Father Goriot HonorĂ© de Balzac (love books to read .TXT) đ
- Author: Honoré de Balzac
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What had brought about this decline and fall? Conjecture was keen, but investigation was difficult. Father Goriot was not communicative; in the sham countessâ phrase he was âa curmudgeon.â Empty-headed people who babble about their own affairs because they have nothing else to occupy them, naturally conclude that if people say nothing of their doings it is because their doings will not bear being talked about; so the highly respectable merchant became a scoundrel, and the late beau was an old rogue. Opinion fluctuated. Sometimes, according to Vautrin, who came about this time to live in the Maison Vauquer, Father Goriot was a man who went on âChange and dabbled (to use the sufficiently expressive language of the Stock Exchange) in stocks and shares after he had ruined himself by heavy speculation. Sometimes it was held that he was one of those petty gamblers who nightly play for small stakes until they win a few francs. A theory that he was a detective in the employ of the Home Office found favor at one time, but Vautrin urged that âGoriot was not sharp enough for one of that sort.â There were yet other solutions; Father Goriot was a skinflint, a shark of a moneylender, a man who lived by selling lottery tickets. He was by turns all the most mysterious brood of vice and shame and misery; yet, however vile his life might be, the feeling of repulsion which he aroused in others was not so strong that he must be banished from their societyâ âhe paid his way. Besides, Goriot had his uses, everyone vented his spleen or sharpened his wit on him; he was pelted with jokes and belabored with hard words. The general consensus of opinion was in favor of a theory which seemed the most likely; this was Mme. Vauquerâs view. According to her, the man so well preserved at his time of life, as sound as her eyesight, with whom a woman might be very happy, was a libertine who had strange tastes. These are the facts upon which Mme. Vauquerâs slanders were based.
Early one morning, some few months after the departure of the unlucky Countess who had managed to live for six months at the widowâs expense, Mme. Vauquer (not yet dressed) heard the rustle of a silk dress and a young womanâs light footstep on the stair; someone was going to Goriotâs room. He seemed to expect the visit, for his door stood ajar. The portly Sylvie presently came up to tell her mistress that a girl too pretty to be honest, âdressed like a goddess,â and not a speck of mud on her laced cashmere boots, had glided in from the street like a snake, had found the kitchen, and asked for M. Goriotâs room. Mme. Vauquer and the cook, listening, overheard several words affectionately spoken during the visit, which lasted for some time. When M. Goriot went downstairs with the lady, the stout Sylvie forthwith took her basket and followed the lover-like couple, under pretext of going to do her marketing.
âM. Goriot must be awfully rich, all the same, madame,â she reported on her return, âto keep her in such style. Just imagine it! There was a splendid carriage waiting at the corner of the Place de lâEstrapade, and she got into it.â
While they were at dinner that evening, Mme. Vauquer went to the window and drew the curtain, as the sun was shining into Goriotâs eyes.
âYou are beloved of fair ladies, M. Goriotâ âthe sun seeks you out,â she said, alluding to his visitor. âPeste! you have good taste; she was very pretty.â
âThat was my daughter,â he said, with a kind of pride in his voice, and the rest chose to consider this as the fatuity of an old man who wishes to save appearances.
A month after this visit M. Goriot received another. The same daughter who had come to see him that morning came again after dinner, this time in evening dress. The boarders, in deep discussion in the dining-room, caught a glimpse of a lovely, fair-haired woman, slender, graceful, and much too distinguished-looking to be a daughter of Father Goriotâs.
âTwo of them!â cried the portly Sylvie, who did not recognize the lady of the first visit.
A few days later, and another young ladyâ âa tall, well-moulded brunette, with dark hair and bright eyesâ âcame to ask for M. Goriot.
âThree of them!â said Sylvie.
Then the second daughter, who had first come in the morning to see her father, came shortly afterwards in the evening. She wore a ball dress, and came in a carriage.
âFour of them!â commented Mme. Vauquer and her plump handmaid. Sylvie saw not a trace of resemblance between this great lady and the girl in her simple morning dress who had entered her kitchen on the occasion of her first visit.
At that time Goriot was paying twelve hundred francs a year to his landlady, and Mme. Vauquer saw nothing out of the common in the fact that a rich man had four or five mistresses; nay, she thought it very knowing of him to pass them off as his daughters. She was not at all inclined to draw a hard-and-fast line, or to take umbrage at his sending for them to the Maison Vauquer; yet, inasmuch as these visits explained her boarderâs indifference to her, she went so far (at the end of the second year) as to speak of him as an âugly old wretch.â When at length her boarder declined to nine hundred francs a year, she asked him very insolently what he took her house to be, after meeting one of these ladies on the stairs. Father Goriot answered that the lady was his eldest daughter.
âSo you have two or three dozen daughters, have you?â said Mme. Vauquer sharply.
âI have only two,â her boarder answered meekly, like a ruined man who is broken in to all the cruel usage of misfortune.
Towards the end of the third
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