“But, Sylvie, you put their names together as if —”
“As if what?” said Sylvie, bursting into a guffaw.
“The two of them make a pair.”
“It is a strange thing, isn’t it, Sylvie, how M. Vautrin got in last night after Christophe had bolted the door?”
“Not at all, madame.
Christophe heard M. Vautrin, and went down and undid the door.
And here are you imagining that —?”
“Give me my bodice, and be quick and get breakfast ready.
Dish up the rest of the mutton with the potatoes, and you can put the stewed pears on the table, those at five a penny.”
A few moments later Mme. Vauquer came down, just in time to see the cat knock down a plate that covered a bowl of milk, and begin to lap in all haste.
“Mistigris!” she cried.
The cat fled, but promptly returned to rub against her ankles.
“Oh! yes, you can wheedle, you old hypocrite!” she said.
“Sylvie!
Sylvie!”
“Yes, madame; what is it?”
“Just see what the cat has done!”
“It is all that stupid Christophe’s fault. I told him to stop and lay the table.
What has become of him?
Don’t you worry, madame; Father Goriot shall have it.
I will fill it up with water, and he won’t know the difference; he never notices anything, not even what he eats.”
“I wonder where the old heathen can have gone?” said Mme. Vauquer, setting the plates round the table.
“Who knows? He is up to all sorts of tricks.”
“I have overslept myself,” said Mme. Vauquer.
“But madame looks as fresh as a rose, all the same.”
The door bell rang at that moment, and Vautrin came through the sitting-room, singing loudly:
“ ’Tis the same old story everywhere, A roving heart and a roving glance..
“Oh!
Mamma Vauquer! good-morning!” he cried at the sight of his hostess, and he put his arm gaily round her waist.
“There! have done —”
“‘Impertinence!’ Say it!” he answered.
“Come, say it!
Now, isn’t that what you really mean?
Stop a bit, I will help you to set the table.
Ah! I am a nice man, am I not?
“For the locks of brown and the golden hair A sighing lover . . .
“Oh! I have just seen something so funny —
. . . . led by chance.”
“What?” asked the widow.
“Father Goriot in the goldsmith’s shop in the Rue Dauphine at half-past eight this morning.
They buy old spoons and forks and gold lace there, and Goriot sold a piece of silver plate for a good round sum. It had been twisted out of shape very neatly for a man that’s not used to the trade.”
“Really? You don’t say so?”
“Yes.
One of my friends is expatriating himself; I had been to see him off on board the Royal Mail steamer, and was coming back here. I waited after that to see what Father Goriot would do; it is a comical affair.
He came back to this quarter of the world, to the Rue des Gres, and went into a money-lender’s house; everybody knows him, Gobseck, a stuck-up rascal, that would make dominoes out of his father’s bones, a Turk, a heathen, an old Jew, a Greek; it would be a difficult matter to rob him, for he puts all his coin into the Bank.”
“Then what was Father Goriot doing there?”
“Doing?” said Vautrin. “Nothing; he was bent on his own undoing.
He is a simpleton, stupid enough to ruin himself by running after —”
“There he is!” cried Sylvie.
“Christophe,” cried Father Goriot’s voice, “come upstairs with me.”