Old Man Goriot
‘It was’, said Bianchon, ‘a freakish, feverish fog, a cheerless, melancholic, glaucous, broken-winded fog, a Goriot fog.’
‘A Goriorama’, said the painter, ‘because you couldn’t see what was staring you in the face.’
‘Ay seh, Milord Gorriotte, one is tawking abowt yew.’
Sitting at the lower end of the table, near the service door, old man Goriot lifted his head, sniffing a piece of bread he had tucked under his napkin, an old business tic of his which resurfaced now and then.
‘What’s the matter?’ Madame Vauquer bawled at him sourly, her voice cutting through the din of clattering spoons, plates and voices; ‘is the bread not good enough for you?’
‘On the contrary, Madame,’ he replied, ‘it’s made with the finest quality Etampes flour.’
‘How can you tell?’ asked Eugène.
‘By its whiteness, its taste.’
‘Your nose can taste, then, seeing as all you ever do is sniff the bread?’ said Madame Vauquer. ‘You’re getting to be so thrifty that one of these days you’ll end up inventing a way to feed yourself simply by breathing in cooking smells.’
‘Take out a patent,’ cried the museum clerk; ‘you’ll make a fortune.’
‘Ignore him, he’s just trying to convince us he used to be a vermicelli dealer,’ said the painter.
‘So that would make your nose a cornute?’77 asked the clerk, continuing regardless.
‘Cor what?’ said Bianchon.
‘Cor-net.’
‘Cor-nemuse.’
‘Cor-nelian.’
‘Cor-nice.’
‘Cor-nichon.’
‘Cor-bie.’
‘Cor-bel.’
‘Cor-norama.’
These eight retorts shot from each side of the room with the rapidity of a firing squad and caused such uproarious laughter that poor old Goriot looked at his companions with a bemused expression, like a man trying to understand a foreign language.
‘Cor … ?’ he asked Vautrin, who was next to him.
‘Corns, old chap!’ said Vautrin, banging on the crown of Goriot’s hat and ramming it down over his eyes.
The poor old man, stunned by this swift attack, was paralysed for a moment. Meanwhile, Christophe came and cleared away the old fellow’s dish, thinking he’d finished, so that when Goriot pushed his hat back up and went to pick up his spoon, he knocked his hand against the table. All the boarders roared with laughter.
‘Monsieur,’ said the old man, ‘you are a cad, and should you attempt any further rammings of the kind …’
‘What then, Pa?’ said Vautrin, interrupting him.
‘Well! You’ll pay dearly for it one day …’
‘In hell, is it?’ said the painter; ‘in the nasty dark corner where they put the naughty children?’
‘Why, Mademoiselle,’ said Vautrin to Victorine, ‘you’re not eating. Papa turned out to be intractable?’
‘Abominable,’ said Madame Couture.
‘He needs to be brought to his senses,’ said Vautrin.
‘Although,’ said Rastignac, who was sitting next to Bianchon, ‘seeing as she’s not eating, Mademoiselle could always start alimentary proceedings against the food. Hey! Look at how old man Goriot is staring at Mademoiselle Victorine.’
The old man left off eating, intent on studying the poor girl, whose face bore the stamp of genuine pain, the pain of a wronged daughter who loves her father.
‘Dear chap,’ said Eugène in a low voice, ‘we’ve been mistaken about old man Goriot. He’s neither a fool nor a zombie. Apply your Gall system to him and tell me what you think. Last night I saw him twist a silver-gilt dish as if it were wax, and as he did, the expression on his face betrayed extraordinary emotion. His life seems too mysterious not to reward further study. Yes, Bianchon, laugh as much as you like; I’m not joking.’
‘The man is a medical phenomenon,’ said Bianchon. ‘Very well; if he wants, I’ll dissect him.’
‘No, examine his skull.’
‘Ah well! His stupidity appears to be contagious.’
II
TWO CALLS ARE PAID
The next day, Eugène dressed in his most elegant clothes and set off at around three in the afternoon to call on Madame de Restaud. On the way, he indulged himself in the recklessly madcap expectations which bring so much zest and emotion to the lives of young men: they anticipate neither obstacles nor dangers; all they can see is success, poeticizing their existence entirely in their imagination and feeling glum or discouraged at the failure of plans which had only ever existed in their wildest fancies; if they didn’t also happen to be shy and ignorant, the social world would be insufferable. As he walked, Eugène took a thousand precautions to avoid being spattered with mud, but at the same time he planned what he would say to Madame de Restaud, he stored up witty remarks, he invented clever answers in an imaginary conversation, he prepared his subtle ripostes, his Talleyrand-esque sayings,78 weaving in small opportunities conducive to the declaration on which he was staking his future. He ended up splashed with mud and had to have his boots polished and trousers brushed at the Palais-Royal. ‘If I were rich,’ he said to himself, pocketing the change from a thirty-sous piece which he had brought with him in case of an emergency, ‘I would have gone by carriage and could have pursued my thoughts at leisure.’ He finally arrived at the Rue du Helder and asked for the Comtesse de Restaud. With the icy fury of a man confident that one day he will triumph, he found himself on the receiving end of the servants’ disdainful stares: they had seen him cross the courtyard on foot, without having heard the sound of a carriage at the gate. He felt these stares all the more keenly, as his inferiority had been brought home to him as soon as he entered the courtyard, where a magnificent horse stood champing at the bit, finely harnessed to one of those dashing cabriolets that announce a lavish and dissipated lifestyle and imply a familiarity with all the costly delights Paris has to offer. He proceeded, all on his own, to put himself into a bad mood. The open drawers of his brain, which he had banked on finding full of wit, slid shut, his aplomb deserted him. While he waited for a reply from the comtesse, as a valet went to announce the visitor’s name, Eugène stood on one leg in front of a window in the antechamber, resting his elbow on the catch and looked blankly out at the courtyard. He found that the time passed slowly and would have left if he hadn’t been blessed with that Southern tenacity which works wonders when it keeps a straight course.
‘Monsieur,’ said the valet, ‘Madame is in her boudoir and otherwise engaged; she didn’t give me an answer, but if Monsieur would care to come into the drawing room, another gentleman is already waiting there.’
As he marvelled at the awesome power of those who, with a single word, indict or try their masters, Rastignac resolutely opened the door the valet had come out of, intending to show these insolent servants that he already knew his way around, but instead stumbled clumsily into a room filled with lamps, sideboards and a contraption for heating bath towels, whose only issue was a dark corridor and a back staircase. The stifled laughter he heard in the antechamber brought his embarrassment to a peak.
‘The drawing room is this way, Monsieur,’ the valet said to him, with that false respect which comes across as yet another kind of mockery.
Eugène retraced his steps with such haste that he collided with a bathtub and only just managed to stop his hat falling into the bath. Just then, a door opened at the end of the long corridor lit by a small lamp, and all at once Rastignac heard the voice of Madame de Restaud, that of old man Goriot, and then the sound of a kiss. He went back into the dining room and crossed it, following the valet, and came to a reception room, where he paused in front of the window, noticing that it looked out over the courtyard. He wanted to find out whether this Goriot was, in reality, his old man Goriot. His heart beat strangely as he remembered Vautrin’s damning remarks. The valet was waiting for Eugène at the door of the drawing room, when an elegant young dandy suddenly came out and said impat
iently: ‘I’m going, Maurice. Tell Madame la Comtesse that I waited for over half an hour.’ This impertinent, who doubtless had reason not to stand on ceremony, hummed some Italian roulade or other as he strode towards the window where Eugène had positioned himself, as much to see the student’s face as to look into the courtyard.
‘Monsieur le Comte may prefer to wait a moment longer, as Madame has finished,’ said Maurice, going back into the antechamber.
At this point, old man Goriot emerged from the exit at the foot of the back staircase, near the carriage entrance. The old fellow held out his umbrella and began to unfurl it, without realizing that the main gate had just opened to let in a young man wearing military decoration, driving a tilbury. Old Goriot barely had time to jump backwards to avoid being crushed. The taffeta of the umbrella frightened the horse, so it shied slightly as it sped towards the front steps. The young man turned his head angrily, saw Goriot and, without stepping down, gave him a nod conveying the affected courtesy you might show a usurer whose services you require, or, if it cannot be avoided, a man of blemished reputation, knowing you will blush for it later. Old man Goriot responded with a friendly little nod, full of affability. These events took place as quick as a flash. Too engrossed to realize that he was not alone, Eugène suddenly heard the comtesse’s voice.
‘Ah! Maxime, you were just leaving,’ she said in a reproachful tone, mingled with a touch of pique.
The comtesse hadn’t seen the tilbury arrive. Rastignac spun round and saw her, alluringly dressed in a white cashmere dressing-gown with pink ribbons, her hair loosely swept up in the style favoured by Parisian women in the morning; her scent filled the air, she must have taken a bath, and this had, as it were, softened her beauty, making her seem even more voluptuous; her eyes were moist. A young man’s eye drinks everything in: just as a plant absorbs vital substances from the air, so his spirit fuses with a woman’s radiance. Eugène therefore sensed the fresh bloom of the comtesse’s hands without needing to touch them. Through the cashmere, he saw the rose-coloured shades of her bosom which her dressing-gown, falling open here and there, left partially exposed, and on which his eyes lingered. The comtesse had no need for whalebone stays: a simple belt showed off her supple waist, her neck invited caresses, her feet looked pretty in their slippers. Maxime took her hand and kissed it, at which point Eugène noticed Maxime, and the comtesse noticed Eugène.
‘Why! It’s you, Monsieur de Rastignac, how delightful to see you,’ she said, in a tone of voice to which a man with his wits about him knows the correct response.
Maxime looked from Eugène to the comtesse in a pointed manner intended to send the intruder packing. ‘Really, dear girl, I hope you’ll show this young whipper-snapper the door!’ These words hung in the air, a clear and intelligible translation of the expression on the face of this haughtily proud young man, whom Comtesse Anastasie had called Maxime, looking searchingly at him with that melting concern which betrays a woman’s secrets without her realizing. Rastignac felt a violent hatred for the young man. Firstly, Maxime’s beautifully curled blond hair showed him how awful his own looked. And then, Maxime had spotless kid boots, while his, despite the care he had taken as he walked, were stained with a light coat of mud. Finally, Maxime was wearing an elegant frock-coat, fitted tightly at the waist, so he looked as pretty as a woman, while at half past two Eugène was wearing a black evening coat. The quick-witted child of the Charente79 sensed the advantage that tailoring gave this tall, lean dandy, with his clear eyes and pale skin, a man capable of ruining any number of orphans. Without waiting for Eugène to reply, Madame de Restaud fluttered away into the other drawing room, the loose skirts of her dressing-gown furling and unfurling, so she looked like a butterfly; and Maxime followed her. Furious, Eugène followed Maxime and the comtesse. The three of them came face to face in the middle of the main drawing room, level with the fireplace. The student was well aware that he was going to annoy the odious Maxime; but he was determined to cramp the dandy’s style, even if it meant incurring Madame de Restaud’s displeasure. Suddenly, remembering that he had seen the young man at Madame de Beauséant’s ball, he guessed the nature of Maxime’s relationship with Madame de Restaud; and with the youthful audacity that leads a man to commit huge blunders or succeed with flying colours, he said to himself: ‘He is my rival, I must triumph over him.’ The fool! Little did he know that Comte Maxime de Trailles would solicit a challenge, then shoot first and kill his man. Eugène was a decent shot but hadn’t yet managed to hit twenty out of twenty-two dummies at a shooting gallery. The young comte threw himself into a bergère80 next to the fire, took up the tongs and poked the coals in such a violent, sullen way that Anastasie’s beautiful face suddenly clouded over. The young woman turned towards Eugène and gave him one of those coldly enquiring looks which so clearly say: ‘Why don’t you leave?’ that those of good breeding immediately take their cue and make what we might call their exit speech.
Eugène assumed a pleasant manner and said: ‘Madame, I was keen to see you to …’ He stopped short. A door opened. The man who had driven the tilbury suddenly appeared, without a hat. He didn’t greet the comtesse, but looked askance at Eugène and held out his hand to Maxime, amicably wishing him ‘Good day’, which Eugène found most surprising. Young men from the provinces have no idea how sweet life can be as a threesome.
‘Monsieur de Restaud,’ said the comtesse to the student, gesturing towards her husband.
Eugène made a low bow.
‘This gentleman’, she went on, introducing Eugène to the Comte de Restaud, ‘is Monsieur de Rastignac, related to Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauséant through the Marcillacs, and whom I had the pleasure to meet at her last ball.’
Related to Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauséant through the Marcillacs! These words, which the comtesse pronounced with a slight emphasis, attributable to the pride a hostess feels in proving that she only receives men of distinction, had a magic effect: the comte put off his coldly formal manner and bowed.
‘Delighted, Monsieur,’ he said, ‘to make your acquaintance.’
As for Comte Maxime de Trailles, he looked at Eugène uneasily and his haughty manner immediately left him. This wave of the magic wand, for which he had to thank the powerful intercession of a name, opened thirty drawers81 in the Southerner’s brain, and restored the wit he had planned to have at the ready. A sudden ray of light burst through the murky atmosphere of Parisian high society and he began to see his way more clearly. At this point, the Maison Vauquer and old man Goriot were far from his thoughts.
‘I thought the Marcillacs had died out?’ the Comte de Restaud said to Eugène.
‘Indeed, Monsieur,’ he replied. ‘My great-uncle, the Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress of the Marcillac family. He had an only daughter, who married the Maréchal de Clarimbault, Madame de Beauséant’s maternal grandfather. We are the younger branch and became even poorer when my great-uncle, a vice-admiral, lost everything he had in the service of the King. The revolutionary government refused to acknowledge us as creditors when it liquidated the Compagnie des Indes.’82
‘Didn’t your esteemed great-uncle command the Vengeur until 1789?’
‘That is correct.’
‘Well then, he’ll have known my grandfather, who had command of the Warwick.’83
Maxime shrugged his shoulders slightly and looked at Madame de Restaud, as if to say, ‘If he gets started on navy talk with that man, we may as well call it a day.’ Anastasie understood Monsieur de Trailles’ look. With that admirable presence of mind with which women are blessed, she smiled, saying: ‘Come with me, Maxime; I have something to ask you. Gentlemen, we will leave you to sail in convoy on the Warwick and the Vengeur.’ She stood up and gestured to Maxime in a mockingly complicit way, and they headed off in the direction of the boudoir. This morganatic84 couple, a neat German expression with no French equivalent, had barely reached the door, when the comte broke off his conversation with Eugène.
‘Anastasie! I wish you would stay, my dear,’ he exclaimed irritably; ‘you know very well that …’
‘I’ll be back, I’ll be back,’ she said, interrupting him; ‘it will only take me a second to tell Maxime what I want him to do for me.’
She returned quickly. Like any woman whose freedom to behave as she pleases is contingent on how well she can gauge her husband’s moods, who knows how far she can go without losing his precious trust and who will therefore never thwart him over a triviality, the comtesse had understood from the comte’s tone of voice that it would not be safe to remain in the boudoir. This contretemps was Eugène’s fault, as the comtesse, her glances and gestures full of vexation, made clear to Maxime, who, in a pointedly brusque way, said to the comte, his wife and Eugène: ‘Listen, you’re busy, I’d rather not disturb you; goodbye.’ He left.
‘Stay, Maxime!’ cried the comte.
‘Come to dinner,’ said the comtesse, leaving Eugène and the comte alone again and following Maxime into the reception room, where they stayed together long enough to give Monsieur de Restaud time to get rid of Eugène.
Rastignac heard them burst out laughing, talk and fall silent in turn; but the wily student was doing his utmost to keep Monsieur de Restaud entertained, flattering him or starting long-winded discussions, so that he would see the comtesse again and discover the nature of her relationship with old man Goriot. This woman, clearly in love with Maxime, this woman, who ruled over her husband, secretly connected to the old vermicelli dealer, was a complete mystery to him. He wanted to get to the bottom of the mystery, hoping in this way to reign supreme over such an eminently Parisian woman.
‘Anastasie,’ said the comte, calling his wife once more.
‘Well, my poor Maxime,’ she said to the young man, ‘we must resign ourselves. Until this evening …’
‘I hope, Nasie,’ he murmured in her ear, ‘that you’ll dispatch this foolish young man, whose eyes glowed like hot coals each time your gown slipped open. He would make love to you, compromise you, and I’d be obliged to kill him.’