbonne the thieves have ever had on their side. There’s the long and short of it. Those rascals are well aware of that; he’s their banner, their backer, their Bonaparte, even; they love him, one and all. That fellow will never leave his tronche behind on the Place de Grève.’

As Mademoiselle Michonneau hadn’t understood, Gondureau explained the two slang words he had used. Sorbonne and tronche are two colourful expressions in the cant of thieves, who, above and ahead of anyone else, have felt the necessity of considering the human head from two angles. The sorbonne is the head of the living man, his counsel, his thought processes. The tronche is a derogatory word intended to express how worthless the head becomes when it is cut off.

‘Collin is playing with us,’ he continued. ‘When we come across a man like this, as unbending as a bar of tempered English steel, we have the option of killing him if he takes it into his head to put up the slightest resistance during his arrest. We’re banking on there being a little assault and battery so we can kill Collin tomorrow morning. That way we’ll avoid the trial, the cost of feeding and keeping him in custody and society will be shot of him. Serving writs, subpoena-ing witnesses, remunerating them, the cost of the execution, every legal step taken to rid us of such a rascal costs far more than the thousand écus that you’ll be given. It saves time. With one swift bayonet thrust in the belly of Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, we prevent a hundred crimes and avoid the spectacle of fifty bad eggs being bribed to hang around the magistrate’s court, as if butter wouldn’t melt in their mouths. There’s good policing for you. As any true philanthropist will tell you, it’s the only way to prevent crime.’

‘Why, that’s how to serve your country,’ said Poiret.

‘Well, well,’ retorted the chief, ‘you’re talking sense tonight! Yes, of course, we’re serving our country. Which is why the world does us such injustice. We render many a great service to society that goes unrecognized. In the end, a superior man must rise above prejudice and a Christian must bear the misfortunes that follow in the wake of good deeds which fail to conform to received ideas. Paris is Paris, you see. In those three words you have the story of my life. Your humble servant, Mademoiselle, and farewell. Tomorrow I’ll be at the Jardin du Roi with my men. Send Christophe to Monsieur Gondureau’s house in the Rue de Buffon, where you saw me last. Your servant, Monsieur. Should anyone ever steal anything from you, you can rely on me to recover it, I’m at your service.’

‘Well,’ said Poiret to Mademoiselle Michonneau, ‘you meet some fools who get in a flap as soon as they hear the word police. That gentleman has a delightful manner and what he wants you to do is as easy as pie.’

The next day was to rank as one of the most extraordinary days in the history of the Maison Vauquer. Up until then, the most striking event in its peaceful existence had been the meteoric appearance of the fake Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil. But everything else would pale into insignificance next to the peripeteia of that momentous day, which was to become Madame Vauquer’s pet topic of conversation ad infinitum. For a start, Goriot and Eugène de Rastignac slept in until eleven. Madame Vauquer, having returned from the Gaîté¹⁷⁶ at midnight, stayed in bed until half past ten. Christophe, having drunk to the last drop the wine Vautrin had given him, overslept, which meant that the déjeuner service was late. Neither Poiret nor Mademoiselle Michonneau complained about the meal being pushed back. As for Victorine and Madame Couture, they slept in. Vautrin went out before eight and came back just as the table was laid up. So no one grumbled when, at around a quarter past eleven, Sylvie and Christophe knocked on everyone’s door to announce that déjeuner was served. While Sylvie and the servant were out of the room, Mademoiselle Michonneau, coming down ahead of the others, poured the liquor into Vautrin’s silver beaker, which held the cream for his coffee and was being warmed up in the bain-marie along with the others. The spinster had counted on this peculiarity of the house to strike her blow. It took a while before the seven lodgers were finally assembled. Eugène, stretching himself, came down last of all, at which point a messenger handed him a letter from Madame de Nucingen. The letter read as follows:

‘Yes, whatever has happened?’ Eugène exclaimed, rushing into the dining room and crumpling the letter without finishing it. ‘What time is it?’

‘Half eleven,’ said Vautrin, dropping sugar into his coffee.

The escaped convict shot Eugène one of those coldly mesmerizing looks that some powerfully magnetic men have the knack of giving, and which, it is said, can pacify raving lunatics in asylums. Eugène trembled in every limb. The sound of a carriage was heard in the street and a servant in Monsieur Taillefer’s livery, whom Madame Couture recognized straightaway, rushed in, looking aghast.

‘Mademoiselle,’ he cried, ‘your father wants to see you. A terrible thing has happened. Monsieur Frédéric has fought a duel, he’s taken a blow to the forehead, the doctors despair of saving him; you’ll barely have time to bid him farewell, he’s unconscious.’

‘Poor young man!’ exclaimed Vautrin. ‘What does anyone find to quarrel about on an allowance of thirty thousand livres? Really, young people have no idea how to behave.’

‘Monsieur!’ Eugène shouted at him.

‘Well, what is it, child?’ said Vautrin, calmly drinking the last of his coffee, a process which Mademoiselle Michonneau was scrutinizing far too closely to be moved by the extraordinary event which had left everyone else stunned. ‘Aren’t duels fought every day in Paris?’

‘I’ll come with you, Victorine,’ said Madame Couture.

And the two women flew out of the room without hats or shawls. Before leaving, Victorine, her eyes brimming, looked at Eugène as if to say: ‘I didn’t think our happiness would cost me tears!’

‘Well I never! You’re quite a prophet, Monsieur Vautrin,’ said Madame Vauquer.

‘I’m everything,’ he said.

‘How very odd!’ continued Madame Vauquer, pronouncing a string of meaningless comments on the event. Death takes us without asking. The young often go before the old. We women are lucky not to have to fight duels, but we suffer hardships that men don’t. We have children and the trials of motherhood are never ending! What a stroke of good luck for Victorine! Her father will have no choice but to recognize her now.’

‘So!’ said Vautrin, looking at Eugène, ‘yesterday she was penniless, this morning she’s worth millions.’

‘Well, Monsieur Eugène,’ cried Madame Vauquer, ‘you’ve got your hand in the right jar there.’

Hearing this remark, old man Goriot looked at the student and saw the crumpled letter in his hand.

‘You haven’t finished it! What does that mean? That you’re just like the others?’ he reproached him.

‘Madame, I will never marry Mademoiselle Victorine,’ Eugène said pointedly to Madame Vauquer, with a look of horror and disgust that surprised them all.

Old Goriot took the student’s hand and shook it, then tried to kiss it.

‘Is that so!’ retorted Vautrin. ‘The Italians have a clever saying: col tempo!’¹⁷⁷

‘I’m to wait for your answer,’ Madame de Nucingen’s messenger said to Rastignac.

‘Say that I’m on my way.’

The man left. Eugène was in such a state of violent agitation that he forgot the need for caution. ‘What shall I do?’ he said to himself aloud, without thinking. ‘There’s absolutely no evidence!’

Vautrin started to smile. At the same time the potion absorbed by his stomach began to take effect. Nonetheless, the convict was so tough that he stood up, looked at Rastignac and said in a hollow voice: ‘Young man, good things happen while we sleep.’

Then he fell to the ground with a thud.

‘Divine justice does exist,’ said Eugène.

‘Gracious, what’s the matter with poor dear Monsieur Vautrin?’

‘An apoplectic fit,’ cried Mademoiselle Michonneau.

‘Sylvie, hurry girl, go and fetch the doctor,’ cried the widow. ‘Ah! Monsieur Rastignac, quickly, go and get Monsieur Bianchon; Sylvie may not be able to find our doctor, Monsieur Grimprel.’

Rastignac, relieved to have an excuse to leave that chamber of horrors, took his leave at a run.

‘Christophe, quickly, trot to the chemist and ask for something for an apoplectic fit.’

Christophe went out.

‘Well, what are you waiting for, old man Goriot, help us take him up to his room.’

Vautrin was lifted, manoeuvred up the stairs and laid on his bed.

‘I’m no good to you here, I must go and see my daughter,’ said old Goriot.

‘Selfish old man!’ cried Madame Vauquer; ‘go on then, and I hope you die like a dog.’

‘Go and see if you can find some ether,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau to Madame Vauquer, who, helped by Poiret, had already loosened Vautrin’s clothes.

Madame Vauquer went downstairs to her room, leaving Mademoiselle Michonneau mistress of the field.

‘Come on, take off his shirt and turn him over, quickly! Make yourself useful for once and spare me the sight of his nudities,’ she said to Poiret. ‘Don’t just stand there with your mouth open.’

With Vautrin face down, Mademoiselle Michonneau gave the sick man a sharp smack on the shoulder, and the two fateful letters stood out in white against the red patch of skin.

‘Well, that’s your three thousand francs earned with ease,’ exclaimed Poiret, holding Vautrin up while Mademoiselle Michonneau put his shirt back on. ‘Phew, he’s a deadweight,’ he continued, laying him down again.

‘Be quiet. What if there’s a cash-box?’ said the spinster eagerly, subjecting every last stick of furniture in the room to such intense scrutiny that her eyes seemed to pierce the walls. ‘Perhaps we could open this writing desk, if we think of an excuse?’ she continued.

‘Perhaps that would be wrong,’ replied Poiret.

‘No. Stolen money, having belonged to everyone, no longer belongs to anyone. But there’s not enough time,’ she replied. ‘I can hear Ma Vauquer.’

‘Here’s the ether,’ said Madame Vauquer. ‘My, oh my, what a day; it never rains but it pours. Gracious! That man can’t be ill, he’s as white as a chicken.’

‘A chicken?’ repeated Poiret.

‘His heart’s beating steadily,’ said the widow, placing her hand on his heart.

‘Steadily?’ said Poiret, surprised.

‘There’s nothing wrong with him.’

‘You think so?’ asked Poiret.

‘Why, yes! He looks like he’s sleeping. Sylvie has gone to find a doctor. Look at that, Mademoiselle Michonneau, he’s sniffing the ether. Humph! It’s just a pass-’im (a spasm). His pulse is fine. He’s as strong as a Turk. Just look at that thick mat of hair on his stomach, Mademoiselle; he’ll live for a hundred years, that man! His wig has stayed on well, considering. Look, it’s stuck on, he’s got false hair; look how red it is underneath. They say that redheads are all good or all bad! He must be good.’

‘For hanging,’ said Poiret.

‘Round the neck of a pretty woman, you mean,’ snapped Mademoiselle Michonneau. ‘Off you go now, Monsieur Poiret. We ladies must look after you men when you’re ill. For all the use you are, you might as well go for a walk,’ she added. ‘Madame Vauquer and I will take care of poor dear Monsieur Vautrin.’

Poiret went off meekly and without a murmur, like a dog whose master has just given it a kick.

Rastignac had gone out to walk around, to get some fresh air: he could hardly breathe. Last night he’d wanted to stop this crime, committed at a set time. What had happened to him? What should he do? He trembled to think that he was an accessory to the act. Vautrin’s sang-froid still terrified him.

‘And if Vautrin were to die without talking?’ Rastignac said to himself.

He hurried along the avenues of the Jardin du Luxembourg as if he had a pack of dogs at his heels and could hear them barking.

‘Hey!’ Bianchon shouted over to him; ‘have you seen the Pilote?’

The Pilote was a radical paper edited by Monsieur Tissot, which came out in a provincial edition a few hours after the morning papers, thus bringing the day’s news to the regions twenty-four hours ahead of the other papers.

‘There’s a cracking story in it,’ said the Cochin hospital¹⁷⁸ house doctor. ‘Taillefer’s son fought a duel with Comte Franchessini, of the Old Guard, who stuck two inches of steel in his head. So our little Victorine is now one of the richest and most eligible women in Paris. How about that? If only we’d known. What a gamble death is, a regular round of Rouge-et-Noir!¹⁷⁹ Is it true that Victorine had a soft spot for you?’

‘Enough, Bianchon. I’ll never marry her. I love a sweet woman, she loves me, I …’

‘You sound as if you’re having a job convincing yourself to be faithful. Show me the woman worth sacrificing old Taillefer’s wealth for.’

‘So every demon in hell is after me now?’ Rastignac cried to himself.

‘Why, whatever’s the matter with you? Are you mad? Give me your hand,’ said Bianchon; ‘let me feel your pulse. You’re feverish.’

‘You’re needed at Ma Vauquer’s,’ Eugène said to him; ‘that old rascal Vautrin has just dropped down dead, at least, that’s how it looked.’

‘A-ha!’ said Bianchon, leaving Rastignac on his own; ‘you’ve confirmed suspicions that I’d like to look into myself.’

The law student’s walk was long and sobering. He surveyed his conscience from every angle. True, he vacillated, doubted himself, hesitated, but in the end his integrity came out of this grim and terrible discussion intact, like an iron rod which has withstood every assault upon it. He remembered the secrets that old man Goriot had told him the previous evening, he recalled the apartment chosen for him, near Delphine, in the Rue d’Artois; he took up her letter, read it again, kissed it. ‘A love like that will be my sheet anchor,’¹⁸⁰ he said to himself. ‘That poor old man’s heart has caused him terrible suffering. He never speaks of his sorrows, but anyone can see what they are! Well, I’ll look after him like a father, I’ll give him a thousand reasons to be happy. If she loves me, she’ll often come to see me and spend the day near him. The Comtesse de Restaud, for all her grand airs, is despicable; her father might as well be her porter. Dearest Delphine! She’s kinder to the old fellow, she deserves to be loved. Ah! This evening I’ll be lucky, at last!’ He took out the watch and admired it. ‘Everything has turned out well for me! When two people love each other for all time, they have every right to help each other; I’m allowed to accept this. Besides, I’m bound to succeed and will be able to pay it back a hundred times over. Our liaison has nothing criminal about it, nothing that even the most virtuous woman might raise an eyebrow at. How many respectable people favour this kind of arrangement! We aren’t deceiving anyone, and lies are what degrade a person most. Surely to lie is to deny all responsibility? She and her husband have been living apart for some time now. What’s more, I, Rastignac, will tell that Alsatian to relinquish his claims to a woman he’s incapable of making happy.’

Rastignac tussled with himself for a long time. Although youthful virtue emerged victorious, at nightfall, as the clock struck half past four, an overwhelming urge to satisfy his curiosity drew him back to the Maison Vauquer, which he had just sworn to leave for ever. He wanted to know whether Vautrin was dead.

Having come up with the idea of giving Vautrin an emetic, Bianchon had sent the substance he regurgitated to his hospital, for chemical analysis. His suspicions were strengthened by Mademoiselle Michonneau’s insistence that they should be thrown away. Besides, Vautrin’s recovery was so swift that Bianchon couldn’t help but suspect some plot against the jovial life and soul of the boarding house. When Rastignac came in, Vautrin was standing next to the stove in the dining room. All the boarders save old Goriot were there, brought down earlier than usual by the news of Taillefer the younger’s duel, and were discussing the incident, curious to know the details of the affair and its impact on Victorine’s destiny. When Eugène came in, his eyes met those of Vautrin, as imperturbable as ever. The look Vautrin gave him shot so deeply into his heart, and struck such forceful, dissonant chords there, it made him shudder.

‘Well, child,’ the escaped convict said, ‘it looks like the old death’s-head¹⁸¹ will be wrong about me for a while yet. According to these ladies, I’ve made a magnificent recovery from an apoplexy that would have killed an ox.’

‘Ooh! A bull, easily,’ cried widow Vauquer.

‘Perhaps you’re sorry to see me still alive?’ said Vautrin in Rastignac’s ear, thinking to read his mind. ‘The man has the strength of the devil!’

‘Oh, that reminds me!’ said Bianchon: ‘the day before yesterday I overheard Mademoiselle Michonneau talking about a man known as Cat-o’-Nine-Lives; that name would suit you down to the ground.’

These words struck Vautrin like a thunderbolt: he turned white and staggered, his magnetic stare lit on Mademoiselle Michonneau like a sunburst, a blast of will-power that made her knees buckle. The spinster sank into a chair. Poiret quickly stepped between her and Vautrin, seeing the danger she was in, as the convict’s face now wore a savage expression, stripped of the mask of geniality which had concealed his true nature. The other boarders looked on dumbfounded, following this dramatic turn of events without understanding a thing. Just then, a company of men was heard marching down the road, followed by the ringing sound of soldiers striking their rifles against the paving stones. As Collin instinctively scanned the windows and walls for some way out, four men appeared at the drawing-room door. The first was the Chief of the Sûreté, the other three were detective inspectors.

‘In the name of the law and of the King,’ said one of the inspectors, his voice drowned out by a murmur of astonishment.

Then silence fell in the dining room as the boarders separated to let through three of the men, each with a hand on a loaded pistol in his side pocket. The detectives were followed by two gendarmes who stood guard at the drawing-room door, while another two appeared at the door leading out to the staircase. Soldiers’ footsteps and guns rang out on the paving stones that ran along the front of the building. All hope of escape was therefore denied Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, towards whom all eyes were irresistibly drawn. The chief walked straight over and struck him on the head with such force that he knocked off his wig, restoring Collin’s looks to their full horror. Beneath his cropped brick-red hair, his head and face, set on those powerful shoulders, took on a terrible aspect of strength and cunning and glowed with intelligence, as if lit up by the fires of hell. Everyone now understood Vautrin completely: his past, his present, his future; his implacable doctrines, his creed of self-determination, the sense of sovereign entitlement that gave him the cynicism of his thought, of his actions, and the strength of a constitution that was equal to anything. Blood rushed to his face and his eyes glinted like a wild cat’s. He retaliated with a surge of such ferocious energy, he roared so loudly, that the boarders cried out in fear. In response to this lion-like behaviour, and taking advantage of the general commotion, the inspectors cocked their pistols. Seeing the gleaming hammer of each gun, Collin understood the danger he was in and suddenly showed himself capable of extraordinary human strength and self-possession – a dreadful and majestic sight! His features mirrored a phenomenon which can only be compared to the geyser whose sulphurous steam has the power to move mountains, but is dissolved in the wink of an eye by a single drop of cold water. The drop of water which cooled his rage was a thought that came to him as quick as lightning. He began to smile and looked at his wig.

‘You’re not having one of your polite days today,’ he said to the Chief of the Sûreté. And he held out his hands to the gendarmes, beckoning them with a jerk of his head. ‘Sirs, put your cramp rings on me, wrists or thumbs. I call upon those present to witness that I am not resisting arrest.’ A murmur of admiration, prompted by the speed with which lava and fire erupted and subsided in this human volcano, ran around the room.

‘Well, that’s taken the wind out of your sails, copper,’ the convict went on, staring the famous head of the detective division in the eye.

‘That’s enough; take off your clothes,’ ordered the man from the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne in a contemptuous tone of voice.

‘Why?’ said Collin, ‘there are ladies present. I’m denying nothing and I’m turning myself in.’

He paused and surveyed the gathering like a speaker letting his audience know he has a few surprises up his sleeve.

‘Write this down, Papa Lachapelle,’ he said to a little old man with white hair, who had removed the statement of offence from a file and sat down at the end of the table. ‘I confirm that I am Jacques Collin, known as Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, sentenced to twenty years in irons; and I’ve just proved that I earned my name honestly. If I’d so much as raised a hand,’ he said to the boarders, ‘those three beaksmen over there would have spilled my claret all over Ma Vauquer’s humble hearth. The meddling rascals are forever laying traps!’

Madame Vauquer felt rather queasy when she heard this.

‘Gracious! It’s enough to make you ill; and to think I was with him at the Gaîté yesterday,’ she said to Sylvie.

‘Be philosophical, Ma,’ Collin continued. ‘Is it so bad to have been in my box yesterday at the Gaîté?’ he cried. ‘Are you better than we are? We bear less infamy on our shoulders than any of you do in your hearts, the withered limbs of a gangrenous society: even the best of you were no match for me.’ His eyes came to rest on Rastignac, giving him a gracious smile which contrasted strikingly with the harsh expression on his face. ‘Our little deal still holds, my angel, subject to acceptance, that is! You know the one I mean?’ He sang:

‘My Fanchette she is so charming

For she is a simple lass.

‘Don’t worry,’ he went on, ‘I’ll know how to square it. No one tries to sharp me, they’re too scared!’

The penal colony with its customs and cant, with its brusque transitions between the droll and the dreadful, its larger-than-life grandeur, its familiarity, its vulgarity, was suddenly epitomized in this calling to account, and by this man, who was no longer a man, but representative of a whole degenerate nation, an unsocialized and rational race, brutal and expedient. In the space of a moment, Collin became an ode to the inferno, a portrait of all human feelings save one, that of remorse. He had the look of a fallen archangel who will always lust after war. Rastignac lowered his eyes, acknowledging some distant kinship with this criminal to make atonement for his wrongful thoughts.

‘Who betrayed me?’ said Collin, scanning the assembled company with his terrible stare. And letting it settle on Mademoiselle Michonneau: ‘It was you,’ he said to her, ‘grasping old harridan; you gave me that fake fit, poking your nose into my affairs! If I said the word, I could have your head hacked off within the week. But I forgive you, I’m a Christian. Besides, it’s not you who sold me out. Who then? A-ha! So you’re having a look-see upstairs, are you?’ he cried, hearing the detectives opening his cupboards and seizing his possessions. ‘The birds all flew the nest yesterday. And you won’t get a peep out of me. My trading accounts are in here,’ he said, rapping his forehead. ‘Now I know who narked on me. It could only be that cove Silk-Thread.¹⁸² I’m right, aren’t I, Nabber, old man?’ he said to the Chief of Police. ‘That ties in only too well with the time our banknotes spent upstairs. Those little grasshoppers¹⁸³ of yours won’t find a thing. As for Silk-Thread, he’ll be pushing up daisies within a fortnight, even if you call out all your traps to guard him. How much did you give her, this Michonnette of ours?’ he said to the policemen; ‘a couple of thousand écus? I was worth more than that, you mouldy Ninon, you tattered Pompadour, you Père-Lachaise Venus.¹⁸⁴ If you’d tipped me off, you’d have had six thousand francs. Hah! You didn’t think of that, you old fleshmonger, otherwise you’d have dealt with me. Yes, I’d have given you that to avoid a tedious journey which will lose me money,’ he said, as they put the handcuffs on him. ‘These rogues will delight in keeping me kicking my heels, just to spur me. If they sent me straight to the penal colony, I’d soon be back to my old tricks, despite the gawpers on the Quai des Orfèvres.¹⁸⁵ As soon as I get there, my lads will put heart and soul into planning a bolt for their general, the good Cat-o’-Nine-Lives! Can any one of you boast more than ten thousand brothers ready to do anything for you, as I can?’ he asked proudly. ‘There’s good in here,’ he said, striking his heart; ‘I’ve never betrayed anyone! You there, you old biter, look at them,’ he said to the spinster. ‘They may stare at me with terror, but you make them sick with disgust. Collect your reward.’ He paused, looking round at the boarders. ‘Are you all stupid! Haven’t you ever seen a convict before? A convict of the calibre of Collin, who stands before you, is a man who is less of a coward than the others and who protests against the deep disappointments of the social contract, in the words of Jean-Jacques,¹⁸⁶ whose pupil I’m proud to be. You see, I stand alone against the government with all its tribunals, gendarmes, budgets, and I outwit the lot of them every time.’

‘Devil!’ said the painter; ‘he’d make a fine study for a drawing.’

‘Tell me, henchman of His Eminence the Executioner, governor of the Widow’ (the name full of chilling poetry that convicts give the guillotine), he added, turning to the Chief of the Sûreté; ‘be a good boy, tell me if it was Silk-Thread who shopped me! I wouldn’t like him to pay for another, it wouldn’t be fair.’

At this point, the officers who had by now opened and inventoried everything in his rooms came back and spoke in low voices to the leader of the raid. The statement of offence was complete.

‘Gentlemen,’ said Collin, addressing the boarders, ‘they’re going to take me away. You’ve been good company during my stay here; I’m grateful to you for that. And so farewell. Allow me to send you some figs from Provence.’ He walked forward a few steps, then turned to look back at Rastignac.

‘Goodbye, Eugène,’ he said in a sad and gentle voice that contrasted radically with the brusque delivery of his speeches. ‘Should you run into trouble, I’ve left you a devoted friend.’ Despite his handcuffs, he managed to take his guard, then, in the manner of a fencing master, called: ‘One, two!’ and lunged. ‘In your hour of need, apply here. Man and money, they’re all at your disposal.’

That extraordinary character pronounced these last words with such buffoonery that only he and Rastignac understood them. When every last gendarme, soldier and inspector had finally left the house, Sylvie, who was rubbing her mistress’s temples with vinegar, looked at the stunned boarders.

‘Well,’ she said, ‘he was a decent chap, all the same.’

This pronouncement broke the spell cast on them by the bewildering volume and variety of emotions the episode had provoked. Straight away, the boarders caught each other’s eye and looked over at Mademoiselle Michonneau, lurking next to the stove, withered, desiccated and cold as a mummy, her eyes lowered, as if she feared that not even her eye-shade would hide what they expressed. That face, which they had found so unpleasant for so long, was suddenly explained. A low murmur rose up from the four corners of the room, in perfect unison, a sign that the feeling of disgust was unanimous. Mademoiselle Michonneau heard it but didn’t move. Bianchon was the first to lean towards his neighbour.

‘I’m leaving if we’re to have the old girl eating with us,’ he said, just loud enough for the others to hear.

Everyone except Poiret immediately approved his motion; backed by the general consensus, the medical student then approached the elderly lodger.

‘You’re close to Mademoiselle Michonneau,’ he said to him; ‘talk to her, would you, and make her understand she has to leave right away.’

‘Right away?’ repeated Poiret, astonished.

He went up to the old woman and spoke a few words in her ear.

‘But I’ve settled my rent, I’ve paid my share like everyone else,’ she said, giving the boarders a viperish glare.

‘If that’s all you’re worried about, we’ll club together to make up the amount,’ said Rastignac.

‘Monsieur is on Collin’s side,’ she replied, giving the student a poisonous and challenging look; ‘it’s not hard to work out why.’

At these words, Eugène sprang up as if he meant to hurl himself at the spinster and strangle her. That look, whose perfidious implications he understood, had just shone a terrifying light into his soul.

‘Leave her be,’ cried the boarders.

Rastignac folded his arms and bit his tongue.

‘Let’s have done with Mademoiselle Judas,’ said the painter to Madame Vauquer. ‘Madame, if you don’t send Michonneau packing, we’ll walk out of this dump as one and tell everyone that it’s full of spies and convicts. Alternatively, if you do as we ask, we’ll keep quiet about this incident, which, after all, could happen in the highest society, until the day when prisoners are branded on the forehead and banned from disguising themselves as middle-class Parisians and playing their little pranks on us.’

This speech miraculously cured Madame Vauquer of her indisposition: she stood up, crossed her arms and opened clear and apparently bone-dry eyes.

‘But, my dear Monsieur, you’re asking for nothing less than the ruin of my establishment. There was Monsieur Vautrin … Oh Lord!’ she said, interrupting herself; ‘I can’t help calling him by his good name! That’s one set of rooms empty already,’ she went on, ‘and you want me to have another two to rent at a time of year when everyone has found a place.’

‘Gentlemen, let’s get our hats and go and dine at Flicoteaux’s,¹⁸⁷ on the Place de la Sorbonne,’ said Bianchon.

Madame Vauquer decided on the most advantageous course of action in a trice and slid over to Mademoiselle Michonneau.

‘Now, now, my pretty beauty, you don’t want to ruin me, do you? You can see that I’m being forced by these gentlemen to consider extreme measures; why not go and spend the evening upstairs in your room.’

‘For shame, that’s not what we said!’ cried the boarders; ‘we want her to leave right away.’

‘But she hasn’t had her dinner, the poor demoiselle,’ said Poiret pathetically.

‘She can have dinner wherever she wants,’ cried several voices at once.

‘Out with the grass!’

‘Out with the grasses!’

‘Gentlemen,’ cried Poiret, suddenly drawing himself up with the courage of a lovesick ram; ‘have some respect for the fair sex.’

‘A grass has no sex,’ said the painter.

‘Sexorama my aunt!’

‘Show them the way-outorama!’

‘Gentlemen, this is quite unacceptable. When you throw someone out, you must do so in the proper manner. We’ve paid, we’re staying,’ said Poiret, pulling his hat down and sitting on a chair next to Mademoiselle Michonneau, who was being lectured by Madame Vauquer.

‘Naughty little boy,’ the painter said jokingly, ‘be off with you now!’

‘Hurry up; if you don’t go, we will!’ said Bianchon.

And the boarders moved as one towards the drawing room.

‘Mademoiselle, what are you trying to do to me?’ cried Madame Vauquer. ‘I’m ruined. You can’t stay, they’ll be turning violent next.’

Mademoiselle Michonneau stood up.

‘Will she go!’ – ‘Will she stay!’ – ‘Will she go!’ – ‘Will she stay!’ These two phrases were chanted in turn, and the hostility of the comments that began to rain down on her forced Mademoiselle Michonneau to leave, but not before making a few remarks to the landlady in a low voice.

‘I’ll be boarding with Madame Buneaud,’ she said threateningly.

‘Go where you like, Mademoiselle,’ said Madame Vauquer, stung by this spiteful preference for an establishment that was in competition with her own and which, as a result, she detested. ‘Go to Buneaud’s place: you’ll be served wine that would give a goat the jitters and food straight from the slop-merchant’s.’

The boarders formed two rows in absolute silence. Poiret gazed at Mademoiselle Michonneau so tenderly, and looked so transparently indecisive, not knowing whether to follow her or stay, that the boarders, delighted to see the back of Mademoiselle Michonneau, caught each other’s eye and started to laugh.

‘Gee up, Poiret,’ the painter shouted to him. ‘Hup hup! Walk on!’

The museum clerk launched into a comic rendition of the opening of that well-known romance:

‘Leaving for Syria

Handsome young Dunois …’¹⁸⁸

‘Go on, you’re dying to go, trahit sua quemque voluptas,’ said Bianchon.

‘ “Every Jack must follow his Jill,” freely translated from Virgil,’¹⁸⁹ said the tutor.

Mademoiselle Michonneau was looking at Poiret and when she made as if to take his arm, he was unable to resist her appeal and let the old lady lean on him. There was a burst of applause and laughter. ‘Bravo, Poiret! – Who’s a pretty Poiret! – Poiret Apollo – Poiret Mars – Brave Poiret!’

At this juncture, a messenger came in and handed a letter to Madame Vauquer, who sank into her chair as she read it.

‘That’s it, the house may as well burn down, it’s a lightning conductor. Taillefer’s son died at three. That’ll teach me for wishing those ladies well at the expense of that poor young man. Madame Couture and Victorine request me to send on their belongings; they’re going to live with her father. Monsieur Taillefer has given his daughter permission to have widow Couture as her lady’s companion. Four sets of rooms to let, five lodgers gone!’ She sat down, apparently close to tears. ‘Misfortune has moved into this house,’ she cried.

All of a sudden they heard the sound of a carriage pulling up.

‘That’ll be some fresh mischief,’ said Sylvie.

Goriot’s face appeared soon afterwards, looking so radiant and flushed with happiness that he almost seemed a new man.

‘Goriot in a carriage,’ said the boarders, ‘then it really is the end of the world.’

The old man headed straight for Eugène, who was sitting in a corner deep in thought, and led him away by the arm: ‘Come on,’ he said, bursting with joy.

‘Haven’t you heard?’ said Eugène. ‘Vautrin was a convict and has just been arrested, and Taillefer’s son is dead.’

‘What’s that to us?’ replied old Goriot. ‘I’m dining with my daughter, in your rooms, do you hear me? She’s waiting for you, come on!’

He tugged Rastignac by the arm and frog-marched him out with such force that he resembled a man abducting his mistress.

‘Let’s have dinner,’ the painter called out.

Everyone immediately pulled back their chairs and sat down.

‘Honestly!’ said Sylvie, ‘everything’s gone to the dogs today; my harico of mutton has stuck to the bottom of the pan. Humph! Too bad, you’ll have to eat it burnt.’

Words failed Madame Vauquer when she saw only ten instead of eighteen people sitting at her table; but everyone did their best to console her and cheer her up. Although at first the regulars talked about Vautrin and the day’s events, their conversation soon snaked off in different directions, and they began to discuss duels, the penal colony, justice, laws to be remade, prisons, until finally they ended up a thousand leagues away from Jacques Collin, Victorine and her brother. Although there were only ten of them, they shouted as loud as twenty so there seemed to be more of them than usual; that was the only difference between dinner today and the day before. The habitual indifference of this selfish little world, which, the next day, would pick out other fish to fry from the daily course of events in Paris, eventually prevailed, and even Madame Vauquer allowed herself to be soothed by hope, speaking through big Sylvie.

That day, and the rest of the evening, seemed to Eugène like some fantastic vision. Despite his strength of character and generosity of mind, his thoughts were in turmoil when he found himself sitting in the carriage next to old man Goriot, whose words were so unusually joyful, and followed in the wake of such intense emotions that they boomed distantly in his ears like the words we hear in dreams.

‘We finished it this morning. The three of us are going to dine together – together! What do you think of that? I haven’t had dinner with Delphine, my sweet Delphine, for four years. I’m going to be near her for a whole evening. We’ve been at your rooms since this morning. I’ve been working like a navvy, with my sleeves rolled up. I helped them carry in all the furniture. Ah! you’ve no idea what a delight it is to dine with her, how she looks after me: “Have some of this, Papa, it’s delicious.” And then I can’t eat a thing. Oh! It’s been so long since I last enjoyed her company in peace, as we will tonight!’

‘But’, said Eugène, ‘surely the world is upside down today?’

‘Upside down?’ said old man Goriot. ‘Why, in all its history things have never been so right with the world. All I can see in the streets are happy people, shaking hands warmly, kissing each other, as overjoyed as if they were all about to sit at their daughters’ tables and wolf down that delightful dinner she ordered before my very eyes from the chef at the Café des Anglais.¹⁹⁰ Hah! Why, if you’re sitting next to her, even bitter aloes¹⁹¹ taste as sweet as honey.’

‘I can feel myself coming back to life,’ said Eugène.

‘What are you waiting for, driver,’ shouted old Goriot, opening the front window. ‘Make haste and I’ll tip you a hundred sous if you take me you-know-where in ten minutes.’ Hearing this promise, the coachman crossed Paris at lightning speed.

‘He’s a terrible slow-coach, this driver of ours,’ said old Goriot.

‘But where are you taking me?’ Rastignac asked him.

‘Home,’ said old man Goriot.

The carriage stopped in the Rue d’Artois. The old man stepped out first and threw ten francs to the driver with the extravagance of a widower who, in a frenzy of delight, throws caution to the winds.

‘Come on, let’s go up,’ he said to Rastignac, steering him across a courtyard and leading him to the door of an apartment on the third floor, at the far end of a handsome new building. Before old Goriot could ring the bell, Thérèse, Madame de Nucingen’s maid, opened the door to let them in. Eugène found himself in a delightful set of bachelor rooms, made up of an entrance hall, a small drawing room, a bedroom and a closet, all looking out over a garden. In the little drawing room, whose furnishings and decoration bore comparison with the most beautiful and elegant to be found anywhere, he caught sight of Delphine in the candlelight. She stood up from a love-seat¹⁹² by the fire and, in a tone of voice charged with tenderness, said: ‘So you had to be fetched, Monsieur, the man who refused to understand.’

Thérèse withdrew. The student took Delphine in his arms and wept for joy. This final contrast between what he was seeing and what he had seen, on a day when his heart and mind had been exhausted by so much turmoil, caused a rush of overwhelming emotion.

‘I knew he loved you, I knew,’ old Goriot said softly to his daughter, while Eugène, drained, sank onto the love-seat incapable of saying a word nor as yet of realizing precisely how this magic wand had been waved.

‘Come and look,’ said Madame de Nucingen, taking him by the hand and leading him into a bedroom whose rugs, furniture and minutest details reminded him of Delphine’s, only smaller.

‘There’s no bed,’ said Rastignac.

‘That’s right, Monsieur,’ she said, flushing and squeezing his hand.

Eugène looked at her, and understood, young though he was, how much genuine modesty there is in the heart of a woman in love.

‘You’re one of those beings who must always be adored,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘Yes, I’m daring to say this because we understand each other so well: the more sincere and strong our love is, the more veiled and mysterious it must be. Let’s not tell anybody our secret.’

‘Oh! I won’t be anybody, not me,’ grunted old man Goriot.

‘You know perfectly well that you count as one of us …’

‘Ah! That’s what I wanted to hear. You won’t take any notice of me, will you? I’ll come and go like a guardian spirit who is present everywhere but never seen. So, Delphinette, my Ninette, my Dedel! I was right, wasn’t I, to say: “There’s a lovely apartment in the Rue d’Artois, let’s furnish it for him!” You didn’t want to. Ah! I’m the author of your joy, just as I’m the author of your days. Fathers must always be giving to be happy. Always to be giving, that’s what makes you a father.’

‘What?’ said Eugène.

‘Yes, she had cold feet, she was scared of what people might say, as if society mattered next to her happiness! But every woman dreams of this …’

Old Goriot was talking to himself. Madame de Nucingen had taken Rastignac into the closet and a kiss was heard, although lightly bestowed. This room was as elegant as the rest of the apartment, which lacked for nothing.

‘Have we managed to divine your wishes?’ she said, as they came back into the drawing room for dinner.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘only too well. Alas! Such consummate luxury, such beautiful dreams-come-true, all the poetry of a life of youth and fashion – I set too much store by these things to be entirely undeserving, but I can’t accept them from you and I’m still too poor to …’

‘A-ha! You’re resisting me already,’ she said with an air of mock authority, pouting prettily as a woman does when she wants to make fun of some scruple or other, the better to dismiss it.

Eugène had questioned his motives only too soberly that day, and Vautrin’s arrest, having shown him the depth of the abyss into which he had almost fallen, had strengthened his sense of decency and delicacy to such an extent that it was impossible for him to yield to this affectionate refusal of his noble ideas. He felt overwhelmed with sadness.

‘What!’ said Madame de Nucingen, ‘you’re considering turning me down? Do you know what your refusal would mean? That you have doubts about the future, you’re reluctant to attach yourself to me. So you’re afraid that you might betray my affection? If you love me, if I … love you, why should you be put off by such a small obligation? If you knew how much pleasure it has given me to fit out these bachelor rooms, you wouldn’t hesitate, and you’d ask me to forgive you. I had money which belonged to you: I spent it wisely, that’s all there is to it. You think you’re being magnanimous, but you’re being petty. You could ask for so much more …’ (‘Ah!’ she said, catching sight of Eugène’s passionate expression), ‘and you’re making a fuss about the silliest things. If you don’t love me, then yes! yes! don’t accept. My fate hangs on a word from you. Speak to me! Father, give him some good reasons,’ she added, turning towards her father after a pause. ‘Does he think that I’m any less concerned about our honour than he is?’

Old Goriot watched and listened to this lovers’ tiff with the beatific smile of an opium-smoker.

‘Child! You’re on the threshold of life,’ she continued, taking Eugène’s hand; ‘you come up against a barrier many find insurmountable, a woman’s hand opens a way for you – and you shrink back! But you will succeed, you’ll make a brilliant fortune, success is written all over your handsome face. Won’t you be able to return to me then what I’m lending you today? In olden times, didn’t ladies give their knights armour, swords, helmets, chainmail coats and horses so they could fight tournaments in their name? Well, Eugène, I’m offering you the weapons of our times, the tools needed by any man who wants to make something of himself. It must be delightful, the attic you sleep in, if Papa’s room is anything to go by. So, shall we have dinner? Do you want to make me sad? Answer, will you?’ she said, shaking his hand. ‘Lord, Papa, help him decide, or I’ll leave and never see him again.’

‘I’ll make you decide,’ said old man Goriot, coming out of his ecstatic trance. ‘My dear Monsieur Eugène, you borrow money from Jews, don’t you?’

‘I have to,’ he said.

‘Good, I’ve got you there,’ the old fellow went on, pulling out a worn and shabby leather wallet. ‘I’ve made myself a Jew. I paid all the bills – here they are. You don’t owe her a centime for anything in here. It doesn’t amount to much: five thousand francs in all. I’ll lend it to you! You won’t refuse me, I’m not a woman. Write me an IOU on a scrap of paper and pay me back some other time.’

Eugène and Delphine looked at each other in surprise, their eyes brimming with tears. Rastignac reached out and took the old man’s hand in his.

‘Well, what of it! You’re my children, aren’t you?’ said Goriot.

‘But, my poor, dear Father,’ said Madame de Nucingen; ‘how did you do it?’

‘Ah! We’re coming to that,’ he replied. ‘Once I’d convinced you to set him up near you, I watched you buying him his trousseau, so to speak, and I said to myself: “She’s going to get in a pickle!” The solicitor tells me that the legal proceedings against your husband, to make him return your fortune, will take at least six months. So. I sold my perpetuity of thirteen hundred and fifty livres; with fifteen thousand francs I got myself a well-secured life annuity¹⁹³ of twelve hundred francs; and I used the rest of the capital to pay for your purchases, my children. I have a room up there which will cost me fifty écus a year; I can live like a prince on forty sous a day and I’ll still have some left over. I never wear anything out and I barely need any clothes. I’ve been chuckling away to myself for a fortnight now, saying: “Won’t they be happy!” Well, aren’t you happy?’

‘Oh! Papa, Papa!’ said Madame de Nucingen, throwing herself at her father, who took her on his lap. She showered him with kisses, her blonde hair brushing his cheeks, and wet his radiant and delighted old face with her tears.

‘Dear Father, what a good father you are to me! No, there’s no other father on earth like you. Eugène already loves you so dearly, what will he feel now!’

‘Why, children,’ said old Goriot, who hadn’t felt his daughter’s heart beat next to his for ten years; ‘why, Delphinette, you’ll make me die of happiness. My poor heart is breaking. Now, Monsieur Eugène, we’re already quits!’ And the old man pressed his daughter to him so wildly, so intensely, that she said: ‘Ah! You’re hurting me.’ – ‘I’ve hurt you!’ he said, turning white. He looked at her with an expression of superhuman pain. To paint a true portrait of this Christ of Paternity, one would need to draw comparisons with those images created by princes of the palette to show the sufferings endured by the Saviour of mankind for the sake of the world. Old man Goriot gently kissed the waist that his fingers had dug into.

‘No, no, I’ve not hurt you,’ he went on, with a questioning smile; ‘it was you crying out that hurt me. It cost more than that,’ he whispered in his daughter’s ear, kissing it carefully, ‘but I had to haul him in or he’d have kept struggling.’

Eugène, stunned by the old man’s inexhaustible devotion, stared at him with that naive admiration which, at a tender age, is akin to trust.

‘I’ll be worthy of all this,’ he cried.

‘O Eugène, you’ve just said the most beautiful thing.’ And Madame de Nucingen kissed the student’s brow.

‘He turned down Mademoiselle Taillefer and her millions for you,’ said old man Goriot. ‘Yes, she loved you, the young lady; and now, with her brother dead, she’s as rich as Croesus.’¹⁹⁴

‘Oh! Why mention that?’ cried Rastignac.

‘Eugène,’ Delphine said in his ear, ‘that’s the only regret I’ve felt all evening. Ah! I’ll love you too, I will! and always.’

‘This is the most wonderful day I’ve had since you were both married,’ cried old man Goriot. ‘The good Lord can make me suffer all he pleases, as long as it’s not through you. I’ll just say to myself: “In February of this year, I was happier for one moment than some men are in their whole lives.” Look at me, Fifine!’ he said to his daughter. ‘Isn’t she beautiful? Now tell me, have you met many women with her pretty colour and her sweet dimple? No, of course you haven’t. Well, I made this darling woman. She’ll be a thousand times more beautiful now that she has you to make her happy. I won’t mind going to hell, neighbour,’ he said; ‘if you need my share of paradise, I’ll give it to you. Let’s eat, let’s eat,’ he went on, no longer knowing what he was saying; ‘all of this is ours.’

‘Poor old Father!’

‘If only you knew, child,’ he said, standing up and going to where she sat, taking hold of her head and kissing the crown of her hair braids, ‘how little it costs you to make me happy! Come and see me sometimes; I’ll be upstairs, just a step away. Promise me you will!’

‘Yes, dearest Father.’

‘Say it again.’

‘Yes, sweetest Father.’

‘Shush! I’d make you say that a hundred times if I let myself. Let’s eat.’

They spent the whole evening behaving like children and old Goriot was by no means the least silly of the three. He lay down at his daughter’s feet to kiss them; he kept gazing into her eyes; he rubbed his head against her dress: in all, he was as playful as the youngest and most tender lover.

‘You see how it is?’ said Delphine to Eugène; ‘when my father is with us, he must have all of me. But it will be rather a nuisance sometimes.’

Eugène, who had already felt several pangs of jealousy, couldn’t blame her for these words, which enshrined the principle of every ingratitude.

‘And when will the apartment be finished?’ said Eugène, looking around the room. ‘We must part this evening, then?’

‘Yes, but tomorrow you’ll come and dine with me,’ she said, delicately. ‘Tomorrow is a day for the Italiens.’

‘I’ll be there too, in the stalls,’ said old man Goriot.

It was midnight. Madame de Nucingen’s carriage was waiting. On their way back to the Maison Vauquer, old Goriot and the student talked about Delphine in increasingly enthusiastic terms, which led to a curious battle of words, as each sought to express the intensity of his own passion. Eugène could not help but see that the father’s love, untainted by self-interest, far outstripped his own in scope and persistence. The idol was always beautiful and pure in the father’s eyes and his adoration was nourished as much by the past as the future. They found Madame Vauquer sitting alone by her stove, between Sylvie and Christophe. The old landlady had the tragic air of Marius among the ruins of Carthage.¹⁹⁵ She had been waiting up for her last two remaining lodgers, bewailing her lot to Sylvie. Although Lord Byron has put some fine lamentations into the mouth of Tasso,¹⁹⁶ they fall a long way short of the profound truth of those that now poured out of Madame Vauquer’s.

‘So, Sylvie, only three cups of coffee for you to make tomorrow morning. Eh! My boarding house, deserted – isn’t that enough to break your heart? What’s my life without my lodgers? Nothing. The house is unfurnished, stripped of its people. Life is in the furniture. What in heaven have I done to bring down so much disaster upon my head? I’ve laid in enough beans and potatoes for twenty people. The police, in my house! Well, in that case all we’ll eat is potatoes! I’ll have to sack Christophe!’

The Savoyard, who was asleep, woke up with a start and said: ‘Madame?’

‘Poor lad! He’s like a great mastiff,’ said Sylvie.

‘It’s the slack season; everyone has found a place to stay. They’re not going to drop into my lap, are they, these lodgers? I’ll go mad. And that witch of a Michonneau making off with my Poiret! What did she do to the man for him to go trotting after her like a little dog?’

‘Pah! I don’t know,’ exclaimed Sylvie, shaking her head; ‘they’re up to all kinds of tricks, them old maids.’

‘And then that poor Monsieur Vautrin they’ve gone and made a convict,’ the widow went on. ‘Well, Sylvie, I can’t help myself, I still don’t believe it. A gay dog like him, who drank his gloria for fifteen francs a month and always paid cash on the nail!’

‘And gave good tips!’ said Christophe.

‘It’s all a mistake,’ said Sylvie.

‘But, no: he confessed of his own accord,’ continued Madame Vauquer. ‘And to think it all happened in my house, in a street where you never see so much as a cat having a scratch! Upon my word, sure as I’m an honest woman, I must be dreaming. Because, look at it this way: we saw Louis XVI have his little accident, we saw the Emperor go, we saw him come back and go again – that was all within the realm of possibility; but what are the odds against boarding houses? We can do without a king, but we always need to eat; and when an honest woman, née de Conflans, puts a decent dinner on the table, as long as it’s not the end of the world … Why, that must be it: it’s the end of the world.’

‘And to think that Mademoiselle Michonneau, who done this to you, will get a thousand écus a year for it, so I’ve heard!’ exclaimed Sylvie.

‘Don’t mention her, I can’t bear it, she’s a strumpet, that’s what!’ said Madame Vauquer. ‘And to top it all, she’s gone knocking on Buneaud’s door! Why, there’s nothing she wouldn’t stoop to. I’ll bet she’s done some terrible things in her time, killing and thieving. They ought to pack her off to prison instead of that poor dear man …’

At this point Eugène and old Goriot rang the bell.

‘Ah! Here come my two old faithfuls,’ said the widow, sighing.

The two old faithfuls, who only dimly remembered the disasters that had struck the boarding house, unceremoniously announced to their hostess that they were moving to the Chaussée d’Antin.

‘Ah! Sylvie!’ said the widow, ‘that’s my last card played. You’ve struck the death-blow, Gentlemen! It has hit me right in the stomach. You’ve knocked all the stuffing out of me. I must have aged ten years in one day. I’ll lose my mind, I swear! What am I going to do with those beans? Dear, dear! Well, if I’m going to be here all alone, you’ll have to leave tomorrow, Christophe. Farewell, Gentlemen, good night.’

‘What’s the matter with her?’ Eugène asked Sylvie.

‘Bless me if all her lodgers haven’t gone and left, after that business today. It’s made her lose her head. Listen, she’s crying. It’ll do her good to have a bit of a weep. This is the first time she’s ever shed a tear since I’ve been working for her.’

The next day, Madame Vauquer, as she herself put it, was finally reconcealed. Although she seemed distressed, as any woman would be who has just lost all her lodgers and whose life has fallen apart, she was clearly herself again and showed that her true grief was, at bottom, the grief of dented self-interest and disrupted routine. It goes without saying that the last lingering look a departing lover gives his mistress’s house is nowhere near as tragic as the one Madame Vauquer now cast over her empty table. Eugène consoled her, saying that Bianchon, whose residency as house doctor ended in a few days’ time, was bound to come and replace him; that the museum clerk had often expressed a wish to have Madame Couture’s apartment and that in a few days’ time she’d have a full house once again.

‘May God hear your prayer, dear Monsieur! But misfortune has moved in. Death will follow within ten days, you’ll see,’ she said to him, staring lugubriously around the dining room. ‘Who will he take?’

‘I’m so glad we’re moving out,’ said Eugène to old man Goriot, under his breath.

‘Madame,’ said Sylvie, running in, looking worried; ‘I haven’t seen Mistigris for three days.’

‘Ah! Well, if my cat is dead, if he’s left us, I …’

The poor widow broke off, wringing her hands, and sank back in her chair, overwhelmed by this portent of doom.