‘Dear friend, I feel neither false pride nor anger towards you. I waited up for you until two in the morning. Anyone who has known the torture of waiting for a loved one will never inflict it on another. I can certainly tell that this is the first time you’ve been in love. Had I not been wary of revealing the deepest secrets of my heart, I’d have set out to discover what had become of you, for better or for worse. But, if I’d left the house that late, whether on foot or in my carriage, surely it would have been my ruin? How frustrated I felt, how unfortunate, to be a woman. Reassure me, explain why you didn’t come, after everything that Father told you. I may be vexed, but I will forgive you. Are you ill? I wish you didn’t live so far away. A single word, for pity’s sake. I’ll hear from you soon, shan’t I? A single word will do if you’re busy. Write: “I’m on my way now” or “I’m poorly”. But if you were ill, my father would have come and told me! So whatever has happened? …’
‘Yes, whatever has happened?’ Eugène exclaimed, rushing into the dining room and crumpling the letter without finishing it. ‘What time is it?’
‘Half eleven,’ said Vautrin, dropping sugar into his coffee.
The escaped convict shot Eugène one of those coldly mesmerizing looks that some powerfully magnetic men have the knack of giving, and which, it is said, can pacify raving lunatics in asylums. Eugène trembled in every limb. The sound of a carriage was heard in the street and a servant in Monsieur Taillefer’s livery, whom Madame Couture recognized straightaway, rushed in, looking aghast.
‘Mademoiselle,’ he cried, ‘your father wants to see you. A terrible thing has happened. Monsieur Frédéric has fought a duel, he’s taken a blow to the forehead, the doctors despair of saving him; you’ll barely have time to bid him farewell, he’s unconscious.’
‘Poor young man!’ exclaimed Vautrin. ‘What does anyone find to quarrel about on an allowance of thirty thousand livres? Really, young people have no idea how to behave.’
‘Monsieur!’ Eugène shouted at him.
‘Well, what is it, child?’ said Vautrin, calmly drinking the last of his coffee, a process which Mademoiselle Michonneau was scrutinizing far too closely to be moved by the extraordinary event which had left everyone else stunned. ‘Aren’t duels fought every day in Paris?’
‘I’ll come with you, Victorine,’ said Madame Couture.
And the two women flew out of the room without hats or shawls. Before leaving, Victorine, her eyes brimming, looked at Eugène as if to say: ‘I didn’t think our happiness would cost me tears!’
‘Well I never! You’re quite a prophet, Monsieur Vautrin,’ said Madame Vauquer.
‘I’m everything,’ he said.
‘How very odd!’ continued Madame Vauquer, pronouncing a string of meaningless comments on the event. Death takes us without asking. The young often go before the old. We women are lucky not to have to fight duels, but we suffer hardships that men don’t. We have children and the trials of motherhood are never ending! What a stroke of good luck for Victorine! Her father will have no choice but to recognize her now.’
‘So!’ said Vautrin, looking at Eugène, ‘yesterday she was penniless, this morning she’s worth millions.’
‘Well, Monsieur Eugène,’ cried Madame Vauquer, ‘you’ve got your hand in the right jar there.’
Hearing this remark, old man Goriot looked at the student and saw the crumpled letter in his hand.
‘You haven’t finished it! What does that mean? That you’re just like the others?’ he reproached him.
‘Madame, I will never marry Mademoiselle Victorine,’ Eugène said pointedly to Madame Vauquer, with a look of horror and disgust that surprised them all.
Old Goriot took the student’s hand and shook it, then tried to kiss it.
‘Is that so!’ retorted Vautrin. ‘The Italians have a clever saying: col tempo!’177
‘I’m to wait for your answer,’ Madame de Nucingen’s messenger said to Rastignac.
‘Say that I’m on my way.’
The man left. Eugène was in such a state of violent agitation that he forgot the need for caution. ‘What shall I do?’ he said to himself aloud, without thinking. ‘There’s absolutely no evidence!’
Vautrin started to smile. At the same time the potion absorbed by his stomach began to take effect. Nonetheless, the convict was so tough that he stood up, looked at Rastignac and said in a hollow voice: ‘Young man, good things happen while we sleep.’
Then he fell to the ground with a thud.
‘Divine justice does exist,’ said Eugène.
‘Gracious, what’s the matter with poor dear Monsieur Vautrin?’
‘An apoplectic fit,’ cried Mademoiselle Michonneau.
‘Sylvie, hurry girl, go and fetch the doctor,’ cried the widow. ‘Ah! Monsieur Rastignac, quickly, go and get Monsieur Bianchon; Sylvie may not be able to find our doctor, Monsieur Grimprel.’
Rastignac, relieved to have an excuse to leave that chamber of horrors, took his leave at a run.
‘Christophe, quickly, trot to the chemist and ask for something for an apoplectic fit.’
Christophe went out.
‘Well, what are you waiting for, old man Goriot, help us take him up to his room.’
Vautrin was lifted, manoeuvred up the stairs and laid on his bed.
‘I’m no good to you here, I must go and see my daughter,’ said old Goriot.
‘Selfish old man!’ cried Madame Vauquer; ‘go on then, and I hope you die like a dog.’
‘Go and see if you can find some ether,’ said Mademoiselle Michonneau to Madame Vauquer, who, helped by Poiret, had already loosened Vautrin’s clothes.
Madame Vauquer went downstairs to her room, leaving Mademoiselle Michonneau mistress of the field.
‘Come on, take off his shirt and turn him over, quickly! Make yourself useful for once and spare me the sight of his nudities,’ she said to Poiret. ‘Don’t just stand there with your mouth open.’
With Vautrin face down, Mademoiselle Michonneau gave the sick man a sharp smack on the shoulder, and the two fateful letters stood out in white against the red patch of skin.
‘Well, that’s your three thousand francs earned with ease,’ exclaimed Poiret, holding Vautrin up while Mademoiselle Michonneau put his shirt back on. ‘Phew, he’s a deadweight,’ he continued, laying him down again.
‘Be quiet. What if there’s a cash-box?’ said the spinster eagerly, subjecting every last stick of furniture in the room to such intense scrutiny that her eyes seemed to pierce the walls. ‘Perhaps we could open this writing desk, if we think of an excuse?’ she continued.
‘Perhaps that would be wrong,’ replied Poiret.
‘No. Stolen money, having belonged to everyone, no longer belongs to anyone. But there’s not enough time,’ she replied. ‘I can hear Ma Vauquer.’
‘Here’s the ether,’ said Madame Vauquer. ‘My, oh my, what a day; it never rains but it pours. Gracious! That man can’t be ill, he’s as white as a chicken.’
‘A chicken?’ repeated Poiret.
‘His heart’s beating steadily,’ said the widow, placing her hand on his heart.
‘Steadily?’ said Poiret, surprised.
‘There’s nothing wrong with him.’
‘You think so?’ asked Poiret.
‘Why, yes! He looks like he’s sleeping. Sylvie has gone to find a doctor. Look at that, Mademoiselle Michonneau, he’s sniffing the ether. Humph! It’s just a pass-’im (a spasm). His pulse is fine. He’s as strong as a Turk. Just look at that thick mat of hair on his stomach, Mademoiselle; he’ll live for a hundred years, that man! His wig has stayed on well, considering. Look, it’s stuck on, he’s got false hair; look how red it is underneath. They say that redheads are all good or all bad! He must be good.’
‘For hanging,’ said Poiret.
‘Round the neck of a pretty woman, you mean,’ snapped Mademoiselle Michonneau. ‘Off you go now, Monsieur Poiret. We ladies must look after you men when you’re ill. For al
l the use you are, you might as well go for a walk,’ she added. ‘Madame Vauquer and I will take care of poor dear Monsieur Vautrin.’
Poiret went off meekly and without a murmur, like a dog whose master has just given it a kick.
Rastignac had gone out to walk around, to get some fresh air: he could hardly breathe. Last night he’d wanted to stop this crime, committed at a set time. What had happened to him? What should he do? He trembled to think that he was an accessory to the act. Vautrin’s sang-froid still terrified him.
‘And if Vautrin were to die without talking?’ Rastignac said to himself.
He hurried along the avenues of the Jardin du Luxembourg as if he had a pack of dogs at his heels and could hear them barking.
‘Hey!’ Bianchon shouted over to him; ‘have you seen the Pilote?’
The Pilote was a radical paper edited by Monsieur Tissot, which came out in a provincial edition a few hours after the morning papers, thus bringing the day’s news to the regions twenty-four hours ahead of the other papers.
‘There’s a cracking story in it,’ said the Cochin hospital178 house doctor. ‘Taillefer’s son fought a duel with Comte Franchessini, of the Old Guard, who stuck two inches of steel in his head. So our little Victorine is now one of the richest and most eligible women in Paris. How about that? If only we’d known. What a gamble death is, a regular round of Rouge-et-Noir!179 Is it true that Victorine had a soft spot for you?’
‘Enough, Bianchon. I’ll never marry her. I love a sweet woman, she loves me, I …’
‘You sound as if you’re having a job convincing yourself to be faithful. Show me the woman worth sacrificing old Taillefer’s wealth for.’
‘So every demon in hell is after me now?’ Rastignac cried to himself.
‘Why, whatever’s the matter with you? Are you mad? Give me your hand,’ said Bianchon; ‘let me feel your pulse. You’re feverish.’
‘You’re needed at Ma Vauquer’s,’ Eugène said to him; ‘that old rascal Vautrin has just dropped down dead, at least, that’s how it looked.’
‘A-ha!’ said Bianchon, leaving Rastignac on his own; ‘you’ve confirmed suspicions that I’d like to look into myself.’
The law student’s walk was long and sobering. He surveyed his conscience from every angle. True, he vacillated, doubted himself, hesitated, but in the end his integrity came out of this grim and terrible discussion intact, like an iron rod which has withstood every assault upon it. He remembered the secrets that old man Goriot had told him the previous evening, he recalled the apartment chosen for him, near Delphine, in the Rue d’Artois; he took up her letter, read it again, kissed it. ‘A love like that will be my sheet anchor,’180 he said to himself. ‘That poor old man’s heart has caused him terrible suffering. He never speaks of his sorrows, but anyone can see what they are! Well, I’ll look after him like a father, I’ll give him a thousand reasons to be happy. If she loves me, she’ll often come to see me and spend the day near him. The Comtesse de Restaud, for all her grand airs, is despicable; her father might as well be her porter. Dearest Delphine! She’s kinder to the old fellow, she deserves to be loved. Ah! This evening I’ll be lucky, at last!’ He took out the watch and admired it. ‘Everything has turned out well for me! When two people love each other for all time, they have every right to help each other; I’m allowed to accept this. Besides, I’m bound to succeed and will be able to pay it back a hundred times over. Our liaison has nothing criminal about it, nothing that even the most virtuous woman might raise an eyebrow at. How many respectable people favour this kind of arrangement! We aren’t deceiving anyone, and lies are what degrade a person most. Surely to lie is to deny all responsibility? She and her husband have been living apart for some time now. What’s more, I, Rastignac, will tell that Alsatian to relinquish his claims to a woman he’s incapable of making happy.’
Rastignac tussled with himself for a long time. Although youthful virtue emerged victorious, at nightfall, as the clock struck half past four, an overwhelming urge to satisfy his curiosity drew him back to the Maison Vauquer, which he had just sworn to leave for ever. He wanted to know whether Vautrin was dead.
Having come up with the idea of giving Vautrin an emetic, Bianchon had sent the substance he regurgitated to his hospital, for chemical analysis. His suspicions were strengthened by Mademoiselle Michonneau’s insistence that they should be thrown away. Besides, Vautrin’s recovery was so swift that Bianchon couldn’t help but suspect some plot against the jovial life and soul of the boarding house. When Rastignac came in, Vautrin was standing next to the stove in the dining room. All the boarders save old Goriot were there, brought down earlier than usual by the news of Taillefer the younger’s duel, and were discussing the incident, curious to know the details of the affair and its impact on Victorine’s destiny. When Eugène came in, his eyes met those of Vautrin, as imperturbable as ever. The look Vautrin gave him shot so deeply into his heart, and struck such forceful, dissonant chords there, it made him shudder.
‘Well, child,’ the escaped convict said, ‘it looks like the old death’s-head181 will be wrong about me for a while yet. According to these ladies, I’ve made a magnificent recovery from an apoplexy that would have killed an ox.’
‘Ooh! A bull, easily,’ cried widow Vauquer.
‘Perhaps you’re sorry to see me still alive?’ said Vautrin in Rastignac’s ear, thinking to read his mind. ‘The man has the strength of the devil!’
‘Oh, that reminds me!’ said Bianchon: ‘the day before yesterday I overheard Mademoiselle Michonneau talking about a man known as Cat-o’-Nine-Lives; that name would suit you down to the ground.’
These words struck Vautrin like a thunderbolt: he turned white and staggered, his magnetic stare lit on Mademoiselle Michonneau like a sunburst, a blast of will-power that made her knees buckle. The spinster sank into a chair. Poiret quickly stepped between her and Vautrin, seeing the danger she was in, as the convict’s face now wore a savage expression, stripped of the mask of geniality which had concealed his true nature. The other boarders looked on dumbfounded, following this dramatic turn of events without understanding a thing. Just then, a company of men was heard marching down the road, followed by the ringing sound of soldiers striking their rifles against the paving stones. As Collin instinctively scanned the windows and walls for some way out, four men appeared at the drawing-room door. The first was the Chief of the Sûreté, the other three were detective inspectors.
‘In the name of the law and of the King,’ said one of the inspectors, his voice drowned out by a murmur of astonishment.
Then silence fell in the dining room as the boarders separated to let through three of the men, each with a hand on a loaded pistol in his side pocket. The detectives were followed by two gendarmes who stood guard at the drawing-room door, while another two appeared at the door leading out to the staircase. Soldiers’ footsteps and guns rang out on the paving stones that ran along the front of the building. All hope of escape was therefore denied Cat-o’-Nine-Lives, towards whom all eyes were irresistibly drawn. The chief walked straight over and struck him on the head with such force that he knocked off his wig, restoring Collin’s looks to their full horror. Beneath his cropped brick-red hair, his head and face, set on those powerful shoulders, took on a terrible aspect of strength and cunning and glowed with intelligence, as if lit up by the fires of hell. Everyone now understood Vautrin completely: his past, his present, his future; his implacable doctrines, his creed of self-determination, the sense of sovereign entitlement that gave him the cynicism of his thought, of his actions, and the strength of a constitution that was equal to anything. Blood rushed to his face and his eyes glinted like a wild cat’s. He retaliated with a surge of such ferocious energy, he roared so loudly, that the boarders cried out in fear. In response to this lion-like behaviour, and taking advantage of the general commotion, the inspectors cocked their pistols. Seeing the gleaming hammer of each gun, Collin understood the danger he was in and suddenly showed hi
mself capable of extraordinary human strength and self-possession – a dreadful and majestic sight! His features mirrored a phenomenon which can only be compared to the geyser whose sulphurous steam has the power to move mountains, but is dissolved in the wink of an eye by a single drop of cold water. The drop of water which cooled his rage was a thought that came to him as quick as lightning. He began to smile and looked at his wig.
‘You’re not having one of your polite days today,’ he said to the Chief of the Sûreté. And he held out his hands to the gendarmes, beckoning them with a jerk of his head. ‘Sirs, put your cramp rings on me, wrists or thumbs. I call upon those present to witness that I am not resisting arrest.’ A murmur of admiration, prompted by the speed with which lava and fire erupted and subsided in this human volcano, ran around the room.
‘Well, that’s taken the wind out of your sails, copper,’ the convict went on, staring the famous head of the detective division in the eye.
‘That’s enough; take off your clothes,’ ordered the man from the Petite Rue Sainte-Anne in a contemptuous tone of voice.
‘Why?’ said Collin, ‘there are ladies present. I’m denying nothing and I’m turning myself in.’
He paused and surveyed the gathering like a speaker letting his audience know he has a few surprises up his sleeve.
Old Man Goriot Page 23