Delphine! Nasie! come, be sensible; you are both in the wrong.
Come, Dedel,” he added, looking through his tears at the Baroness, “she must have twelve thousand francs, you see; let us see if we can find them for her.
Oh, my girls, do not look at each other like that!” and he sank on his knees beside Delphine.
“Ask her to forgive you — just to please me,” he said in her ear. “She is more miserable than you are. Come now, Dedel.”
“Poor Nasie!” said Delphine, alarmed at the wild extravagant grief in her father’s face, “I was in the wrong, kiss me —”
“Ah! that is like balm to my heart,” cried Father Goriot.
“But how are we to find twelve thousand francs? I might offer myself as a substitute in the army —”
“Oh! father dear!” they both cried, flinging their arms about him. “No, no!”
“God reward you for the thought. We are not worth it, are we, Nasie?” asked Delphine.
“And besides, father dear, it would only be a drop in the bucket,” observed the Countess.
“But is flesh and blood worth nothing?” cried the old man in his despair.
“I would give body and soul to save you, Nasie.
I would do a murder for the man who would rescue you.
I would do, as Vautrin did, go to the hulks, go —” he stopped as if struck by a thunderbolt, and put both hands to his head. “Nothing left!” he cried, tearing his hair.
“If I only knew of a way to steal money, but it is so hard to do it, and then you can’t set to work by yourself, and it takes time to rob a bank.
Yes, it is time I was dead; there is nothing left me to do but to die.
I am no good in the world; I am no longer a father!
No.
She has come to me in her extremity, and, wretch that I am, I have nothing to give her.
Ah! you put your money into a life annuity, old scoundrel; and had you not daughters?
You did not love them.
Die, die in a ditch, like the dog that you are!
Yes, I am worse than a dog; a beast would not have done as I have done!
Oh! my head . . . it throbs as if it would burst.”
“Papa!” cried both the young women at once, “do, pray, be reasonable!” and they clung to him to prevent him from dashing his head against the wall.
There was a sound of sobbing.
Eugene, greatly alarmed, took the bill that bore Vautrin’s signature, saw that the stamp would suffice for a larger sum, altered the figures, made it into a regular bill for twelve thousand francs, payable to Goriot’s order, and went to his neighbor’s room.
“Here is the money, madame,” he said, handing the piece of paper to her.
“I was asleep; your conversation awoke me, and by this means I learned all that I owed to M. Goriot.
This bill can be discounted, and I shall meet it punctually at the due date.”
The Countess stood motionless and speechless, but she held the bill in her fingers.
“Delphine,” she said, with a white face, and her whole frame quivering with indignation, anger, and rage, “I forgave you everything; God is my witness that I forgave you, but I cannot forgive this!
So this gentleman was there all the time, and you knew it!
Your petty spite has let you to wreak your vengeance on me by betraying my secrets, my life, my children’s lives, my shame, my honor!
There, you are nothing to me any longer. I hate you. I will do all that I can to injure you. I will . . . ”
Anger paralyzed her; the words died in her dry parched throat.
“Why, he is my son, my child; he is your brother, your preserver!” cried Goriot.
“Kiss his hand, Nasie!
Stay, I will embrace him myself,” he said, straining Eugene to his breast in a frenzied clasp.
“Oh my boy!
I will be more than a father to you; if I had God’s power, I would fling worlds at your feet.
Why don’t you kiss him, Nasie?
He is not a man, but an angel, a angel out of heaven.”
“Never mind her, father; she is mad just now.”
“Mad! am I?
And what are you?” cried Mme. de Restaud.
“Children, children, I shall die if you go on like this,” cried the old man, and he staggered and fell on the bed as if a bullet had struck him. —“They are killing me between them,” he said to himself.
The Countess fixed her eyes on Eugene, who stood stock still; all his faculties were numbed by this violent scene.
“Sir? . . . ” she said, doubt and inquiry in her face, tone, and bearing; she took no notice now of her father nor of Delphine, who was hastily unfastening his waistcoat.
“Madame,” said Eugene, answering the question before it was asked, “I will meet the bill, and keep silence about it.”