Just then Goriot came in, and Bianchon and a few of the boarders likewise appeared.
“That is just as I intended.” Vautrin said.
“You know quite well what you are about.
Good, my little eaglet!
You are born to command, you are strong, you stand firm on your feet, you are game! I respect you.”
He made as though he would take Eugene’s hand, but Rastignac hastily withdrew it, sank into a chair, and turned ghastly pale; it seemed to him that there was a sea of blood before his eyes.
“Oh! so we still have a few dubious tatters of the swaddling clothes of virtue about us!” murmured Vautrin.
“But Papa Doliban has three millions; I know the amount of his fortune.
Once have her dowry in your hands, and your character will be as white as the bride’s white dress, even in your own eyes.”
Rastignac hesitated no longer.
He made up his mind that he would go that evening to warn the Taillefers, father and son.
But just as Vautrin left him, Father Goriot came up and said in his ear,
“You look melancholy, my boy; I will cheer you up.
Come with me.”
The old vermicelli dealer lighted his dip at one of the lamps as he spoke.
Eugene went with him, his curiosity had been aroused.
“Let us go up to your room,” the worthy soul remarked, when he had asked Sylvie for the law student’s key.
“This morning,” he resumed, “you thought that SHE did not care about you, did you not? Eh?
She would have nothing to say to you, and you went away out of humor and out of heart.
Stuff and rubbish!
She wanted you to go because she was expecting me!
Now do you understand?
We were to complete the arrangements for taking some chambers for you, a jewel of a place, you are to move into it in three days’ time.
Don’t split upon me.
She wants it to be a surprise; but I couldn’t bear to keep the secret from you.
You will be in the Rue d’Artois, only a step or two from the Rue Saint-Lazare, and you are to be housed like a prince!
Any one might have thought we were furnishing the house for a bride.
Oh! we have done a lot of things in the last month, and you knew nothing about it.
My attorney has appeared on the scene, and my daughter is to have thirty-six thousand francs a year, the interest on her money, and I shall insist on having her eight hundred thousand invested in sound securities, landed property that won’t run away.”
Eugene was dumb. He folded his arms and paced up and down in his cheerless, untidy room.
Father Goriot waited till the student’s back was turned, and seized the opportunity to go to the chimney-piece and set upon it a little red morocco case with Rastignac’s arms stamped in gold on the leather.
“My dear boy,” said the kind soul, “I have been up to the eyes in this business.
You see, there was plenty of selfishness on my part; I have an interested motive in helping you to change lodgings.
You will not refuse me if I ask you something; will you, eh?”
“What is it?”
“There is a room on the fifth floor, up above your rooms, that is to let along with them; that is where I am going to live, isn’t that so?
I am getting old: I am too far from my girls.
I shall not be in the way, but I shall be there, that is all.
You will come and talk to me about her every evening. It will not put you about, will it?
I shall have gone to bed before you come in, but I shall hear you come up, and I shall say to myself,
‘He has just seen my little Delphine.
He has been to a dance with her, and she is happy, thanks to him.’
If I were ill, it would do my heart good to hear you moving about below, to know when you leave the house and when you come in. It is only a step to the Champs-Elysees, where they go every day, so I shall be sure of seeing them, whereas now I am sometimes too late.
And then — perhaps she may come to see you!
I shall hear her, I shall see her in her soft quilted pelisse tripping about as daintily as a kitten.
In this one month she has become my little girl again, so light-hearted and gay.
Her soul is recovering, and her happiness is owing to you!
Oh! I would do impossibilities for you.
Only just now she said to me,
‘I am very happy, papa!’