DEATH OF THE FATHER

The next day, Rastignac was woken at two in the afternoon by Bianchon, who needed to go out, and asked him to look after old man Goriot, whose condition had sharply deteriorated that morning.

‘The old man doesn’t have two days, maybe not even six hours, left to live,’ said the medical student, ‘and yet we can’t stop fighting the illness. He needs expensive treatments. We can nurse him here, but I haven’t a sou. I’ve turned his pockets inside out, looked in his cupboards – nothing. I questioned him in one of his more lucid moments and he told me he didn’t have a liard to his name. How much have you got?’

‘I only have twenty francs, but I’ll go and gamble them and win more.’

‘What if you lose?’

‘I’ll ask his sons-in-law and his daughters for the money.’

‘And what if they don’t give you any?’ replied Bianchon. ‘At the moment, finding money isn’t the most urgent priority; the old man needs his legs wrapping in a hot mustard poultice from his feet to the middle of his thighs. If he cries out, it means there’s life in him yet. You know what to do. Christophe will help you. In the meantime, I’ll go to the apothecary’s and stand surety for the medication we need. It’s a shame the poor old man couldn’t be moved to our hospice; he’d have been more comfortable there. Now, come with me so I can settle you in and don’t leave him until I’m back.’

The two young men went into the room where the old man lay dying. Eugène was appalled at the change in his face, now pale, contorted and deeply debilitated.

‘Papa?’ he said, leaning over the straw bed.

Goriot lifted his distant eyes towards Eugène and looked at him attentively without recognizing him. The sight was too much for the student to bear and his eyes welled up with tears.

‘Bianchon, surely the windows should have curtains.’

‘No. Atmospheric conditions no longer affect him. If only he did feel hot or cold, that would be encouraging. However, we do need a fire to make infusions and to prepare various treatments. I’ll have some faggots sent up to you; that will do until we manage to get some wood. Yesterday and last night I burned all the tan-turf that you and the old man had. It was so damp in here, there was water running down the walls. I’ve only just managed to dry the room. Christophe has swept it out; it really is a midden. I had to burn juniper to mask the smell.’

‘Dear God!’ said Rastignac, ‘and to think he has daughters!’

‘Here, if he asks for something to drink, give him this,’ said the house doctor, showing Rastignac a big white pot. ‘If he sounds like he’s in pain, and his stomach is hot and hard, call Christophe to help you to administer … you know what. If he starts to seem over-excited, if he talks a lot, if he has a touch of dementia, leave him be. That wouldn’t be a bad sign. But send Christophe to Cochin hospital. Either our doctor, my colleague or myself will come and apply moxas.²¹⁴ This morning, when you were asleep, we had a long consultation with one of Doctor Gall’s trainees, a senior doctor from the Hôtel-Dieu, and our doctor. These gentlemen thought they recognized a couple of unusual symptoms and we’re going to follow the progress of the illness, which should cast light on some important scientific issues. One of these gentlemen maintains that the pressure of the serum, should it affect one organ more than another, might lead to the development of strange phenomena. So if he does speak, listen to him carefully in order to establish what category of ideas his speech belongs to: whether the impressions of memory, of perception, of judgement; whether he’s concerned with material things, or feelings; whether he’s calculating, whether he’s going back over the past: in all, stay alert and give us a precise report. It’s possible that the congestion may occur suddenly, that he’ll die in the imbecile state he’s in at the moment. These kinds of illnesses are always so unpredictable! Should the bomb explode here,’ said Bianchon, pointing at the back of the sick man’s head, ‘we’ve seen some strange effects: the brain recovers a few of its faculties and death comes more slowly. The serosities divert away from the brain and follow paths whose directions may only be revealed by an autopsy. At the Incurables, there’s an old man who has lost his wits; in his case, the fluid has travelled down his spinal column; he’s in terrible pain, but he’s still alive.’

‘Did they enjoy themselves?’ said old man Goriot, recognizing Eugène.

‘Oh! All he can think about is his daughters,’ said Bianchon. ‘Last night he must have said to me: “They’re dancing! She has her gown!” more than a hundred times. He cried out their names. The way he called for them brought tears to my eyes, I swear to you! “Delphine! My little Delphine!” “Nasie!” Believe me,’ said the medical student, ‘it was all I could do not to break down and weep.’

‘Delphine,’ said the old man, ‘she’s here, isn’t she? I knew it was her.’ And his eyes rolled wildly as he tried to recover enough energy to look at the walls and the door.

‘I’ll go down and tell Sylvie to prepare the mustard plasters,’ cried Bianchon; ‘this is a good time.’

Rastignac stayed alone with the old man, sitting at the foot of the bed, his eyes riveted to the dreadful, painful sight of that face.

‘Madame de Beauséant is leaving, this man is dying,’ he said. ‘A noble soul can’t abide this world for long. How, indeed, could a lofty sensibility ever be reconciled with this petty, shallow and mean-spirited society of ours?’

Visions of the ball he had just attended surfaced in his memory, contrasting with the pitiful sight of the death-bed scene before him. Bianchon suddenly reappeared.

‘Listen, Eugène. I’ve just seen our senior doctor and ran all the way back. If he shows signs of lucidity, if he talks, lie him on a long poultice so he’s wrapped in mustard from the nape of his neck to the small of his back, and send for us.’

‘Dear, kind, Bianchon,’ said Eugène.

‘Oh! It’s all in the interests of science,’ replied the medical student, with the enthusiasm of a neophyte.

‘I see,’ said Eugène; ‘so I’m the only one looking after the old man out of affection.’

‘You wouldn’t say that if you’d seen me this morning,’ replied Bianchon, unruffled by the remark. ‘Practising doctors only see the disease; I still see the patient, dear fellow.’

He went out and Eugène was left alone with the old man, fearing a crisis, which soon began to manifest itself.

‘Ah! It’s you, dear child,’ said old Goriot, recognizing Eugène.

‘Are you feeling any better?’ asked the student, taking hold of his hand.

‘Yes, my head felt like it was gripped in a vice, but it’s easing a little now. Have you seen my daughters? They’ll be here soon, they’ll come rushing over as soon as they know I’m ill; they looked after me so well when we lived in the Rue de la Jussienne! Dear me! I wish my room were clean and fit to receive them. That young man has burnt all my tan-turf.’

‘I can hear Christophe,’ said Eugène; ‘he’s bringing you up some wood sent by that same young man.’

‘That’s all very well! But how will I pay for the wood? I don’t have a sou, child. I’ve given everything away, everything. I’m reduced to charity. But the lamé gown was beautiful, wasn’t it? (Ah! My head!) Thank you, Christophe. God will reward you, boy; I myself have nothing left.’

‘I’ll see you and Sylvie right,’ Eugène whispered in the boy’s ear.

‘My daughters did say they were coming, didn’t they, Christophe? I’ll give you a hundred sous to go to them again. Tell them I’m not feeling well, that I want to kiss them, see them one last time before I die. Tell them that, but don’t go frightening them.’

Rastignac motioned to Christophe to leave.

‘They’ll come,’ the old man went on. ‘I know them. Sweet, kind-hearted Delphine: if I die, how sad I’ll make her! Nasie too. I don’t want to die, not if it makes them cry. Dying, dear Eugène, means never seeing them ever again. I’ll feel so empty there, wherever it is we end up afterwards. For a father, hell is being without his children, and that’s a lesson I’ve been learning since the day they got married. Our house in the Rue de la Jussienne was my paradise. Although who knows, if I do go to heaven, perhaps I’ll be able to come back to earth in spirit and be with them. I’ve heard talk about that sort of thing. But is there any truth in it? I can see them now, just as they were at home in the Rue de la Jussienne. They’d come down in the morning and say, “Bonjour, Papa.” I’d sit them on my lap, I’d tease and tickle them a thousand times. They’d give me the sweetest cuddles. We took our déjeuner together every morning, and dinner; that’s how it was – I was a father, my children were my delight. When they lived in the Rue de la Jussienne, they never questioned anything, they knew nothing of the world, they loved me dearly. Dear God! why didn’t they stay small for ever? (Oh! My head, that stabbing pain.) Aah! aah! Forgive me, Daughters! I’m in such agony and this must be real pain, for you’ve hardened me against mere heart-ache. Dear God! if I could only hold their hands in mine, I’d stop feeling the pain. Do you think they’re coming? Christophe is such a dolt! I should have gone myself. He will find them, won’t he? Why, you were at the ball yesterday. Tell me, how were they? They didn’t know I was ill, did they? They wouldn’t have been out dancing, poor little mites! Oh! I can’t afford to be ill any more. They still need me too much. Their fortunes are hanging in the balance. And to think they’re at the mercy of those husbands of theirs! Heal me, cure me! (Oh! My head, the pain! Aah! aah! aah!) I must get better, because they need money, you see, and I know where it can be made. I’m going to go and make starch-powder in Odessa. I’m ahead of the game, I’ll make millions. (Oh! The pain, I can’t bear it.)’

Goriot fell silent for a moment, seeming to put his every last effort into summoning up enough strength to endure the pain.

‘If they were here, I wouldn’t be complaining,’ he said, ‘so why complain?’

He fell into a fitful sleep which lasted for some time.

Christophe came back. Rastignac, believing old Goriot to be asleep, let the boy report back on his errand without lowering his voice.

‘Monsieur,’ he said, ‘I went to see Madame la Comtesse first, but was unable to speak to her; she was with her husband, discussing some great matter. When I insisted, Monsieur de Restaud himself came out and said, in these very words: “So Monsieur Goriot is dying: well, that’s the best thing he can do. I need Madame de Restaud here to finish some important business; she’ll leave when it’s complete.” He looked angry, he did, the gentleman. I was just going out, when Madame came into the ante-room through a door I hadn’t noticed, and said: “Christophe, tell my father I’m tied up with my husband, I can’t leave now; it’s a matter of life and death for my children; but I’ll come as soon as it’s over.” As for Madame la Baronne, now that’s another story! It was out of the question to see her, never mind speak to her. “Ah!’ said her maid, ‘Madame came home from the ball at a quarter past five, she’s asleep; if I wake her before midday, she’ll scold me. I’ll tell her that her father’s condition is worse when she rings for me. Bad news can always keep for later.” No matter how much I begged! So that was that. I asked to speak to Monsieur le Baron, but he was out.’

‘Neither of his daughters will come!’ cried Rastignac. ‘I’ll write to them both now.’

‘Neither of them,’ replied the old man, sitting bolt upright. ‘They have business to attend to, they’re asleep, they won’t come. I knew it. You have to be dying to find out what your children are really like. Ah, my friend, don’t marry, don’t have children! You give them life, they give you death. You bring them into the world, they hound you out of it. No, they won’t come! I’ve known that for ten years. I said as much to myself from time to time but couldn’t bring myself to believe it.’

A tear welled up on each red rim of his eyes without falling.

‘Ah! If I were rich, if I’d kept hold of my wealth instead of giving it to them, they’d be here now, falling over each other to kiss my cheeks! I’d be living in a grand house, I’d have fine rooms, servants, a fire, all to myself; and my daughters, their husbands, their children, would all be here, in tears. All of that would be mine. Instead, nothing. Money buys everything, even daughters.²¹⁵ Oh! my money, where has it all gone? If I still had a fortune to leave them, they’d be dancing attendance on me, they’d be looking after me; I’d hear them, I’d see them. Ah! my dear child, my only child, destitute and abandoned as I am, I’d rather have it this way! At least when a poor man is loved, he knows he really is loved. No, let me be rich; at least I’d see them. Although, who knows? They both have hearts of stone. I gave them too much love, they kept none back for me. A father must always have means, he should keep a child on a tight rein, like a skittish horse. And I worshipped them. The wretched pair! This crowns their behaviour towards me for all of ten years. If you knew what a fuss they made of me when they were newly wed! (Aah! The pain, it’s torture!) As I’d just gifted them both eight hundred thousand francs or thereabouts, neither they, nor their husbands, could very well behave ungraciously towards me. I was welcomed with “Darling Father, this”, “Dear Father, that”. A place was always laid for me at their tables. In those days I dined with their husbands, who treated me with the greatest respect. They thought I was still a man of means. Why? Simply because I’d kept quiet about my affairs. A man who gives his daughters eight hundred thousand francs is a man to be cultivated. And so they made a fuss of me, but it was only for my money. Fashionable society has its ugly side and I saw it soon enough! They’d take me to the theatre in their carriages and I’d stay at their parties for as long as I wished. In all, they said they were my daughters and acknowledged me as their father. But I still had my wits about me and I didn’t miss a trick. They only ever thought of themselves and it broke my heart. I saw perfectly well that it was all for show; but there was no way to put things right. I felt no more at ease in their homes than I do at that dinner table downstairs. I was always saying the wrong thing. So whenever some man of fashion murmured in my son-in-law’s ear: “Who on earth is that man over there?” – “He’s their father, the one who made a fortune, he’s a rich man” – “A-ha! Is that so!” they said and looked at me with all the respect that bundles of banknotes command. Maybe I did cramp their style at times, but I paid dearly for my faults! Besides, is anyone perfect? (My head feels as if it’s been split open!) At present I’m racked with the agonies a man must endure when he’s dying, dear Monsieur Eugène; well, that’s nothing compared to the pain I felt the first time Anastasie gave me a look that told me I’d just said something stupid and mortified her; it made my heart bleed. Maybe I was poorly educated, but what I did know for certain was that I’d be a thorn in her side for the rest of my days. The next day I called on Delphine, hoping to console myself, and went and made some silly blunder that made her lose her temper with me. I thought I was losing my mind. For that whole week I didn’t know what to do with myself. I didn’t dare go and see them, fearing I’d be rebuffed. And that’s how I found myself banished from my daughters’ houses. O God! You who know how much misery, how much suffering, I’ve endured; you who have witnessed each twist of the knife in my heart, how these past years have aged me, changed me, drained me, greyed me: why make me suffer today? I’ve already atoned for the sin of loving them too much. They themselves have taken revenge on my fondness, they tortured me, they were my executioners. Ah, how foolish a father is! I loved them so much, I kept going back for more, just as a gambler returns to the game. Only my vice was my daughters; they were my mistresses, in a manner of speaking, they were everything to me! Whenever they needed the slightest thing, some piece of finery or other, their maids would come and tell me and I’d give it to them, in return for a warm welcome! But they still couldn’t resist teaching me a few little lessons on how I ought to behave in polite society. Oh! they didn’t wait long. I soon became an embarrassment to them. That’s what comes of giving your children a proper education. At my age I couldn’t very well go to school. (Lord, the pain, terrible pain! Doctor! Doctor! If you split my head open, it wouldn’t hurt as much as this.) Anastasie! Delphine! My daughters, my own daughters, I must see them. Let them be brought here by force, by the police! Justice is on my side, everything’s on my side, the laws of nature, the civil code. I won’t stand for it. If fathers are to be trampled underfoot, the country²¹⁶ will go to the dogs. No doubt about it. Everything, society, the whole world, hinges on fatherhood; and if children no longer love their fathers, everything will fall apart. Oh! to see them, to hear them, no matter what they say, simply to hear their voices, especially Delphine’s, that would ease my pain. But tell them, when they come, not to look at me so coldly. Oh! Monsieur Eugène, my dear friend, you don’t know what it’s like when the gold in a look suddenly turns to lead. Ever since the day their eyes stopped shining on me, I’ve been living in winter, in this room; I’ve had nothing but sorrows to gnaw on and I’ve gnawed them to the bone! I’ve existed only to be humiliated, insulted. I love them so much that I swallowed every indignity, the cost of the few shameful, shabby little pleasures they sold me. A father having to hide so he can see his daughters! I gave them my life and today they won’t give me an hour of their time! I’m thirsty, I’m hungry, I’m burning, and they won’t come and help me bear the pain of my passing, because I am dying, I can tell. Why, don’t they know what it means to walk over their father’s dead body? There’s a God in heaven: he’ll avenge us fathers, against our wishes. Oh! they must come! Come, my darling girls, come and kiss me once more, one last kiss, a viaticum²¹⁷ for your father, who’ll pray to God for you, who’ll tell him you’ve been good daughters, who’ll plead for you! You are innocent, after all. They’re innocent, my friend! Be sure to make that clear to everyone, so they’re not given any trouble on my account. It’s my own fault entirely: I taught them to walk all over me. I enjoyed it, didn’t I? It concerns no one else, neither human justice, nor divine justice. God would be wrong to punish them because of me. I didn’t know how to behave, I was stupid, I surrendered my rights. I’d have stooped to anything for them! What do you expect! The finest nature, the best of souls, would have been corrupted by such facility in a father. I’m a wretch; it’s right I should be punished. I alone have caused my daughters’ excesses, I spoiled them. Today they want pleasure, as they used to want sweets. When they were small, I always indulged their every fancy. At fifteen, they had their own carriages! They never encountered the slightest resistance. I alone am guilty, although guilty because of love. Their voices stripped my heart of its defences. They’re on their way, I can hear them. Oh! they will come, yes. A child is required by law to come and see her father die, the law is on my side. Why, all it will cost them is the fare. I’ll pay for it. Write and say I have millions to leave them! I swear it’s true. I’ll go and make Italian pasta in Odessa. I know how to do it. There are millions to be made from this scheme of mine. No one has thought of it yet. There’s no risk of it spoiling in transit like wheat or flour. Eh, eh, and what about starch? There’s millions in that too! You won’t be lying, tell them millions and even if they only come out of greed, I’d rather be deceived; I’d see them, at least. I want my daughters! I made them! They’re mine!’ he said sitting up, turning towards Eugène a face with threat written all over it, framed by wispy white hair.

‘There now,’ said Eugène, ‘lie down again, dear old Goriot, I’m going to write to them. I’ll go and fetch them myself as soon as Bianchon is back, if they don’t come.’

‘If they don’t come?’ the old man repeated, sobbing. ‘But I’ll be dead, dead in a fit of rage, yes, rage! I’m seething with anger! I can see my whole life before me now. I’ve been a fool! They don’t love me, they’ve never loved me! It’s obvious. If they haven’t come by now, they’ll never come. The longer they delay, the less likely it is that they’ll decide to bless me with their presence. I know them. They’ve never been aware of my sorrow, my pain, my needs, so why would they be aware of my death; the secret of my affection quite simply escapes them. Yes, I see now that for them my habit of holding nothing back rendered worthless everything I did. If they’d wanted to pluck out my eyes, I’d have said: “Pluck them out!”²¹⁸ I’m such a fool. They think all fathers are like theirs. Always make yourself seem valuable. Their children will avenge me.²¹⁹ But it’s in their own interest to come here. Warn them that they’re endangering the peace of their own passing. To commit this one crime is to commit every crime. Go on, go and tell them now that it would be parricide not to come! The list of their wrongdoings is long enough without adding that particular one. Summon them, say this: “Hey, Nasie, hey, Delphine! Come to your father who’s been so good to you and who’s in terrible pain now!” Nothing, nobody. So I’m to die here like a dog? This is my reward, to be abandoned. They’re loathsome, they’re wicked; I despise them, I curse them; I’ll rise up out of my coffin at night to curse them over and over again, because, after all, friends, am I wrong? Their behaviour couldn’t be any worse! Eh? What am I saying? Didn’t you tell me that Delphine is here? She’s the better of the two. You have truly been a son to me, Eugène! Be a father to her, love her. Her sister is as wretched as she could be. And their fortunes! Ah, dear God! I’m at my last breath, the pain is too much for me to bear now! Cut off my head, but leave me my heart.’

‘Christophe, go and find Bianchon,’ shouted Eugène, horrified at the new pitch the old man’s sobs and groans were beginning to reach, ‘and fetch me a cab.

‘I’m going out to find your daughters, dear old Goriot; I’ll bring them back here to you.’

‘Force them to come, force them! Call out the guards, the battalion, the lot! The lot,’ he said, looking at Eugène with one last glimmer of lucidity. ‘Tell the government, the Crown Prosecutor, to have them brought to me, I want them here!’

‘But you cursed them.’

‘Whoever said such a thing?’ replied the old man, stunned. ‘You know very well that I love them, I adore them! If I could only see them, I’d be cured … Go, good neighbour, my dear child, go, you’ve a kind heart; I wish there was some way to thank you, but I’ve nothing left to give you but the blessings of a dying man. Ah! I wish I could at least see Delphine to tell her to repay my debt towards you. If the other one won’t come, bring her. Tell her that if she doesn’t come you won’t love her any more. That will make her come, she loves you so dearly. Something to drink, I’m burning inside! Put something on my head. One of my daughters’ hands, that would save me, I know it would … Dear God! Who will rebuild their fortunes if I go? I have to go to Odessa for them, to Odessa, to make pasta.’

‘Drink this,’ said Eugène, raising the dying man and supporting him with his left arm while holding a cup of tisane in the other hand.

‘You must love your father and mother!’ said the old man, squeezing Eugène’s hand with his two shaky ones. ‘Can you believe that I’ll die without seeing my daughters? Always thirsty and never able to drink, that’s how I’ve lived for the past ten years … My sons-in-law killed my daughters. Yes, they stopped being my daughters as soon as they were married. Fathers, tell the Chambers to pass a law against marriage! Whatever you do, don’t marry off your daughters if you love them. A son-in-law is a scoundrel who spoils everything we love in a daughter, he sullies everything. An end to marriage! It robs us of our daughters, so that we die without them. Make a law to protect dying fathers. Ah, it’s a dreadful thing! Vengeance! It’s my sons-in-law who’re stopping them coming. Kill them! Kill Restaud, kill that Alsatian, they’re my murderers! Death or my daughters! Ah! it’s all over, I’m dying without them! My daughters! Nasie, Fifine, hurry, what’s keeping you! Your papa is on his way out …’

‘Dear old Goriot, calm down, hush now, keep still, don’t get upset, don’t think too much.’

‘Not seeing them is my mortal agony.’

‘You are going to see them.’

‘You’re right!’ cried the old man, rambling. ‘Oh! See them! I’m going to see them, hear their voices. I’ll die happy. Ah! yes, I’ve no wish to live any longer, I’d lost the taste for life, my sorrows only ever increased. But if I could see them, touch their dresses, ah! even if it was just their dresses, it’s not much to ask; just to touch something that belongs to them! Let me touch their hair … hai …’

His head fell back on his pillow as if he’d been struck by a club. His hands moved restlessly across the blanket as if searching for his daughters’ hair.

‘They have my blessing,’ he said, making an effort, ‘… blessing.’

His body suddenly sagged. At that point Bianchon came in.

‘I met Christophe on the way,’ he said; ‘he’s gone to fetch you a carriage.’ Then he looked at the sick man, drawing up his eyelids; the two students saw how his eyes were now glazed and lifeless. ‘He won’t recover from this,’ said Bianchon, ‘not in my opinion.’ He felt for his pulse and placed a hand on the old man’s heart.

‘The machine is still going, but in his case that’s a bad thing; it would be better for him if he died!’

‘Yes, I think you’re right,’ said Rastignac.

‘What’s the matter with you? You’re as pale as death.’

‘Friend, I’ve just heard the most unspeakable sobbing and groaning. There is a God! Yes, there has to be! There is a God, and he’s made a better world for us, or this earth of ours makes no sense whatsoever. If it hadn’t been so devastating, I’d weep, but my heart and stomach are in knots.’

‘Listen, we’re going to need lots of extra things; where’s the money going to come from?’

Rastignac removed his watch.

‘Here, pawn that as soon as you can. I’d rather not stop on the way; I don’t have a minute to lose and Christophe should be here soon. I don’t have a liard – the coachman will need to be paid when I get back.’

Rastignac rushed down the stairs and set off for Madame de Restaud’s house in the Rue du Helder. On his way there, his imagination, struck by the terrible scene he had just witnessed, fired up his indignation. When he arrived in the antechamber and asked for Madame de Restaud, the answer came back that she was not available.

‘But I’ve come with a message from her dying father,’ he said to the valet.

‘Monsieur le Comte has given us the strictest orders, Monsieur …’

‘If Monsieur de Restaud is in, tell him what his father-in-law’s condition is and let him know that I must speak to him immediately.’

Eugène waited a long time.

‘Perhaps he’s drawing his last breath even now,’ he thought.

The valet showed the student into the outermost drawing room, where Monsieur de Restaud received him standing, without inviting him to be seated, in front of a hearth in which no fire had been lit.

‘Monsieur le Comte,’ said Rastignac; ‘as we speak, your father-in-law is dying in a squalid little room, without even a liard for wood; he is on the very brink of death and is asking for his daughter …’

‘Monsieur,’ the Comte de Restaud replied coldly; ‘you may have noticed that there is no love lost between myself and Monsieur Goriot. He has compromised both his reputation and that of Madame de Restaud, he has been the cause of my misfortune, he has destroyed my peace of mind. I have not the slightest interest in whether he lives or dies. That is my position towards him. The world may condemn me, but I really couldn’t care less. I have more important things to do at the moment than to concern myself with the opinions of fools and complete strangers. As for Madame de Restaud, she’s not in any fit state to go out. What’s more, I do not wish her to do so. Tell her father she’ll come and see him as soon as she has done her duty by me and my son. If she loves her father, she could be free in a few minutes’ time …’

‘Monsieur le Comte, it’s not for me to judge your conduct; you are your wife’s lord and master. But may I appeal to your sense of fairness? Well then! Promise me you’ll simply tell her that her father won’t live to see another day and has already cursed her for not being at his bedside!’

‘Tell her yourself,’ replied Monsieur de Restaud, impressed by the heartfelt indignation he heard in Eugène’s voice.

Rastignac followed the comte into the drawing room in which the comtesse usually received visitors; he found her in floods of tears, sunk deep in an armchair like a woman who wishes she could die. He felt sorry for her. Before meeting Rastignac’s eye, she looked at her husband, her fearful glance indicating that all her strength had been crushed by sustained mental and physical tyranny. The comte gave a nod and she plucked up the courage to speak.

‘Monsieur, I heard everything you said. Tell my father that he’d forgive me if he knew what a terrible situation I’m in. Nothing could have prepared me for such torture, it’s more than I can stand, Monsieur; but I’ll resist right to the end,’ she said to her husband. ‘I am a mother. Tell my father that my behaviour towards him is beyond reproach, despite what it looks like,’ she cried out in despair to the student.

Eugène bade the pair farewell, guessing at the terrible dilemma the wife was facing, and left the room, stunned. Monsieur de Restaud’s tone had made it clear that his efforts would come to nothing and he saw very well that Anastasie had lost her freedom.

He ran to Madame de Nucingen’s house and found her in bed.

‘I’m not well, my poor sweet,’ she said to him. ‘I caught a chill on my way back from the ball; I’m afraid I might have pneumonia, I’m waiting for the doctor …’

‘Even if your lips were turning blue,’ said Eugène, interrupting her, ‘you should drag yourself to your father’s side. He’s calling for you! If you could hear even the faintest of his cries, you’d no longer feel the slightest bit ill.’

‘Eugène, my father may not be quite as sick as you say he is; but I couldn’t bear to find the slightest fault in your eyes, and I’ll do as you wish. As for my father, I know that he’d die of grief if my illness took a fatal turn as a consequence of this outing. So I’ll set off as soon as the doctor has been. Oh! why aren’t you wearing your watch?’ she asked, seeing him without his chain. Eugène flushed. ‘Eugène! Eugène, if you’ve sold it, lost it already … oh! that would be terrible of you.’

The student leaned over Delphine’s bed and said in her ear: ‘You want to know why? Then let me tell you! Your father has nothing left to pay for the shroud we’ll wrap him in this evening. Your watch is at the pawnbroker’s: I had nothing else.’

Delphine immediately leaped out of bed, ran to her writing desk, took her purse and held it out to Rastignac. She rang the bell and cried: ‘I’ll go, I’ll be there, Eugène. Just let me dress; why I’d be a monster not to! You go on ahead, I’ll arrive before you! Thérèse,’ she cried to her maid, ‘tell Monsieur de Nucingen to come up. I need to speak to him immediately.’

Eugène, glad to be able to tell the dying man that one of his daughters was coming, arrived back at the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève feeling almost joyful. He delved into the purse to pay the coachman directly. That young woman, so rich, so elegant, had all of seventy francs in her purse. When he got to the top of the stairs, he found old Goriot raised up, supported by Bianchon, while the hospital surgeon, watched by the doctor, was burning his back with moxas, that futile medical remedy of last resort.

‘Can you feel them?’ the doctor asked.

Old man Goriot, catching sight of the student, said: ‘They are coming, aren’t they?’

‘Perhaps he’ll pull through,’ said the surgeon; ‘he’s talking.’

‘Yes,’ said Eugène, ‘Delphine is right behind me.’

‘That’s the spirit!’ said Bianchon; ‘he’s been talking about his daughters and calling out for them as a man being burned at the stake cries out for water, so they say …’

‘That’s enough,’ said the doctor to the surgeon; ‘there’s nothing else we can do, we won’t save him now.’

Bianchon and the surgeon laid the dying man down again on his squalid pallet.

‘The bed linen must be changed,’ said the doctor. ‘Even though there’s no hope, his human dignity must be respected. I’ll come back later, Bianchon,’ he said to the student. ‘If he starts to groan again, rub opium on his diaphragm.’

The surgeon and the doctor left.

‘Now, Eugène, courage, old son!’ said Bianchon to Rastignac when they were alone; ‘we need to put a nightshirt on him and change his bed. Go and tell Sylvie to bring up some sheets and to come and help us.’

Eugène went downstairs and found Madame Vauquer busy laying the table with Sylvie. As soon as Rastignac began to speak, the widow sidled over to him, with the honeyed yet embittered manner of a shrewd saleswoman who wishes neither to lose money, nor to vex her customer.

‘My dear Monsieur Eugène,’ she replied; ‘you know as well as I do that old man Goriot is broke. Giving sheets to a man who’s about to kick the bucket means kissing them goodbye, not least because one of them will be sacrificed for the shroud. As it is, you already owe me a hundred and forty-four francs, so if we add, say, forty francs worth of sheets and a few bits and bobs, the candle Sylvie’s going to give you, then that all comes to at least two hundred francs, and a poor widow like me can’t afford to lose that much money. Believe me! Be fair, Monsieur Eugène; I’ve already lost enough in the last five days, since that jinx moved in here. I’d have given ten écus for the old fellow to be leaving, like you said he was going to. It’s bad for my boarders. I’d pack him off to the almshouse at the drop of a hat. After all, put yourself in my shoes. My boarding house comes first: it’s my livelihood.’

Eugène hurried back upstairs to old man Goriot’s room.

‘Bianchon, where’s the money from the watch?’

‘Over there on the table, there are three hundred and sixty odd francs left. I took out enough to pay off everything we owed. The pawn-ticket’s under the money.’

‘Here, Madame,’ said Rastignac, with loathing, after racing down the stairs again; ‘let’s settle our accounts. Monsieur Goriot won’t be staying here much longer, and I …’

‘Yes, he’ll be leaving feet first, poor old chap,’ she said, counting out her two hundred francs with a half-cheery, half-gloomy air.

‘Now let’s get on,’ said Rastignac.

‘Sylvie, fetch the sheets and go upstairs to help the gentlemen. You won’t forget Sylvie, will you,’ Madame Vauquer said in Eugène’s ear; ‘she’s been up all hours for two nights now.’

As soon as Eugène’s back was turned, the old woman hurried over to the cook and said in her ear: ‘Use the sheets you’ve just turned over in number seven. Lord knows, that’s good enough for a dead man.’

Eugène, who was already halfway up the stairs, didn’t hear what the old landlady had said.

‘Right,’ said Bianchon, ‘let’s put on his nightshirt. Hold him up.’

Eugène stood at the head of the bed and supported the dying man while Bianchon took off his nightshirt. The old man reached a hand towards his chest as if to hold something there and uttered plaintive, inarticulate cries, as an animal does when in terrible pain.

‘Oh! I know!’ said Bianchon, ‘he wants a little hair chain and locket that we took off earlier so we could apply his moxas. Poor man! We’d better put it back on him. It’s on the mantelpiece.’

Eugène went to fetch the plaited chain of ash-blonde hair, presumably belonging to Madame Goriot. On one side of the locket was engraved ‘Anastasie’ and on the other ‘Delphine’: a mirror-image of his heart, which always lay against it. The curls it held were so fine that they must have been cut when the two girls were very small. As he felt the locket touch his chest, the old man let out a long, deep sigh of such contentment, it was unbearable to watch. This was one of the last echoes of his sensibility, which then seemed to retreat to that unknown core from which our sympathies are drawn out or towards which they tend. The expression on his contorted face was that of a man sick with joy. The two students, devastated by the blinding force of feelings so strong they could outlast the faculty of thought, shed hot tears on the dying man, who uttered a cry of anguished delight.

‘Nasie! Fifine!’ he said.

‘He’s still alive,’ said Bianchon.

‘What for?’ asked Sylvie.

‘To suffer,’ replied Rastignac.

Gesturing to his friend to do the same, Bianchon kneeled down and slipped his arms behind old Goriot’s knees, while Rastignac kneeled on the other side of the bed so he could slide his hands under the sick man’s back. Sylvie stood waiting, ready to pull off the sheets as soon as the dying man was lifted up, and to replace them with the ones she’d brought up. Fooled as he was by those tears, Goriot put every scrap of strength he had left into stretching out his hands until he found the students’ heads on either side of the bed and violently grasped their hair. A faint ‘Ah! My angels!’ was heard. Two words, two murmurs given intonation by the soul taking flight as they were uttered.

‘Poor, dear man,’ said Sylvie, her heart softened by this cry, the expression of a loftiness of feeling that the most cruel, the most unintentional of lies had exalted for the last time.

The father’s final sigh was to be one of joy. That sigh was the summation of his entire life: he was deceived to the last. Old man Goriot was respectfully laid back down on his pallet. From this point onwards, his features would bear the painful imprint of the ensuing struggle between death and life, in a system now devoid of the cerebral awareness which determines human feelings of pleasure and pain. It would only be a matter of time before there would be a complete collapse.

‘He’ll stay like this for a few hours and will die without our noticing; we won’t even hear a death-rattle. His brain must be completely congested.’

Just then they heard the footsteps of a young woman, out of breath from the stairs.

‘She’s come too late,’ said Rastignac.

It wasn’t Delphine, but Thérèse, her chambermaid.

‘Monsieur Eugène,’ she said; ‘a terrible scene blew up between Monsieur and Madame, over the money my poor mistress requested for her father. She fainted, the doctor came, she had to be bled, she kept calling out: “My father’s dying, I want to see Papa!” Why, she was weeping and wailing fit to break your heart.’

‘Enough, Thérèse. Even if she came now, there’d be no point. Monsieur Goriot is no longer conscious.’

‘The poor dear old gentleman, so he really is that ill!’ said Thérèse.

‘You don’t need me any more – got to go and get my dinner, it’s half four,’ said Sylvie as she went out, almost colliding with Madame de Restaud at the top of the stairs.

The comtesse appeared, a grave and terrible apparition. She looked at the poorly lit death-bed with its one candle and was moved to tears to see her father’s mask-like features, still twitching with the last tremors of life. Bianchon withdrew discreetly.

‘I didn’t get away in time,’ the comtesse said to Rastignac.

The student gave her a nod full of sadness. Madame de Restaud took hold of her father’s hand and kissed it.

‘Forgive me, Father! You used to say that my voice would summon you from the grave; please then, come back to life for just a moment and bless your repentant daughter. Please hear me. This is terrible! No one on earth but you will ever bless me again. Everyone hates me; you alone love me. Even my own children will despise me. Take me with you; I’ll love you, I’ll look after you. He can’t hear me any more, I must be mad.’ She fell to her knees and stared wild-eyed at her father’s poor exhausted body.

‘My misery is complete,’ she said, looking at Eugène. ‘Monsieur de Trailles has gone, leaving huge debts behind him, and I have found out that he was deceiving me. My husband will never forgive me and now has complete control over my fortune. I’ve lost all my illusions. Alas! Why did I forsake the only heart’ (here she gestured towards her father) ‘that held me in adoration! I ignored him, I pushed him away, I did him a thousand wrongs, despicable creature that I am!’

‘He knew,’ said Rastignac.

Just then old Goriot opened his eyes, but it was only the effect of a convulsion. The comtesse’s desperate lurch of hope was no less dreadful a sight than that of the dying man’s eyes.

‘Could it be that he can hear me?’ cried the comtesse. ‘No,’ she said, sitting down next to the bed.

As Madame de Restaud seemed to want to sit with her father, Eugène went downstairs for something to eat. The boarders were already assembled at the table.

‘Well, well,’ said the painter, ‘so it seems there’s to be a bit of a deathorama upstairs?’

‘Charles,’ said Eugène, ‘perhaps you could find a less morbid topic for your jokes.’

‘What, can’t we have a laugh round here any more?’ retorted the painter. ‘What difference does it make? Bianchon says the old chap isn’t compos mentis.’

‘Meaning’, said the museum clerk, ‘that he’ll die as he has lived.’

‘My father is dead,’ cried the comtesse.

Hearing Madame de Restaud’s terrible wail, Sylvie, Rastignac and Bianchon rushed upstairs and found her in a faint. Once they had brought her round, they helped her into her carriage, which was still waiting. Eugène handed her into Thérèse’s safekeeping, giving orders to drive to Madame de Nucingen’s house.

‘Ah! Yes, he’s dead all right,’ said Bianchon, as he came downstairs.

‘Come along, Gentlemen, hurry up and sit down,’ said Madame Vauquer; ‘the soup’s going cold.’

The two students sat down side by side.

‘What do we do now?’ said Eugène to Bianchon.

‘Well, I’ve closed his eyes and laid him out. Once we’ve had his death recorded and certified by the doctor at the town hall, he’ll be sewn up in a shroud and we’ll bury him. What else is there for him?’

‘He’ll never go sniffing his bread again, like this,’ said one boarder, mimicking the face the old man used to make.

‘For the love of God, Gentlemen,’ said the tutor, ‘just leave old man Goriot be and stop stuffing him down our throats, because you’ve been dishing him up with every possible sauce for the past hour. One of the privileges of the fine city of Paris is that you can be born, live and die here without anyone paying the blindest bit of notice to you. Let us therefore reap the benefits of civilization. There were sixty other deaths today: why don’t you go and weep over the hecatomb of all Paris? If old man Goriot has snuffed it, good for him! If you’re that fond of him, go and take care of him and leave the rest of us to eat our dinner in peace.’

‘Oh! I agree,’ said the widow. ‘Good for him! After all, he had nothing but troubles all his life, the poor man.’

This was the only funeral oration spoken for a man who, in Eugène’s eyes, was Fatherhood incarnate. The fifteen boarders started chatting away as if nothing had happened. The clashing of forks and spoons, the laughter and banter, the expressions that flickered across those greedy and unconcerned faces, their indifference, made Eugène and Bianchon shudder with disgust. As soon as they had eaten, they set off to find a priest to keep vigil and pray by the dead man’s bedside through the night. They had to measure out the last respects to be paid to the old man against the paltry sum they could spare to pay for them. At around nine in the evening, the body was placed on the slats of the bedstead, between two candles, in that bare room, and a priest came to sit with it. Rastignac had asked the cleric the price of the service and the pallbearers, and, before going to bed, wrote to the Baron de Nucingen and the Comte de Restaud, requesting them to send sufficient funds through their representatives to meet the costs of the burial. He dispatched Christophe with the notes, then went to bed and fell fast asleep, utterly exhausted.

Next morning, it fell to Bianchon and Rastignac to go and register the death, which was certified around midday. Two hours later, neither of the two sons-in-law had sent any money, nobody had turned up to represent them and Rastignac had already been obliged to pay the priest. As Sylvie had requested ten francs for laying the old man out and sewing him into a shroud, Eugène and Bianchon worked out that if the dead man’s relatives refused to contribute anything at all, they would be pushed to cover the costs. The medical student therefore decided to lay out the corpse himself and had a pauper’s coffin brought from the hospital, which he’d been able to buy at a discount.

‘Let’s play a prank on those rascally relatives of his,’ he said to Eugène. ‘Go and buy a plot of earth in Père Lachaise, for five years, and order a third-class funeral²²⁰ at the church and at the undertaker’s. If the sons-in-law and the daughters refuse to pay you back, then have the stone engraved with: “Here lies Monsieur Goriot, father of the Comtesse de Restaud and of the Baronne de Nucingen, whose burial was paid for by two students.” ’

Eugène held off following his friend’s advice until he had called on Monsieur and Madame de Nucingen, and Monsieur and Madame de Restaud, without success. He made it no further than the doorstep. The valets had received strict orders.

‘Monsieur and Madame’, they said, ‘will see no one; their father has died and they are in the deepest mourning.’

Eugène now had enough experience of Parisian society to know not to insist. He felt a strange pang of emotion when he found himself cut off from Delphine.

‘Sell some of your jewellery,’ he wrote to her in the porter’s lodge, ‘so that your father may be decently consigned to his last resting-place.’

He sealed the note and persuaded the baron’s porter to give it to Thérèse for her mistress; but the porter handed it over to the Baron de Nucingen, who threw it straight in the fire. Once he had made his final preparations, Eugène returned to the boarding house at around three and wept to see the coffin left stranded outside the openwork gate, draped in a black cloth that barely covered it, propped on two chairs in the empty road. A cheap holy-water sprinkler,²²¹ as yet untouched, lay submerged in a silver-plated brass bowl of holy water. The door hadn’t even been draped in black. This was a pauper’s death, with no ceremony, no followers, no friends and no relatives. Bianchon, who was needed at the hospital, had left a note for Rastignac, letting him know what he’d decided about the church. The house doctor informed him that a Mass was too expensive, that they’d have to make do with the cheaper service at Vespers and that he’d sent Christophe with a note for the undertaker. As Eugène finished reading Bianchon’s hastily scribbled message, he caught sight of Madame Vauquer fingering the circular gold locket which held the two daughters’ locks of hair.

‘How could you dare to take that!’ he said to her.

‘Gracious! Did you want it to be buried with him?’ replied Sylvie. ‘It’s made of gold.’

‘Of course!’ Eugène said indignantly; ‘let him at least take with him the one thing that may stand in for his daughters.’

When the hearse came, Eugène had the coffin lifted up, then prised it open and reverently put back on the old man’s chest the locket that held the likeness of a time when Delphine and Anastasie were young, untainted and pure, and ‘never questioned anything’, in the anguished words that he had cried out as he was dying. Rastignac and Christophe, with two undertakers, were the only followers of the hearse that took the poor man to Saint-Etienne-du-Mont, a church near the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève. When they arrived, the body was displayed in a small, dark, low-ceilinged chapel, around which the student looked in vain for old man Goriot’s daughters or their husbands. Apart from him, the only person there was Christophe, who felt obliged to pay his last respects to a man who had sent a few good tips his way. As they waited for the two priests, the altar-boy and the verger, Rastignac squeezed Christophe’s hand, unable to speak.

‘Yes, Monsieur Eugène,’ said Christophe, ‘he was a decent and an honest man, who never raised his voice, never harmed a soul and never did any wrong.’

The two priests, the altar-boy and the verger arrived and did everything that can be done for seventy francs in an age when the Church isn’t rich enough to pray free of charge. The clergymen chanted a psalm, the Libera, the De profundis.²²² The service lasted twenty minutes. There was one funeral carriage, for one of the priests and the altar-boy, who consented to take Eugène and Christophe with them.

‘There’s no one following,’ said the priest; ‘we can go fast so we won’t finish late, it’s half past five.’ However, just as the body was placed in the hearse, two emblazoned but empty carriages, belonging to the Comte de Restaud and the Baron de Nucingen, turned up and followed the convoy to Père Lachaise.²²³

At six o’clock, old man Goriot’s body was lowered into his grave, watched by his daughters’ servants. As soon as the clergyman had said the short prayer for the dead man that the students’ money had purchased, they disappeared, and so did he. The two grave-diggers threw a few shovelfuls of earth onto the lid of the coffin, then straightened up and turned to Rastignac to ask for their tip. Eugène delved into his pockets, but, finding them empty, was forced to borrow twenty sous from Christophe. This detail, so slight in itself, filled Rastignac with unbearable sadness. Night was falling, the damp, drizzling dusk sapped his mind, he looked at the grave and buried in it his last young man’s tear, a tear that springs from the sacred emotion of a pure heart, the kind that splashes up from the ground where it falls and rises into heaven. He folded his arms and stared at the clouds. Seeing him thus preoccupied, Christophe left him.

Alone now, Rastignac walked up towards the cemetery’s highest point and saw Paris below him, winding along the banks of the Seine, its lights beginning to sparkle. His eyes came to rest almost greedily on the area between the column on the Place Vendôme and the dome of the Invalides, the home of the beau monde, which he had been so determined to enter. He gave the droning hive a look that seemed to drain it of its honey in advance and pronounced these grand words: ‘Now let us fight it out!’

And by way of firing an opening shot at Society, Rastignac went to have dinner with Madame de Nucingen.

Saché,²²⁴ September 1834