Old Man Goriot Page 7

  This was how things stood in the boarding house at the end of November 1819. A few days later, Eugène attended Madame de Beauséant’s ball, returning at around two in the morning. As he danced, the indefatigable student had promised himself that he would study until morning, to make up for lost time. He was about to stay awake all night for the first time in this silent neighbourhood: entranced by his glimpse of the splendours of society, he was full of a deceptive energy. He hadn’t dined at Madame Vauquer’s and so the lodgers were unlikely to expect him back from the ball until the next morning at first light, as he had sometimes been known to return from those at the Prado or the Odéon,46 his silk stockings splashed with mud and his pumps trodden out of shape. Before shooting the bolts across the door, Christophe had opened it to look out into the road. Rastignac turned up at the same time and was able to slip up to his rooms without making a sound, followed by Christophe, who made plenty. Eugène undressed, put on slippers and a worn old coat, lit his tan-turf47 fire and made ready to start work so swiftly that Christophe, still clattering around in his clumpy books, drowned out the young man’s quiet preparations. Eugène remained pensive for a few moments before immersing himself in his law books. He had just discovered that Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauséant was one of the most fashionable women in Paris and that her house was deemed to be the finest in the Faubourg Saint-Germain.48 Furthermore, her name and fortune made her one of the leading lights of the aristocratic set. Thanks to his aunt, Madame de Marcillac, the penniless student had been warmly received in her house, without realizing the extent of the favour. Being admitted to those glittering salons was tantamount to a certificate of the highest nobility. By appearing in such company, the most exclusive of all, he had gained the right to go anywhere. Dazzled by the brilliance of the assembled company, after exchanging only a few words with the vicomtesse, Eugène had contented himself with singling out from the crush of Parisian deities thronged together at this rout,49 one of those women whom a young man will inevitably worship at first sight. Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud, tall and well formed, was thought to have one of the prettiest waists in Paris. Picture to yourself deep dark eyes, flawless hands, shapely ankles, movements full of fire, indeed, a woman the Marquis de Ronquerolles had termed a thoroughbred. Her energy and spirit in no way detracted from her charm; although she had full, rounded contours, no one would have accused her of excessive embonpoint. Pure-blooded horse, thoroughbred woman: expressions such as these were beginning to replace the heavenly angels, the Ossianic figures, the old mythology of love brushed aside by the dandies. But for Rastignac, Madame Anastasie de Restaud was everything he imagined a desirable woman to be. He had contrived to put his name down for two dances on the list of partners written on her fan and managed a few words with her during the first quadrille.50 ‘Where might a man see you again, Madame?’ he asked bluntly, with that passionate candour women find so attractive. ‘Why,’ she replied, ‘in the Bois, at the Bouffons,51 at home, everywhere.’ And the intrepid Southerner did everything he could to become intimate with the charming comtesse, in so much as a young man can become intimate with a woman in the space of a quadrille and a waltz. When he mentioned that he was related to Madame de Beauséant, this woman, whom he took for a great lady, invited him to call, and he thereby gained his introduction to her house. The last smile she tossed his way gave Rastignac reason to believe that his call was indispensable. He had been fortunate enough to make the acquaintance of a man who didn’t laugh at his ignorance, an unforgivable failing in the eyes of the haughty, well-born rakes of the time, men of the ilk of Maulincour, Ronquerolles, Maxime de Trailles, de Marsay, Ajuda-Pinto, Vandenesse, who were there in all their conceited glory, mingling with the most fashionable women, Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarouët, Madame de Sérisy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, Comtesse Ferraud, Madame de Lanty, the Marquise d’Aiglemont, Madame Firmiani, the Marquise de Listomère and the Marquise d’Espard, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and the Grandlieus. Luckily for him then, the naive student happened upon the Marquis de Montriveau, the lover of the Duchesse de Langeais,52 a man as uncomplicated as a child, from whom he learned that the Comtesse de Restaud lived in the Rue du Helder. What it is to be young, to have a thirst for the world, to be hungry for a woman and to see two grand houses open up to you! To have a foot in the door of the Vicomtesse de Beauséant’s house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain and a knee in that of the Comtesse de Restaud in the Chaussée d’Antin!53 To see one Paris salon lead to another like so many interconnecting rooms and think yourself handsome enough to find in a woman’s heart the help and protection you need there! To feel ambitious enough to kick out imperiously on the tight-rope along which you must walk with the confidence of a sure-footed acrobat who never falls, and to have found an attractive woman to be the best possible balancing pole! With these thoughts in his head and the vision of a magnificent woman rising out of the tan-turf fire before him, suspended between the Code54 and poverty, who wouldn’t have mused on what the future held, as Eugène did, who wouldn’t have filled it with success? His roving imagination began cashing in future joys thick and fast, so that he was already picturing himself at Madame de Restaud’s side, when a sighing groan worthy of a Saint Joseph55 disturbed the stillness of the night and resonated with such feeling in the young man’s heart that he took it for the last gasp of a dying man. He quietly opened his door and as he stepped out into the corridor saw a trickle of light spilling out beneath old man Goriot’s door. Fearing that his neighbour might be unwell, Eugène put his eye to the keyhole, looked into the room and saw the old man engaged in an activity which seemed so obviously criminal that he felt obliged to do society a service by taking a careful look at what the so-called vermicelli dealer was getting up to by night. Old Goriot, who appeared to have tied a silver-gilt platter and what looked like a tureen to the cross-bar of the upturned table, was winding a kind of rope around the intricately embossed pieces, winching it in so tightly and powerfully as to shape them, most likely, into ingots. ‘Gracious! What a man!’ Rastignac said to himself, watching the old man’s sinewy arms, as, with the help of the rope, they noiselessly kneaded the silver-gilt like dough. ‘Does this mean he’s a thief, or a fence, who pretends to be foolish and helpless and lives like a pauper, as a cover for his operations?’ Eugène asked himself, straightening up for a moment, before returning to his post at the keyhole. Old man Goriot unfastened the rope, spread his blanket on the table, put the lump of silver on it and rolled it into the shape of a bar, completing the task with incredible ease. ‘He must be as strong as King Augustus of Poland,’56 Eugène said to himself, as the round bar took shape. Old Goriot contemplated his handiwork sadly, tears trickled from his eyes, then he blew out the wax taper by the light of which he had shaped the silver, and Eugène heard him lie down on his bed and heave a deep sigh.

  ‘He’s mad,’ thought the student.

  ‘Poor child!’ said old Goriot, aloud. On hearing these words, Rastignac decided he would be wise to keep quiet about this incident and not condemn his neighbour too hastily. He was about to return to his room when he suddenly heard an indescribable sound, like the muffled tread of men in list slippers57 coming up the stairs. Eugène listened carefully and managed to pick out the rasp of two men breathing in turn. Although he had heard neither the creak of the door nor the men’s footsteps, he suddenly saw a faint light on the second floor, coming from Monsieur Vautrin’s room. ‘So many mysteries in one boarding house!’ he said to himself. He went down a few stairs, listened, and the clink of gold reached his ears. Before long the light went out and he heard the breathing again, without the door having creaked. The sound faded away gradually as the two men went downstairs.

  ‘Who’s there?’ shouted Madame Vauquer, opening her bedroom window.

  ‘Just me coming in, Ma Vauquer,’ replied Vautrin, in his booming voice.

  ‘That’s odd! Christophe had bolted the door,’ said Eugène to himself as he went back to his room
. ‘In Paris you have to stay up all night if you want to know what’s really going on around you.’ His ambitiously amorous train of thought having been diverted by these little events, he now set to work. Distracted by his misgivings about old man Goriot, distracted still more by visions of Madame de Restaud, who kept appearing before him like an augury of future greatness, he ended up lying down on his bed and falling fast asleep. A young man will sleep soundly through seven out of ten of the nights he means to spend working. A man must be over twenty to stay awake all night.

  The next morning, Paris was smothered by one of those thick fogs which envelop and befuddle it so completely that even the most punctual people get the time wrong. Business appointments are missed. Everyone thinks it’s eight o’clock when the clock strikes twelve. At half past nine, Madame Vauquer still hadn’t stirred from her bed. Christophe and big Sylvie, who had also risen late, were calmly drinking their coffee, made with the cream off the top of the milk meant for the lodgers, which Sylvie then boiled for a long time, to ensure that this illegally levied tithe did not come to Madame Vauquer’s notice.

  ‘Sylvie,’ said Christophe, dipping his first piece of toast in his coffee; ‘Monsieur Vautrin, who’s a decent sort, all things considered, had two more chaps round again last night. Best say nothing to Madame, if she starts her inquisition.’

  ‘Did he give you anything?’

  ‘He gave me a hundred sous just for this month, his way of saying: “keep your mouth shut”.’

  ‘There’s only him and Madame Couture who put their hands in their pockets; the others take away with the left hand what they give us with the right at New Year.’

  ‘It’s not like they give us much, either!’ said Christophe. ‘One measly coin, I ask you! A hundred sous, if you’re lucky. Old man Goriot’s been cleaning his own boots for two years now. That cheapskate Poiret does without polish; he’d drink it before he put any on his filthy old shoes. As for that runt of a student, he gives me forty sous. Forty sous don’t even pay for my brushes, and to cap it all, he sells his old clothes. What a dump!’

  ‘Well!’ said Sylvie, sipping at her coffee, ‘I still say we’ve got the best positions of any round here: we’re doing all right for ourselves. But Christophe, speaking of old uncle Vautrin, has anyone been asking you about him?’

  ‘Yes, they have. I met a gent in the street a few days ago who said: “Haven’t you got a large chap who dyes his side-whiskers staying at your place?” So I said, “No, sir, he don’t dye ’em. A gay dog like him don’t have the time.” So I told Monsieur Vautrin, and he said: “You did the right thing, my boy! Always give them a smart answer. There’s nothing worse than having other people know your weaknesses. That sort of thing can ruin your marriage prospects.” ’

  ‘One of ’em tried to catch me out too, at market, asking whether I’d ever seen him putting his shirt on. The cheek of it! Listen!’ she said, breaking off, ‘there’s the Val-de-Grâce striking a quarter to ten and not a soul stirring.’

  ‘Why, they’ve all gone out! Madame Couture and the young lady went off at eight to partake of the Almighty at Saint-Etienne.58 Old man Goriot went out with a parcel. The student won’t be back until after his lecture, at ten. I saw them leave when I was doing my stairs; old man Goriot bashed me with his bundle, hard as iron, it was. What’s his game I wonder, the old gaffer? The others are always on his back, but if you ask me, he’s a harmless old soul and worth more than the rest of them put together. He don’t give me much himself; but the ladies he sends me to sometimes stretch to a handsome tip; nicely turned out they are too.’

  ‘The ones he calls his daughters, eh? There’s a dozen of them.’

  ‘I’ve only ever seen two ladies, the same two as have been here.’

  ‘I can hear Madame stirring; she’ll be kicking up a rumpus soon: better go up. Keep an eye on the milk, Christophe, on account of the cat.’

  Sylvie went upstairs to her mistress’s room.

  ‘Gracious, Sylvie, it’s a quarter to ten; you’ve let me sleep in like a sluggard! I’ve never known such a thing.’

  ‘It’s the fog; you can cut it with a knife.’

  ‘What about déjeuner?’

  ‘If you ask me, the devil’s got into your lodgers; they all cleared out at cock-croak.’

  ‘Speak proper please, Sylvie,’ said Madame Vauquer reprovingly; ‘one should say at the cock o’ dawn.’

  ‘Ah! Madame, anything you say. Either way, you can have your déjeuner at ten. No sign of Michonnette and Poireau59 yet. There’s only the two of ’em left in the house and they’re sleeping like logs.’

  ‘But Sylvie, you’re pairing them together, as if …’

  ‘As if what?’ repeated Sylvie, with a foolish snort of laughter. ‘They are a right pair, after all.’

  ‘It’s very strange, Sylvie: how did Monsieur Vautrin get in last night after Christophe had bolted the door?’

  ‘Not at all, Madame. Christophe heard Monsieur Vautrin and went down to open the door for him. And there you were thinking …’

  ‘Pass me my shift, hurry, and see to déjeuner. Fix up that leftover mutton with some potatoes and give them some stewed pears, the ones that cost two liards60 each.’

  Madame Vauquer came downstairs a few moments later, just as her cat, with a paw, had flipped off the plate covering the bowl of milk and was lapping it up as fast as it could.

  ‘Mistigris!’ she shouted. The cat sprang away, then came back and rubbed up against her legs. ‘Don’t try and butter me up, you old coward!’ she scolded. ‘Sylvie! Sylvie!’

  ‘Yes, Madame. What is it?’

  ‘Look what the cat’s been drinking.’

  ‘It’s that dimwit Christophe’s fault. Where’s he got to? I told him to lay the table. Don’t worry, Madame, it’ll do for old man Goriot’s coffee. I’ll put some water in it, he won’t notice a thing. He’s oblivious to everything, even what he eats.’

  ‘So where’s he gone, the old nincompoop?’ said Madame Vauquer, laying out the plates.

  ‘Who knows? He’s up to all sorts.’

  ‘I’ve had too much sleep.’

  ‘Why, Madame is as fresh as a daisy …’

  At that point the doorbell was heard, and Vautrin came into the drawing room singing in his booming voice:

  ‘I’ve been a-roving all over the world

  And I’ve been seen in every land …

  ‘Ho-ho! Good day, Ma Vauquer,’ he said, catching sight of the landlady and gallantly taking her in his arms.

  ‘Now, now, that’ll do.’

  ‘Call me a saucebox!’ he replied. ‘Go on, say it. Pretty please? Very well, I’ll help you lay the table. Now! Isn’t that kind of me?

  Courting the brunette and the blonde,

  Loving, sighing …

  I’ve just seen a peculiar thing.

  … for either one.’

  ‘What’s that?’ said the widow.

  ‘At half past eight old man Goriot was at the goldsmith’s, the one in the Rue Dauphine that buys old plate and gold braid. He got a tidy sum of money for a silver-gilt piece he sold them, nicely twisted it was, for an amateur.’

  ‘Well I never!’

  ‘Yes, I was on my way back after escorting a friend of mine, who’s leaving the country, to the packet-boat;61 I waited for old man Goriot to see where he’d go next, for a lark. He headed back this way, to the Rue des Grès,62 where he went into the house of a notorious usurer, name of Gobseck, an out-and-out villain, who’d make dominoes out of his own father’s bones; a Jew, an Arab, a Greek, a Bohemian,63 a man you’d be hard put to burgle; he keeps his stash in the Bank.’

  ‘What’s he done then, this Goriot of ours?’

  ‘It’s not so much what he’s done, as undone,’ said Vautrin. ‘He’s a rattle-brain soft enough to bankrupt himself for the kind of girls who …’

  ‘Here he comes now!’ said Sylvie.

  ‘Christophe,’ cried old man Goriot, ‘come upstairs with me!’

 
; Christophe followed old Goriot and came back down shortly afterwards.

  ‘Where are you off to?’ said Madame Vauquer to her servant.

  ‘To run an errand for Monsieur Goriot.’

  ‘What do we have here?’ said Vautrin, snatching a letter out of Christophe’s hands and reading aloud: