Chapter VIII: Part 8

On Eugénie's twenty-third birthday, November, 1819, the three Cruchots--the notary, the abbé, and the magistrate--and the three Des Grassins--M. des Grassins, Mme. des Grassins, and their son Adolphe-- hastened to pay their respects to the heiress as soon as dinner was over. Mr. Grandet, in honour of the occasion, lit a second candle in the sitting-room. "It is Eugénie's birthday, and we must have an illumination," he remarked. The Cruchots all brought handsome bouquets of flowers for Eugénie, but their gifts were eclipsed by a showy workbox fitted with trumpery gilded silver fittings, which Mme. des Grassins presented, and which filled Eugénie with delight. "Adolphe brought it from Paris," whispered Mme. des Grassins in the girl's ear. Old Grandet quite understood that both families were in pursuit of his daughter for the sake of her fortune, and made up his mind that neither of them should have her.

They all sat down to play lotto at half-past eight, except old Grandet, who never played any game. Just as Mme. Grandet had won a pool of sixteen sous, a heavy knock at the front door startled everybody in the room. Nanon took up one of the candles and went to the door, followed by Grandet. Presently they returned with a young man, good-looking, and fashionably dressed. This was Charles Grandet, the son of the old cooper's brother, a merchant in Paris. The young man brought a good many trunks, and while Nanon saw to the bestowal of his luggage, all the lotto players looked at the visitor. Old Grandet took the only remaining candle from the table to read a long letter which his nephew had brought. Charles had set off from Paris at his father's bidding to pay a visit to his uncle at Saumur. He was a dandy, and his appearance was in striking contrast to the attire of the Cruchots and the Des Grassins. Moreover, he already had had a love affair with a great lady whom he called Annette, and he was a good shot. Altogether, Charles Grandet was a vain and selfish youth, conscious of his superiority over the unfashionable provincials of Saumur, but determined at all costs to enjoy himself as best he could.

As for Eugénie, it seemed to her that she had never seen such a perfect gentleman as this cousin from Paris, and, at the risk of incurring her father's wrath, succeeded in persuading Nanon to do what she could to make things comfortable for their guest in the cold and dreary house.

Nanon was milking the cow when Eugénie preferred her kindly and considerate request, and the faithful serving-maid at once obligingly promised to save a little cream from her master's supply of milk. The Cruchots and Des Grassins retired discomfited before the presence of Charles Grandet. The young Parisian, brought up in luxury by his father, could not understand why he should have been sent to this outlandish place, and he was the more mystified by his uncle telling him they would talk over "important business" on the morrow. Then, indeed, in plain and brutal words he learnt the contents of the fatal letter he had brought from his father. It was twenty-three years since old Grandet had seen his brother in Paris, but this brother had become a rich man, too; of that old Grandet was aware. And now Victor-Ange-Guillaume Grandet wrote to him from Paris, saying: "By the time that this letter is in your hands, I shall cease to exist. The failure of my stockbroker and my notary has ruined me, and while I owe nearly four million francs, my assets are only a quarter of my debts. I cannot survive the disgrace of bankruptcy. I know you cannot satisfy my creditors, but you can be a father to my unhappy child, Charles, who is now alone in the world. Lay everything before him, and tell him that in my work he can restore the fortune he has lost. My failure is due neither to dishonesty nor to carelessness, but to causes beyond my control."

Old Grandet told his nephew plainly that his father was dead, and even showed him a paragraph already in the papers referring to the ruin and suicide of the unhappy man--so quickly is such news spread abroad.

For the moment, his penniless state was nothing to the young man; the loss of his father was the only grief.

Old Grandet let him alone, and in a day or two Charles gathered up strength to face the situation.

Mme. Grandet and Eugénie were full of tender sympathy for the unhappy young man, and this sympathy in Eugénie's case ripened into love. One day, when Eugénie passed her cousin's chamber, the door stood ajar; she thrust it open, and saw that Charles had fallen asleep in his chair. She entered and found out from a letter her cousin had written to Annette, which she read as it lay on the table, that he was in want of money--for old Grandet was resolved to do nothing for his nephew beyond paying his passage to Nantes. The next night she brought him all her store of gold coins, worth six thousand francs. Her confidence and devoted affection touched Charles deeply. He accepted the money, and in return gave into her keeping a small leather box containing portraits of his father and mother, richly set in gold. Eugénie promised to guard this box until he returned.

For it was decided that Charles Grandet must go to the Indies to seek his fortune. He sold his jewels and finery, and paid his personal debts in Paris, and waited on at Saumur till the ship should be ready to sail for Nantes.

And in those few weeks came the springtime of love for Eugénie.

Old Grandet was too busy to trouble about his nephew, who was so shortly to be got rid of, and both Nanon and Mme. Grandet liked and pities the young man.

Charles Grandet, on his side, was conscious that his Parisian friends would not have shown him a like kindness, and the purity and truth of Eugénie's love were something he had not hitherto experienced.

The cousins would snatch a few moments together in the early morning, and once, only a few days before his departure, they met in the long, dark passage at the foot of the staircase. "Dear cousin, I cannot expect to return for many years," Charles said sadly. "We must not consider ourselves bound in any way."

"You love me?" was all Eugénie asked. And on his reply, she added: "Then I will wait for you, Charles."

Presently his arms were round her waist. Eugénie made no resistance, and, pressed to his heart, received her lover's kiss.

"Dear Eugénie, a cousin is better than a brother; he can marry you," said Charles.

Thus the lovers vowed themselves to each other. Then came the terrible hour of parting, and Charles Grandet sailed from Nantes for the Indies; and the old house at Saumur suddenly seemed to Eugénie to have become very empty and bare indeed.

_III.--M. Grandet's Discovery_

Grandet, on the advice of M. Cruchot, the notary, saved the honour of his dead brother. There was no act of bankruptcy. M. Cruchot, to gain favour with old Grandet, proposed to go to Paris to look after the dead man's affairs, but suggested the payment of expenses. It was M. des Grassins, however, who went to Paris, for he undertook to make no charge; and the banker not only attended to Guillaume Grandet's creditors, but stayed on in Paris--having been made a deputy--and fell in love with an actress. Adolphe joined his father, and achieved an equally unpleasant reputation.

The property of Guillaume Grandet realised enough money to pay the creditors a dividend of 47 per cent. They agreed that they would deposit, upon certain conditions, their bills with an accredited notary, and each one said to himself that Grandet of Saumur would pay.

Grandet of Saumur, however, did not pay. Endless delays were forthcoming, and Des Grassins was always holding out promises that were not fulfilled.

As years went by some of the creditors gave up all hope of payment, others died; till at the end of five years the deficit stood at 1,200,000 francs.

In the meantime, a terrible blow had fallen on Mine. Grandet. On January 1, 1820, old Grandet, according to his wont, presented his daughter with a gold coin, and asked to see her store of gold pieces.

All Eugénie would tell him was that her money was gone. In vain the old man stormed. Eugénie kept on saying: "I am of age; the money was mine."

Grandet raved at his wife, who, weary and ill, gave him no satisfaction. In fact, Mine. Grandet's character had become stronger through her daughter's trouble, and she refused to support her husband's angry demands.

Then old Grandet ordered Eugénie to retire to her own apartment. "Do you hear what I say? Go!" he shouted.

Soon all the town knew that Eugénie was a prisoner in her own room, seeing no one but her mother and old Nanon; and public opinion, knowing nothing of the cause of the quarrel, blamed the old cooper. For six months this state of things lasted, and Mine. Grandet's illness became steadily worse. M. Cruchot, the notary, warned old Grandet that, in the event of his wife's death, he would have to give an account to Eugénie of her mother's share in the joint estate; and that Eugénie could then, if she chose, demand her mother's fortune, to which she would be entitled.

This seriously alarmed the avaricious old cooper, and he made up his mind to a reconciliation, for his wife assured him she would never get better while Eugénie was treated so badly. Eugénie and her mother were talking of Charles, from whom no letter had come, and getting what pleasure they could from looking at the portraits of his parents, when old Grandet burst into the room. Catching sight of the gold fittings, he snatched up the dressing-case, and would have wrenched off the precious metal. "Father, father," Eugénie called out, "this case is not yours; it is not mine, it is a sacred trust! It belongs to my unhappy cousin. Do not pull it to pieces!"

Old Grandet took no notice.

"Oh, have pity; you are killing me!" said the mother.

Eugénie caught up a knife, and her cry brought Nanon on the scene.

"Father, if you cut away a single piece of gold, I shall stab myself. You are killing my mother, and you will kill me, too."

Old Grandet for once was frightened. He tried to make it up with his wife, he kissed Eugénie, and even promised that Eugénie should marry her cousin if she wanted to.

Mme. Grandet lingered till October, and then died. "There is no happiness to be had except in heaven; some day you will understand that," she said to her daughter just before she passed away.

M. Cruchot was called in after Mine. Grandet's death, and in his presence Eugénie agreed to sign a deed renouncing her claim to her mother's fortune while her father lived. She signed it without making any objection, to old Grandet's great relief, and he promised to allow her 100 francs a month. But the old man himself was failing. Bit by bit he relinquished his many activities, but lived on till seven years had passed. Then he died, his eyes kindling at the end at the sight of the priest's sacred vessels of silver. His brother's creditors were still unpaid. Eugénie was informed by M. Cruchot that her property amounted to 17,000,000 francs. "Where can my cousin be?" she asked herself. "If only we knew where the young gentleman was, I would set off myself and find him," Nanon said to her. The poor heiress was very lonely. The faithful Nanon, now fifty-nine, married Antoine Cornoiller, the bailiff of the estates, and these two, who had known one another for years, lived in the house.

The Cruchots still hoped to marry M. le Président to Eugénie, and every birthday the magistrate brought a handsome bouquet. But the heart of Eugénie remained steadfast to her cousin.

"Ah, Nanon," she would say, "why has he never written to me once all these years?"

Mme. des Grassins, unwilling to see the triumph of her old rivals, the Cruchots, went about saying that the heiress of the Grandet millions would marry a peer of France rather than a magistrate. Eugénie, however, thought neither of the peer nor of the magistrate. She gave away enormous sums in charity, and lived on quietly in the dreary old house. Her wealth brought her no comfort, her only treasures were the two portraits left in her charge. Yet she went on loving, and believed herself loved in return.

_IV.--The Honour of the Grandets_

Charles Grandet, in the course of eight years, met with considerable success in his trading ventures. He saw very quickly that the way to make money in the tropics, as in Europe, was to go in for buying and selling men, and so he plunged into the slave trade of Africa, and under the name of Carl Shepherd was known in the East Indies, in the United States, and on the African coasts. His plan was to get rich as speedily as possible, and then return to Paris and live respected. For a time--that is, on his first voyage--the thought of Eugénie gave him infinite pleasure; but soon all recollection of Saumur was blotted out, and his cousin became merely a person to whom he owed 6,000 francs.

In 1827, Charles returned to Bordeaux with 1,900,000 francs in gold dust. On board the ship he became very intimate with the d'Aubrions, an old aristocratic but impoverished family. Mme. d'Aubrion was anxious to secure Charles Grandet for her only daughter, and they all travelled to Paris together. Mme. d'Aubrion pointed out to Grandet that her influence would get him a court appointment, with title of Comte d'Aubrion; and Annette, with whom Grandet took counsel, approved the alliance.

Des Grassins, hearing of the wanderer's return, called, and, anxious to get some remuneration for all the trouble he had taken, explained that 300,000 francs were still owing to his father's creditors. But Charles Grandet answered coolly that he had nothing to do with his father's debts.

Des Grassins, however, wrote to his wife that he would yet make the dead Guillaume Grandet a bankrupt, and that would stop the marriage, and Mme. des Grassins showed the letter to Eugénie.

Eugénie had already heard from her cousin. Charles Grandet sent a cheque for 8,000 francs, asked for the return of his dressing-case, and casually mentioned that he was going to make a brilliant marriage with Mlle. d'Aubrion, for whom he admitted he had not the slightest affection.

This was the shipwreck of all Eugénie's hopes--the utter and complete ruin.

"My mother was right," she said, weeping. "To suffer, and then die--that is our lot!"

That same evening when M. Cruchot de Bonfons, the magistrate, called on Eugénie, she promised to marry him on condition that he claimed none of the rights of marriage over her, and that he would immediately go and settle all her uncle's creditors in full.

M. de Bonfons, only too thankful to win the heiress of the Grandet millions on any terms, agreed, and set off at once for Paris with a cheque for 1,500,000 francs. He carried a letter from Eugénie to Charles Grandet, a letter that contained no word of reproach, but announced the full discharge of his father's debts.

Charles was astonished to hear from M. de Bonfons of his forthcoming marriage with Eugénie, and he was dumfounded when the president told him that Mlle. Grandet possessed 17,000,000 francs.

Mme. d'Aubrion interrupted the interview; her husband's objection to Grandet's marriage with his daughter was removed with the payment of the long-standing creditors and the restoration of the family honour of the Grandets.

M. de Bonfons, who now dropped the name of Cruchot, married Eugénie, and shortly afterwards was made Councillor to the Court Royal at Angers. His loyalty to the government was rewarded with further office. M. de Bonfons became deputy of Saumur; and then, dreaming of higher honours, perhaps a peerage, he died.

M. de Bonfons always respected his wife's request that they should live apart; with remarkable cunning he had drafted the marriage contract, in which, "In case there was no issue of the marriage, husband and wife bequeathed to each other all their property, without exception or reservation." Death disappointed his schemes. Mme. de Bonfons was left a widow three years after marriage, with an income of 800,000 livres.

She is a beautiful woman still, but pale and sorrowful. In spite of her income she lives on in the old house, and cold and sunless it bears a likeness to her own life. Spending little on herself, Mme. de Bonfons gives away large sums in succouring the unfortunate; but she is very lonely--without husband, children, or kindred. She dwells in the world, but is not of it.

* * * * *

Old Goriot

"Old Goriot," or, to give it its French title, "Le Père
Goriot," is one of the series of novels to which Balzac gave
the title of "The Comedy of Human Life." It is a comedy,
mingled with lurid tragic touches, of society in the French
capital in the early decades of the nineteenth century. The
leading character in this story is, of course, Old Goriot, and
the passion which dominates him is that of paternity. In the
picture which Balzac draws of Parisian life, from the sordid
boarding-house to the luxurious mansions of the gilded
aristocracy in the days of the Bourbon Restoration, the author
exhibits that tendency to over-description for which he was
criticised by his contemporaries, and to dwell too much on
petty details. It may be urged, however, that it is the
cumulative effect of these minute touches that is necessary
for the true realisation of character.

_I.--In a Paris Boarding-House_

Madame Vauquer, née Conflans, is an elderly lady who for forty years past has kept a Parisian middle-class boarding-house, situated in the Rue Neuve Sainte-Geneviève, between the Latin Quarter and the Faubourg Saint Marcel. This pension, known under the name of the Maison Vauquer, receives men as well as women--young men and old; but hitherto scandal has never attacked the moral principles on which the respectable establishment has been conducted. Moreover, for more than thirty years, no young woman has been seen in the house; and if any young man ever lived there, it was because his family were able to make him only a very slender allowance. Nevertheless, in 1819, the date at which this drama begins, a poor young girl was found there.

The Maison Vauquer is of three stories, with attic chambers, and a tiny garden at the back. The ground floor consists of a parlour lighted by two windows looking upon the street. Nothing could be more depressing than this chamber, which is used as the sitting-room. It is furnished with chairs, the seats of which are covered with strips of alternate dull and shining horsehair stuff, while in the centre is a round table with a marble top. The room exhales a smell for which there is no name, in any language, except that of _odour de pension_. And yet, if you compare it with the dining-room which adjoins, you will find the sitting-room as elegant and as perfumed as a lady's boudoir. There misery reigns without a redeeming touch of poesie--poverty, penetrating, concentrated, rasping. This room appears at its best when at seven in the morning Madame Vauquer, preceded by her cat, enters it from her sleeping chamber. She wears a tulle cap, under which hangs awry a front of false hair; her gaping slippers flop as she walks across the room. Her features are oldish and flabby; from their midst springs a nose like the beak of a parrot. Her small fat hands, her person plump as a church rat, her bust too full and tremulous, are all in harmony with the room. About fifty years of age, Madame Vauquer looks as most women do who say that they have had misfortunes.

At the date when this story opens there were seven boarders in the house. The first floor contained the two best suites of rooms. Madame Vauquer occupied the small, and the other was let to Madame Couture, the widow of a paymaster in the army of the French Republic. She had with her a very young girl, named Victorine Taillefer. On the second floor, one apartment was tenanted by an old gentleman named Poiret; the other by a man of about forty years of age, who wore a black wig, dyed his whiskers, gave out that he was a retired merchant, and called himself Monsieur Vautrin. The third story was divided into four single rooms, of which one was occupied by an old maid named Mademoiselle Michonneau, and another by an aged manufacturer of vermicelli, who allowed himself to be called "Old Goriot." The two remaining rooms were allotted to a medical student known as Bianchon, and to a law student named Eugène de Rastignac. Above the third story were a loft where linen was dried, and two attic rooms, in one of which slept the man of all work, Christophe, and in the other the fat cook, Sylvie.

The desolate aspect of the interior of the establishment repeated itself in the shabby attire of the boarders. Mademoiselle Michonneau protected her weak eyes with a shabby green silk shade mounted on brass wire, which would have scared the Angel of Pity. Although the play of passions had ravished her features, she retained certain traces of a fine complexion, which suggested that the figure conserved some fragments of beauty. Poiret was a human automaton, who had earned a pension by mechanical labour as a government functionary.

Mademoiselle Victorine Taillefer was of a sickly paleness, like a girl in feeble health; but her grey-black eyes expressed the sweetness and resignation of a Christian. Her dress, simple and cheap, betrayed her youthful form. Happy, she might have been beautiful, for happiness imparts a poetic charm to women, as dress is the artifice of it. If love had ever given sparkle to her eyes, Victorine would have been able to hold her own with the fairest of her compeers. Her father believed he had reason to doubt his paternity, though she loved him with passionate tenderness; and after making her a yearly allowance of six hundred francs, he disinherited her in favour of his only son, who was to be the sole successor to his millions. Madame Couture was a distant relation of Victorine's mother, who had died in her arms, and she had brought up the orphan as her own daughter in a strictly pious fashion, taking her with rigid regularity to mass and confession.

Eugène de Rastignac, the eldest son of a poor baron of Angoulême, was a characteristic son of the South. His complexion was clear, hair black, eyes blue. His figure, manner, and habitual poses proved that he was a scion of a noble family, and that his early education had been based on aristocratic traditions. The connecting link between these two individuals and the other boarders was Vautrin--the man of forty, with the dyed whiskers. He was one of that sort of men who are familiarly described as "jolly good fellows." His face, furrowed with premature wrinkles, showed signs of hardness which belied his insinuating address. He was invariably obliging, with a breezy cheerfulness, though at times there was a steely expression in the eyes which inspired his fellow-boarders with a sense of fear. He knew or guessed the affairs of everybody in the house, but no one could divine his real business or his most inmost thoughts.

_II.--The Beginnings of the Tragedy_

Such a household ought to offer, and did present in miniature, the elements of a complete society. Among the inmates there was, as in the world at large, one poor discouraged creature--a butt on whom mocking pleasantries were rained. This patient sufferer was the old vermicelli maker, Goriot. Six years before, he had come to live at the Maison Vauquer, having, so he said, retired from business. He dressed handsomely, wore a gold watch, with thick gold chain and seals, flourished a gold snuff-box, and, when Madame Vauquer insinuated that he was a gallant, he smiled with the complacency of vanity tickled. Among the china and silver articles with which he decorated his sitting-room were a dish and porringer, on the cover of which were figures representing two doves billing and cooing.

"That," said Goriot, "is the present which my wife made to me on the first anniversary of our wedding-day. Poor dear, she bought it with the little savings she hoarded before our marriage. Look you, madame, I would rather scratch the ground with my nails for a living than part with that porringer. God be praised, however, I shall be able to drink my coffee out of this dish every morning during the rest of my days. I cannot complain. I have on the shelf, as the saying is, plenty of baked bread for a long time to come."

At the close of his first year Goriot began to practise little economies; at the end of the second he removed his rooms to the second floor, and did without a fire all the winter. This although, as Madame Vauquer's prying eyes had seen, Goriot's name appeared in the list of state funds for a sum representing an income of from eight to ten thousand francs. Henceforth she denounced him to the other paying-guests as an unprincipled old libertine, who lavished his enormous income from the funds on unknown youthful charmers. The boarders agreed; and when two young ladies in the most fashionable and costly attire visited him in succession in a semi-stealthy manner, their suspicions, as they believed, were confirmed. On one occasion, Sylvie followed Old Goriot and his beautiful visitor to a side street, and saw that there was a splendid carriage waiting and that she got into it. When challenged upon the point, the old man meekly declared that they were his daughters, though he never disclosed that their occasional visits were paid only to wheedle money from him.

The years passed, and with the gentleness of a broken spirit, beaten down to the docility of misery, Goriot curtailed his personal expenses, and again removed his lodgings; this time to the third floor. His dress turned shabbier; with each ascending grade his diamonds, gold snuff-box, and jewels disappeared. He grew thinner in person; his face, which had once the beaming roundness of a well-to-do middle-class gentleman, became furrowed with wrinkles. Lines appeared in his forehead, his jaws grew gaunt and sharp; and at the end of the fourth year he bore no longer the likeness of his former self. He was now a wan, worn-out septuagenarian--stupid, vacillating.

Eugène de Rastignac had ambitions, not only to win distinction as a lawyer, but also to play a part in the aristocratic society of Paris. He observed the influence which women exert upon society; and at his suggestion his aunt, Madame de Marcillac, who lived with his father in the old family château near Angoulême, and who had been at court in the days before the French Revolution, wrote to one of her great relatives, the Viscomtesse de Beauséant, one of the queens of Parisian society, asking her to give kindly recognition to her nephew. On the strength of that letter Eugène was invited to a ball at the mansion of the viscomtesse in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. The viscomtesse became interested in him, especially as she was suffering from the desertion of the Marquis d'Ajuda-Pinto, a Portuguese nobleman who had been long her lover, and stood sponsor for him in society. At the Faubourg, Eugène met the Duchesse de Langeais, from whom he learned the history of Old Goriot.

"During the Revolution," said the duchesse, "Goriot was a flour and vermicelli merchant, and, being president of his section, was behind the scenes. When a great scarcity of food was at hand he made his fortune by selling his goods for ten times what they cost him. He had but one passion; he loved his daughters, and by endowing each of them with a dot of eight hundred thousand francs, he married the eldest, Anastasie, to the Count de Restaud, and the youngest, Delphine, to the Baron de Nucingen, a rich German financier. During the Empire, his daughters sometimes asked their father to visit them; but after the Restoration the old man became an annoyance to his sons-in-law. He saw that his daughters were ashamed of him; he made the sacrifice which only a father can, and banished himself from their homes. There is," continued the duchesse, "something in these Goriot sisters even more shocking than their neglect of their father, for whose death they wish. I mean their rivalry to each other. Restaud is of ancient family; his wife has been adopted by his relatives and presented at court. But the rich sister, the beautiful Madame Delphine de Nucingen, is dying with envy, the victim of jealousy. She is a hundred leagues lower in society than her sister. They renounce each other as they both renounced their father. Madame de Nucingen would lap up all the mud between the Rue Saint-Lazare and the Rue de Crenelle to gain admission to my salon." What the duchesse did not reveal was that Anastasie had a lover, Count Maxime de Trailles, a gambler and a duellist. To pay the gambling losses of this unscrupulous lover, to the extent of two hundred thousand francs, the Countess de Restaud induced Old Goriot to sell out of the funds nearly all that remained of his great fortune, and give the proceeds to her.

Returning to his lodgings from a ball in the Faubourg Saint-Germain, Eugène saw a light in Goriot's room; and, without being noticed, watched the old man laboriously twisting two pieces of silver plate--his precious dish and porringer--into one lump.

"He must be mad," thought the student.

"The poor child!" groaned Goriot.

The next morning Goriot visited a silversmith, and the Countess de Restaud received the money to redeem a note of hand which she had given to a moneylender on behalf of her lover.

"Old Goriot is sublime," muttered Eugène when he heard of the transaction.

Delphine de Nucingen also had an admirer, Count de Marsay, through whose influence she expected to be introduced into the exclusive aristocratic society to which even the great wealth of her husband and his German patent of nobility could not secure an entry. Apart from her social aspirations, Delphine was personally extravagant; and as the baron was miserly and only gave her a very scanty allowance, she visited the gambling dens of the Palais Royale to try and raise the money which she could no longer coax from her old father.

_III.--A Temptation and a Murder_

To be young, to thirst after a position in the world of fashion, to hunger for the smiles of beautiful women, to obtain an entry into the salons of the Faubourg, meant to Rastignac large expenditure. He wrote home asking for a loan of twelve hundred francs, which, he said, he must have at all costs. The Viscomtesse de Beauséant had taken him under her protection, and he was in a situation to make an immediate fortune. He must go into society, but had not a penny even to buy gloves. The loan would be returned tenfold.

The mother sold her jewels, the aunt her old laces, his sisters sacrificed their economies, and the twelve hundred francs were sent to Eugène. With this sum he launched into the gay life of a man of fashion, dressed extravagantly, and gambled recklessly. One day Vautrin arrived in high spirits, surprising Eugène conversing with Victorine. This was Vautrin's opportunity, for which he had been preparing. When Victorine retired, Vautrin pointed out how impossible it was to maintain a position in society as a law student, and if Eugène wished to get on quickly he must either be rich, or make believe to be so.

"In view of all the circumstances, therefore, I make a proposition to you," said Vautrin to Eugène, "which I think no man in your position should refuse. I wish to become a great planter in the Southern States of America, and need two hundred thousand francs. If I get you a dot of a million, will you give me two hundred thousand francs? Is twenty per cent, commission on such a transaction too much? You will secure the affection of a little wife. A few weeks after marriage you will seem distracted. Some night, between kisses, you can own a debt of two hundred thousand francs, and ask your darling to pay it. The farce is acted every day by young men of good family, and no amorous young wife will refuse the money to the man she adores. Moreover, you will not lose the money; you will easily get it back by judicious speculation!"

"But where can I find such a girl?" said Eugène.

"She is here, close at hand."

"Mademoiselle Victorine?"

"Precisely!"

"But how can that be?"

"She loves you; already she thinks herself the little Baroness de Rastignac."

"She has not a penny!" cried Eugène in amazement.

"Ah, now we are coming to the point," said Vautrin.

Thereupon, Vautrin insinuated that if papa Taillefer lost his son through the interposition of a wise Providence, he would take back his pretty and amiable daughter, who would inherit his millions. To this end he, Vautrin, frankly volunteered to play the part of destiny. He had a friend, a colonel in the army of the Loire, who would pick a quarrel with Frederic, the young blackguard son who had never sent a five-franc piece to his poor sister, and then "to the shades"--making a pass as if with a sword.

"Silence, monsieur! I will hear no more."

"As you please, my beautiful boy! I thought you were stronger."

A few days after this scene, Mademoiselle Michonneau and Poiret were sitting on a bench in the Jardin des Plantes, when they were accosted by the chief of the detective force. He told them that the minister of police believed that a man calling himself Vautrin, who lived with them in the Maison Vauquer, was an escaped convict from Toulon galleys, Jacques Collin, but known by the nickname of Trompe-la-Mort, and one of the most dangerous criminals in all France. In order to obtain certainty as to the identity of Vautrin with Collin he offered a bribe of three thousand francs if mademoiselle would administer a potion in his coffee or wine, which would affect him as if he were stricken with apoplexy. During his insensibility they could easily discover whether Vautrin had the convict's brand on his shoulder. The pair accepted the bribe, and the plot succeeded. Vautrin was identified as Collin and arrested, just as a messenger came to announce that Frederic Taillefer had been killed in a duel, and Victorine was carried off with Madame Couture to her father's home, the sole heir to his millions. When he was being pinioned to be conveyed back to the galleys, Collin looked upon his late fellow boarders with fierce scorn. "Are you any better than we convicts are?" said he. "We have less infamy branded on our shoulders than you have in your hearts--you flabby members of a gangrened society. There is some virtue here," exclaimed he, striking his breast. "I have never betrayed anyone. As for you, you old female Judas," turning to Mademoiselle Michonneau, "look at these people. They regard me with terror, but their hearts turn with disgust even to glance at you. Pick up your ill-gotten gains and begone." As Jacques Collin disappeared from the Maison Vauquer, and from our story, Sylvie, the fat cook, exclaimed: "Well, he was a man all the same!"

Although the way was now clear for Rastignac to marry the enormously wealthy Victorine, he paid court instead to Delphine, the Baroness de Nucingen, and dined with her every night. Old Goriot was informed of the intrigue by the baroness's maid. He did not resent but rather encouraged the liaison, and spent his last ten thousand francs in furnishing a suite of apartments for the young couple, on condition that he was to be allowed to occupy an adjoining room, and see his daughter every day.

_IV.--Old Goriot's Death-Bed_

The Viscomtesse de Beauséant was broken-hearted when the marriage of her lover was accomplished, but to maintain a brave spirit in the face of society she gave a farewell ball before retiring to her country estate. Among those invited was the Countess de Restaud, who ordered a rich costume for the occasion, which, however, she was unable to pay for. Her husband, the count, insisted on her appearing at the ball and wearing the family diamonds, which she had pawned to discharge her lover's gambling debts, and which had been redeemed to save the family honour. Anastasie sent her maid to Old Goriot, who rose from a sick-bed, sold his last forks and spoons for six hundred francs, pledged his annuity for four hundred francs, and so raised a thousand, which enabled Anastasie to obtain the gown and shine at the ball. Through Rastignac's influence, Delphine, Baroness de Nucingen, received from the viscomtesse a ticket for the dance, and insisted on going, as Rastignac declared "even over the dead body of her father," to challenge her sister's social precedence at the supreme society function. The ball was the most brilliant of the Parisian season. Both Goriot's daughters satisfied their selfish ambitions and gave never a thought to their old parent in the wretched Maison Vauquer.

For Old Goriot was sick unto death. His garret was bare; the walls dripped with moisture; the floor was damp; the bed was comfortless, and the few faggots which made the handful of fire had been bought only by the money got from pawning Eugène's watch. Christophe, the man servant, was sent by Rastignac to tell the daughters of their father's condition.

"Tell them that I am not very well," said Old Goriot; "that I should like to see them, to kiss them before I die."

By and by, when the messenger had gone, the old man said: "I don't want to die. To die, my good Eugène, is--not to see them there, where I am going. How lonely I shall be! Hell, to a father, is to be without his children. Tell me, if I go to heaven, can I come back in spirit and hover near them? You saw them at the ball; they did not know that I was ill, did they?"

On the return of the messenger, Old Goriot was told that both his daughters refused to come and see him. Delphine was too tired and sleepy; Anastasie was discussing with her husband the future disposition of her marriage portion. Then alternately Goriot blamed his daughters and pardoned their unfilial and selfish behaviour.

"My daughters were my vice--my mistresses. Oh, they will come! Come, my darlings! A kiss, a last kiss, the viaticum of your father! I am justly punished; my children were good, and I have spoiled them; on my head be their sins. I alone am guilty; but guilty through love." Eugène tried to soothe the old man by saying that he would go himself to fetch his daughters; but Goriot kept muttering in his semi-delirium. "Here, Nasie! here Delphine, come to your father who has been so good to you, and who is dying! Are they coming? No? Am I to die like a dog? This is my reward; forsaken, abandoned! They are wicked; they are criminal. I hate them. I will rise from my coffin to curse them. Oh, this is horrible! Ah, it is my sons-in-law who keep them away from me!"

"My good Old Goriot," said Eugène, "be calm."

"Not to see them--it is the agony of death!"

"You shall see them."

"Ah! my angels!"

And with these feeble words, Old Goriot sank back on the pillow and breathed his last.

Anastasie did come to the death-chamber, but too late. "I could not escape soon enough," she said to Rastignac. The student smiled sadly, and Madame de Restaud took her father's hand and kissed it, saying, "Forgive me, my father."

Goriot had a pauper's funeral. The aristocratic sons-in-law refused to pay the expenses of the burial. These were scraped together with difficulty by Eugène de Rastignac, the law student, and Bianchon, the medical student, who had nursed him with loving tenderness to the last. At the graveside in Père Lachaise, Eugène and Christophe were the only mourners; Bianchon's duties detained him at the hospital. When the body of Old Goriot was lowered into the earth, the clergy recited a short prayer--all that could be given for the student's money. The pall of night was falling; the mist struck a chill on Eugène's nerves, and when he took a last glance at the shell containing all that was mortal of his old friend, he buried the last tear of his young manhood--a tear drawn by a sacred emotion from a pure heart.

Eugène wandered to the most elevated part of the cemetery, whence he surveyed that portion of the city between the Place Vendome and the dome of the Invalides, where lives that world of fashion which he had hungered to penetrate. With bitterness he muttered: "Now there is relentless war between us." And as the first act of defiance which he had sworn against society, Rastignac went to dine with Madame Nucingen!

* * * * *

The Magic Skin

In no other work is the special quality of Balzac's genius
displayed so completely as in "La Peau de Chagrin," which we
render as "The Magic Skin." Published in 1831, it is the
earliest in date of his veritable masterpieces, and the finest
in conception. There is no novel more soberly true to life
than this strange fairy tale. His hero, the Marquis de
Valentin, is a young aristocrat of the Byronic type. He
rejects the simple joys and stern realities of human
existence; he wants more than life can give. He gets what he
wants. He obtains a magic skin which enables him to fulfil his
every wish. But in so doing he uses up his vital powers. Such
is the idea which makes this fantastic story a profound
philosophical study.

_I.--The Seal of Solomon_

On a dull morning towards the end of October, 1830, a tall, pale, and rather handsome young man came to the Pont Royal, and leaned over the bridge, and gazed with wild and yet resolute eyes at the swirling waters below. Just as he was preparing to leap down, a ragged old woman passed by.

"Wretched weather for drowning oneself, isn't it?" she said, with a grin. "How cold and dirty the Seine looks!"

The young man turned and smiled at her in the delirium of his courage. Then, suddenly he shuddered. On a shed by the Tuileries he saw, written in large letters: "Help for the drowned." He foresaw the whole thing. A boat would put off to the rescue. If the rowers did not smash his skull in with their oars as he came to the surface, he would be taken to the shed and revived. If he were dead, a crowd would collect, newspaper men would come; his body would be recognised; and the Press would publish the news of the suicide of Raphael de Valentin. No! He would wait till nightfall, and then in a decent, private manner bequeath an unrecognizable corpse to a world that had disregarded his genius.

With the air of a wealthy man of leisure sauntering about the streets to kill time, the young marquis strolled down the Quai Voltaire, and followed the line of shops, looking listlessly at every window. But as he thought of the fate awaiting him at nightfall, men and houses swam in a mist before his eyes. To recover himself he entered a curiosity shop. "If you care to go through our galleries," said the red-haired shop-boy, "you will find something worth looking at."

Raphael climbed up a dark staircase lined with mummies, Indian idols, stuffed crocodiles, and goggle-eyed monsters. They all seemed to grin at him as he passed. Haunted by these strange shapes belonging to the borderland between life and death, he walked in a kind of dream through a series of long, dimly lighted galleries, in which was piled, in mad confusion, the work of every age and every clime. Here was a lovely statue by Michael Angelo, from which dangled the scalp of a Red Indian. There, cold and impassive, was the lord of the ancient world, the Emperor Augustus, with a modern air-pump sticking in his eye. The walls were hung with priceless pictures, which were half-hidden by grimacing skeletons, rude wooden idols with horrible features, tall suits of gleaming armour, and figures of Egyptian deities, with the bodies of men and heads of animals. The place was a kitchen of all the arts and religions and interests of mankind.

This extraordinary confusion was rendered still more bizarre by the dim cross-lights that played upon everything. Raphael's eyes grew weary with gazing, and his mind was oppressed by the spectacle of the ruined splendours of thousands of years of human life. A fever born of hunger and exhaustion possessed him. The pictures appeared to light up, the statues seemed to move. Everything danced and swayed around him. Then a horrible Chinese monster advanced upon him with menacing eyes from the other side of the room, and he swooned away in terror.

When he came to, his eyes were dazzled by a flood or radiance streaming from a circle of crimson light. Before him, holding a bright red lamp, was a frail, white-haired, extraordinary man, clad in a long robe of black velvet. His body was wasted by extreme old age. His skin was like wrinkled parchment, and his lips were so thin and colourless that it was hardly possible to discern on his ivory-white face the line made by his mouth. But his eyes were marvellous. They were calm, clear and searching, and they glowed with the light and freshness of youth.

"So you have been looking over my collection," the old man said. "Do you wish to buy anything?"

"Buy?" said Raphael, with a strange smile. "I am utterly penniless. I have been examining your treasures just to while away the time till I could drown myself quietly and secretly at night. You will not grudge this last pleasure to a poet and man of learning, will you?"

"Penniless?" said the old man. "But you do not want to die because you are penniless! A young, handsome, intellectual lad like you could pick up a living somehow. What is it? Some woman, eh? Now let me help----"

"I want no help or advice or consolation," said Raphael furiously.

"And I will give you none," said the old man. "But as you are resolved to die, will you do something for me. I want to get rid of this."

He held the lamp up the wall, and showed Raphael a piece of very old shagreen, about the size of a fox's skin.

"Ah!" said Raphael. "A wild ass's skin engraved with Sanscrit characters. Why, here's the mark that some of the Eastern races call the Seal of Solomon!"

"You are truly a man of learning," said the strange old merchant, his breath coming in quick pants through his nostrils. "No doubt you can read the inscription."

"I should translate it thus," said Raphael, fixing his eyes upon the skin.

POSSESSING ME THOU POSSESSEST EVERYTHING. YET I
POSSESS THEE. SO GOD HAS WILLED IT. WISH, AND
THY WISHES SHALL BE ACCOMPLISHED. BUT MEASURE
THE WISHES ACCORDING TO THY LIFE. HERE
IT IS. I SHALL SHRINK WITH EACH WISH, AND
SO SHALL THY LIFE, WILT THOU TAKE ME?
TAKE ME! GOD WILL HEAR THEE. AMEN.

"Is it a joke or a mystery?"

"I do not know," said the old man. "I have offered the magic skin to many men. They laughed at it; but none would take it. I am like them. I doubt its power, but will not put it to the test."

"What!" said Raphael. "You have never formed a wish all the time you had it?"

"No!" said the old man. "I have discovered the great secret of human life. Look! I am a hundred and two years old. Do you know why men die? Because they use up the energy of life by wishing to do things and doing them. I am content to know things. My days have been spent wandering quietly over all the earth in the calm acquisition of knowledge. All desire, all lust after power are dead within me. So this skin, which I picked up in India, has never shrunk an inch since it came into my possession."

"You have never lived!" cried Raphael, turning from the old man, and seizing the skin. "Yes, I will take you. Now for a test. I am starving. Set before me a splendid banquet. Let me have as guests all the wildest, gayest, wittiest minds of young France. And women? Oh, the prettiest, wickedest women of the town! Wine, wit and women!"

A roar of laughter came from the old man. It resounded in the ears of Raphael like the laughter of a fiend from hell.

"Do you think my floors are going to open, and tables, waiters, and guests pop up before your eyes?" he said. "No! Your first wish is mean and vulgar; but it will be fulfilled in a natural manner. You wanted to die, eh? Your suicide is only postponed."

Raphael put the skin in his pocket, and abruptly left, saying, "You have never lived. I wish you knew what love was."

He heard the old man groan strangely, but without listening to his reproaches he rushed out of the shop, and in the street ran full tilt up against three young men.

"Brute! Ass! Idiot! Why, it's Raphael!" they cried. "You must come. Talk about a Roman orgy I We've been all over Paris looking, for you. A gorgeous feed. And all the girls from the Opera! The ancient Romans aren't in it."

"One at a time," said Raphael. "Now, Emile, just tell me what are you all shouting about?"

"Do you know Taillefer, the wealthy banker?" said Emile. "He is founding a newspaper. All the talent of young France is to be enlisted. You're invited to the inaugural festival to-night at the Rue Joubert. The ballot girls of the Opera are coming. Oh, Taillefer's doing the thing in style!"

Arm linked in arm, the four friends made their way to Taillefer's mansion, and there, in a large room brilliantly set out, they were welcomed by all the younger men of note in Paris. For some time Raphael felt ill at ease. He was surprised by the natural manner in which his wish had suddenly been accomplished. He took the magic skin out of his pocket, and looked at it. Magic? What man could believe nowadays in magic? But, nevertheless, he marvelled at the accidents of human life.

_II--A Fight Against Fate_

Although the banquet which he had desired was now set before him, Raphael was still very moody. Deaf to the loud, wild merriment of his companions, he thought sadly of the misfortune which had driven him that morning to the brink of the grave. Many noblemen find it difficult to exist in Paris on an income of several thousand pounds. The young Marquis de Valentin had lived there very happily on £12 a year. In 1826, his father, who had lost his wealth and lands in the Revolution, had died, leaving him £40. Taking a garret in the Rue des Cordiers, he had set about earning his living with his pen, and for three years he had laboured at a great work on "The Theory of the Will." He never went into society, but found a pleasant distraction from his studies in educating the daughter of his landlady.

Pauline Gaudin was a charming and beautiful child; her father, a baron of the empire, and an officer in the Grand Army, had been taken prisoner by the Russians in 1812, and never heard of since. Raphael was moved by the grace and innocence of the lovely human flower, that grew from a bud into an opening blossom under his care. But as he was too poor to marry her, he never made love to her.

Then, in January, 1830, he met the Countess Foedora, a brilliant, wealthy woman of society, widowed at the age of thirty, and eager to shine and astonish and captivate. For her sake, Raphael had put aside his scholarly studies and engaged in money-making hack-work. But after keeping him dangling about her for some months, she had cast him off, and in his misery he had resolved to end his life. Now he had got the magic skin. What if it were true what the strange old man had said? Should he wish to win the heart of Foedora? No! She was a woman without a heart. He would have nothing to do with women. Still, this skin!

"Measure it! Measure it!" he cried, flinging it down on the table.

"Measure what?" said Emile. "Has Taillefer's wine got into your head already?"