Rastignac picked up his pen and replied as follows:
‘I’m waiting for the doctor to hear how long your father has to live. He’s dying. I’ll bring you the verdict myself – I’m afraid it might be a death sentence. Then you’ll be able to see whether you can go to the ball. With all my most tender affection.’
The doctor came at half past eight and, although his opinion wasn’t favourable, didn’t think that death was imminent. He predicted alternating recoveries and relapses on which the old man’s life and faculties would be contingent.
‘It would be better for him if he died quickly,’ were the doctor’s final words.
Eugène left old Goriot in Bianchon’s care and set off to bring Madame de Nucingen the sad news, which, to his mind, still imbued with a sense of family duty, must surely defer all pleasure.
‘Tell her to enjoy herself no matter what,’ old Goriot called after him, sitting up despite his drowsiness, just as Rastignac was leaving.
The young man arrived at Delphine’s house with a heavy heart, to find her with her shoes on and her hair done, ready and dressed apart from her ballgown. But, like the final brushstrokes a painter applies to a picture, the finishing touches were taking longer than the actual composition of the canvas.
‘What, aren’t you dressed yet?’ she said.
‘But Madame, your father …’
‘My father again,’ she cried, cutting in. ‘Why, it’s not for you to tell me what I owe my father. I’ve known my father a long time. Not a word, Eugène. I won’t listen to you until you’re dressed. Thérèse has laid everything out for you in your rooms; my carriage is ready, take it; come straight back. We’ll talk about my father on the way to the ball. We must leave in good time; if we get stuck in the queue of carriages, we’ll be lucky if we make our entrance before eleven.’
‘Madame!’
‘Hurry! Not a word,’ she said, running into her boudoir to fetch a necklace.
‘Well, what are you waiting for, Monsieur Eugène, you’ll vex Madame,’ said Thérèse, giving the young man a push that sent him on his way, appalled by this parricide committed in the name of fashion.
He went off to dress, his head full of the saddest and most dispiriting thoughts. Society now looked much like an ocean of mud into which a man sank up to his neck if he so much as dipped a toe in. ‘Only the pettiest crimes are committed here!’ he said to himself. ‘Vautrin was greater than that!’ He had now seen the three main factions of society: Obedience, Struggle and Rebellion; the Family, the World and Vautrin. And he didn’t know which to join. Obedience was tedious, Rebellion impossible and Struggle uncertain. His thoughts took him back to the bosom of his family. He remembered the pure feelings of that quiet life, he thought of the days he had spent surrounded by people who loved him. By conforming to the natural laws of domestic life, those dear creatures found a happiness that was whole, constant and free of care. Despite his fine thoughts, he wasn’t quite brave enough to go to Delphine and profess his faith in the purity of souls, while ordaining her to the office of Virtue in the name of Love.
The education upon which he had embarked was bearing fruit. His love was already selfish. His intuition allowed him to recognize the nature of Delphine’s heart. He sensed that she would walk over her father’s dead body to get to the ball, and he had neither the strength to play the role of reasoner, nor the courage to displease her, nor sufficient honour to leave her. ‘She’d never forgive me for proving her wrong in this particular case,’ he said to himself. Then he reinterpreted the doctor’s words: he convinced himself that old Goriot wasn’t as seriously ill as he thought; in all, he stacked up one seductive argument after the other to vindicate Delphine. She was unaware of her father’s state of health. The old man would send her off to the ball himself if she went to see him. The laws of society, so implacably formulated, frequently condemn in cases where an apparent crime may be excused by any number of extenuating circumstances within a family, arising from differences in personality or divergent interests and situations. Eugène wanted to deceive himself, he was ready to sacrifice his conscience for his mistress.
In two days, everything in his life had changed. The woman had wreaked havoc, she had eclipsed his family, she had seized everything for herself. Rastignac and Delphine had met in the right conditions for them to afford each other the greatest pleasure. Their well-prepared passion had finally reached maturity through that which tends to deaden passions: gratification. Possessing this woman had made Eugène realize that he had merely desired her up to that point; he only loved her the day after she had made him happy: perhaps love is simply the acknowledgement of pleasure. Whether despicable or sublime, he adored this woman for the dowry of sensual pleasures he had given her, and for all those he had received in return; similarly, Delphine loved Rastignac much as Tantalus209 would have loved the angel that came to satisfy his hunger or to quench the thirst of his parched throat.
‘So, how is my father?’ Madame de Nucingen asked him, when he returned dressed for the ball.
‘Seriously ill,’ he replied. ‘If you want to prove that you love me, let us hurry and go to him.’
‘Very well,’ she said, ‘but after the ball. Dear Eugène, be kind: don’t lecture me, it’s time to go.’
They left. Eugène remained silent for part of the way.
‘What’s the matter?’ she said.
‘I can hear your father’s death-rattle,’ he replied, angrily. And, with the heated eloquence of youth, he recounted the destructive course of action to which Madame de Restaud’s vanity had driven her, the fatal crisis triggered by her father’s final act of devotion and what Anastasie’s lamé gown had cost. Delphine wept.
‘I’m going to look ugly,’ she thought. Her tears dried. ‘I’ll go and look after my father, I won’t leave his bedside,’ she said.
‘Ah! That’s how I wanted you to be,’ cried Rastignac.
The lanterns of five hundred carriages illuminated the approach to the Hôtel de Beauséant. Two gendarmes guarded the brightly lit door, mounted on spirited horses. The beau monde had turned out in such great numbers, and everyone was so eager to see this fashionable woman at the moment of her downfall, that the reception rooms on the ground floor of the mansion were already full by the time Madame de Nucingen and Rastignac were announced. Not since the time the whole court rushed to see the Grande Mademoiselle,210 when Louis XIV snatched her lover away from her, had there been an affair of the heart as spectacularly catastrophic as that of Madame de Beauséant. In this case, the last daughter of the near-royal House of Burgundy showed herself to be superior to the wrongs done to her, and, to the last, held sway over the society whose vanities she had only tolerated as long as they served the triumph of her passion. The most beautiful women in Paris made her reception rooms sparkle with their dresses and their smiles. The most distinguished courtiers, ambassadors, ministers, all kinds of illustrious figures, decorated with crosses, medals and many-coloured sashes, thronged around the vicomtesse. The melodies played by the orchestra echoed off the gilt mouldings of this palace, which, as far as its queen was concerned, was deserted.
Madame de Beauséant stood at the entrance to her outer drawing room to receive her so-called friends. Dressed in white, without a single ornament in her simply braided hair, she seemed calm and showed neither pain, nor pride, nor feigned gaiety. No one could read what was in her soul. She might have been a Niobe made of marble.211 The smiles she gave her closest friends may have been a little derisive at times; but she seemed to everyone to be so very much herself, and did such a good job of appearing just as she was when at her happiest, that even the hardest-hearted were full of admiration for her, just as young Roman women would applaud the gladiator who managed a smile as he took his last breath. Fashionable society appeared to have turned out in all its finery to bid farewell to one of its sovereigns.
‘I was afraid you wouldn’t come,’ she said to Rastignac.
‘Madame,’ he replied, in a voi
ce choked with emotion, hearing a reproach in her words; ‘I have come and will be the last to leave.’
‘Good,’ she said, taking his hand. ‘You’re possibly the only person here that I can trust. Dear friend, be sure to fall in love with a woman you’ll always be able to love. Never leave a woman in the lurch.’
She took Rastignac’s arm and led him to a sofa in the drawing room where the gaming tables were.
‘Go and call on the marquis,’ she said. ‘Jacques, my valet, will take you there and give you a letter for him. I’m asking him to return my correspondence. I’d like to believe that he’ll give you all of it. If you come back with my letters, go up to my room. Someone will come and tell me.’
She rose to greet the Duchesse de Langeais, her best friend, who had also just arrived. Rastignac left and asked for the Marquis d’Ajuda at the Hôtel de Rochefide, where he was due to spend the evening, and where he found him. The marquis took him to his house, handed the student a box and said: ‘They’re all in there.’ He seemed inclined to talk to Eugène, perhaps to ask him about the events of the ball and the vicomtesse, perhaps to confess that he was already in despair at his marriage, as he would be, later; but his eyes had a proud glint in them and he was, regrettably, brave enough to keep his finest feelings to himself. He clasped Eugène’s hand with sadness and affection and sent him on his way.
Eugène went back to the Hôtel de Beauséant and was let into the vicomtesse’s room, where he watched the final preparations for her departure. He sat down by the fire, stared at the cedarwood casket and sank into the deepest melancholy. In his eyes, Madame de Beauséant had taken on the dimension of a goddess in the Iliad.
‘Ah! Dear friend,’ said the vicomtesse as she came in, pressing Rastignac’s shoulder with her hand.
He turned to see his cousin in tears, her eyes raised, one hand trembling, the other lifted. She abruptly took hold of the box, put it on the fire and watched it burn.
‘Everyone is dancing! They arrived on time, but death will come late. Sshh! dear friend,’ she said, putting her finger to Rastignac’s lips to stop him speaking. ‘This is the last I’ll see of Paris and fashionable society. At five o’clock in the morning, I’m going to leave and bury myself in deepest Normandy. I’ve had since three o’clock this afternoon to make my preparations, sign documents, see to my affairs; I’ve been unable to send anyone to …’ She stopped. ‘I never doubted that he’d be with …’ She stopped again, overcome with grief. At times like these, all is suffering and certain words cannot be spoken aloud. ‘Anyhow,’ she went on, ‘I was counting on you for this final service tonight. I’d like to give you a token of my friendship. I’ll think of you often, you who have seemed to me so good and noble, so young and candid, in a world where these qualities are so hard to find. I hope you will think of me from time to time. I’d like you to have this,’ she said, looking round; ‘it’s the box I kept my gloves in. Each time I took a pair from it on my way out to a ball or to the opera, I felt beautiful, because I was happy, and only ever left some pleasant thought inside when I touched it: there’s a lot of me in there, a whole other Madame de Beauséant who no longer exists. Please accept it; I’ll have it brought to your rooms in the Rue d’Artois. Madame de Nucingen is on fine form this evening, love her well. Although we’ll never see each other again, dear friend, you who have been so good to me, be sure that I’ll pray for you. Let’s go down; I don’t want them to think I’m crying. All eternity lies before me, I’ll be alone there and no one will ask me to account for my tears. Let me take one last look at this room.’ She paused. Then, after covering her eyes with a hand for a moment, she dabbed them, bathed them in cold water and took the student’s arm. ‘Onwards!’ she said.
Rastignac had never felt such strong emotion as he did now, sensing so much nobly contained suffering in the pressure of her hand on his arm. On returning to the ball, Eugène accompanied Madame de Beauséant on a turn around the room, a last, thoughtful gesture on the part of that generous woman.
He soon spotted the two sisters, Madame de Restaud and Madame de Nucingen. The comtesse looked magnificent with all her diamonds on display, although they must have been burning into her; this was the last time she would ever wear them. Despite the strength of her pride and her love, she was finding it hard to hold her head up high with her husband’s eyes upon her. It was a sight which did nothing to lessen the sadness of Rastignac’s thoughts. Behind the two sisters’ jewels, he could see the pallet on which old man Goriot lay dying. The comtesse, mistaking his melancholy air, took her arm out of his.
‘Off you go! Don’t let me stand in the way of your pleasure,’ she said.
Eugène was soon claimed by Delphine, delighted with her success and keen to lay at his feet the tributes she had received from these people whom she hoped would accept her.
‘What do you think of Nasie?’ she asked him.
‘She has cashed in212 everything up to and including her father’s death.’
At around four in the morning, the crowds in the reception rooms began to thin. The music petered out soon after. Rastignac and the Duchesse de Langeais found themselves alone in the main drawing room. The vicomtesse, thinking to find the student alone there, came in after bidding farewell to Monsieur de Beauséant, who eventually went to bed, still saying to her: ‘You’re wrong, my dear, to go and shut yourself away at your age! Stay here with us.’
When she saw the duchesse, Madame de Beauséant was unable to suppress a cry.
‘I’ve found you out, Clara,’ said Madame de Langeais. ‘You’re leaving, never to return; but I won’t let you go before you’ve heard what I have to say and we’ve understood each other.’ She took her friend by the arm, led her into the next room and there, looking at her with tears in her eyes, put her arms around her and kissed her on both cheeks. ‘I don’t want to bid you a cold farewell, my dear; the remorse would be too heavy to bear. You may count on me as you would yourself. You showed true greatness this evening, I felt worthy of you and want to prove it. I have done you wrong at times, I haven’t always behaved well towards you. Forgive me, my dear: I disavow everything that might have wounded you, I wish I could take back my words. Our souls are united by a common grief and I don’t know which of us will suffer more. Monsieur de Montriveau wasn’t here this evening and you know what that means. No one who has seen you tonight at the ball, Clara, will ever forget you. I myself shall make one last attempt.213 If I fail, I’ll enter a convent! Where will you go?’
‘To Normandy, to Courcelles, to love and to pray, until the day when God releases me from the world.
‘Come in, Monsieur de Rastignac,’ said the vicomtesse, her voice choked with emotion, remembering that the young man was waiting. The student went down on one knee, took his cousin’s hand and kissed it. ‘Farewell Antoinette!’ Madame de Beauséant went on; ‘be happy. As for you, you are happy, you’re young, you have something to believe in,’ she said to the student. ‘I’ll depart this world with sacred, sincere feelings around me, as the dying sometimes do, if they have that good fortune.’
Rastignac left at around five o’clock in the morning, after seeing Madame de Beauséant into the berlin she was to travel in and after she’d bid him a last tear-washed adieu, proving that not even the highest-ranking members of society are exempt from the laws of the heart and do not live free of all sorrows, as those who pay court to the common people would have them believe. Eugène returned to the Maison Vauquer on foot, in cold, wet weather. His education was coming to an end.
‘There’s no hope for poor old Goriot,’ Bianchon said to Rastignac when he stepped into his neighbour’s room.
‘My friend,’ Eugène said to him, watching the old man sleeping, ‘keep on following the humble destiny to which you have limited your desires. I myself am in hell and must stay there. Whatever terrible things you hear about society, believe them all! Not even a Juvenal could do justice to the horrors that lurk beneath its gold and jewels.’
VI
The next day, Rastignac was woken at two in the afternoon by Bianchon, who needed to go out, and asked him to look after old man Goriot, whose condition had sharply deteriorated that morning.
‘The old man doesn’t have two days, maybe not even six hours, left to live,’ said the medical student, ‘and yet we can’t stop fighting the illness. He needs expensive treatments. We can nurse him here, but I haven’t a sou. I’ve turned his pockets inside out, looked in his cupboards – nothing. I questioned him in one of his more lucid moments and he told me he didn’t have a liard to his name. How much have you got?’
‘I only have twenty francs, but I’ll go and gamble them and win more.’
‘What if you lose?’
‘I’ll ask his sons-in-law and his daughters for the money.’
‘And what if they don’t give you any?’ replied Bianchon. ‘At the moment, finding money isn’t the most urgent priority; the old man needs his legs wrapping in a hot mustard poultice from his feet to the middle of his thighs. If he cries out, it means there’s life in him yet. You know what to do. Christophe will help you. In the meantime, I’ll go to the apothecary’s and stand surety for the medication we need. It’s a shame the poor old man couldn’t be moved to our hospice; he’d have been more comfortable there. Now, come with me so I can settle you in and don’t leave him until I’m back.’
Old Man Goriot Page 29