‘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 towar
ds 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 ch
ain 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.
Old Man Goriot (Penguin Classics) Page 31