Although the way was now clear for Rastignac to marry the enormously wealthy Victorine, he paid court instead to Delphine, the Baroness de Nucingen, and dined with her every night. Old Goriot was informed of the intrigue by the baroness's maid. He did not resent but rather encouraged the liaison, and spent his last ten thousand francs in furnishing a suite of apartments for the young couple, on condition that he was to be allowed to occupy an adjoining room, and see his daughter every day.
IV.--Old Goriot's Death-Bed
The Viscomtesse de Beauséant was broken-hearted when the marriage of her lover was accomplished, but to maintain a brave spirit in the face of society she gave a farewell ball before retiring to her country estate. Among those invited was the Countess de Restaud, who ordered a rich costume for the occasion, which, however, she was unable to pay for. Her husband, the count, insisted on her appearing at the ball and wearing the family diamonds, which she had pawned to discharge her lover's gambling debts, and which had been redeemed to save the family honour. Anastasie sent her maid to Old Goriot, who rose from a sick-bed, sold his last forks and spoons for six hundred francs, pledged his annuity for four hundred francs, and so raised a thousand, which enabled Anastasie to obtain the gown and shine at the ball. Through Rastignac's influence, Delphine, Baroness de Nucingen, received from the viscomtesse a ticket for the dance, and insisted on going, as Rastignac declared "even over the dead body of her father," to challenge her sister's social precedence at the supreme society function. The ball was the most brilliant of the Parisian season. Both Goriot's daughters satisfied their selfish ambitions and gave never a thought to their old parent in the wretched Maison Vauquer.
For Old Goriot was sick unto death. His garret was bare; the walls dripped with moisture; the floor was damp; the bed was comfortless, and the few faggots which made the handful of fire had been bought only by the money got from pawning Eugène's watch. Christophe, the man servant, was sent by Rastignac to tell the daughters of their father's condition.
"Tell them that I am not very well," said Old Goriot; "that I should like to see them, to kiss them before I die."
By and by, when the messenger had gone, the old man said: "I don't want to die. To die, my good Eugène, is--not to see them there, where I am going. How lonely I shall be! Hell, to a father, is to be without his children. Tell me, if I go to heaven, can I come back in spirit and hover near them? You saw them at the ball; they did not know that I was ill, did they?"
On the return of the messenger, Old Goriot was told that both his daughters refused to come and see him. Delphine was too tired and sleepy; Anastasie was discussing with her husband the future disposition of her marriage portion. Then alternately Goriot blamed his daughters and pardoned their unfilial and selfish behaviour.
"My daughters were my vice--my mistresses. Oh, they will come! Come, my darlings! A kiss, a last kiss, the viaticum of your father! I am justly punished; my children were good, and I have spoiled them; on my head be their sins. I alone am guilty; but guilty through love." Eugène tried to soothe the old man by saying that he would go himself to fetch his daughters; but Goriot kept muttering in his semi-delirium. "Here, Nasie! here Delphine, come to your father who has been so good to you, and who is dying! Are they coming? No? Am I to die like a dog? This is my reward; forsaken, abandoned! They are wicked; they are criminal. I hate them. I will rise from my coffin to curse them. Oh, this is horrible! Ah, it is my sons-in-law who keep them away from me!"
"My good Old Goriot," said Eugène, "be calm."
"Not to see them--it is the agony of death!"
"You shall see them."
"Ah! my angels!"
And with these feeble words, Old Goriot sank back on the pillow and breathed his last.
Anastasie did come to the death-chamber, but too late. "I could not escape soon enough," she said to Rastignac. The student smiled sadly, and Madame de Restaud took her father's hand and kissed it, saying, "Forgive me, my father."
Goriot had a pauper's funeral. The aristocratic sons-in-law refused to pay the expenses of the burial. These were scraped together with difficulty by Eugène de Rastignac, the law student, and Bianchon, the medical student, who had nursed him with loving tenderness to the last. At the graveside in Père Lachaise, Eugène and Christophe were the only mourners; Bianchon's duties detained him at the hospital. When the body of Old Goriot was lowered into the earth, the clergy recited a short prayer--all that could be given for the student's money. The pall of night was falling; the mist struck a chill on Eugène's nerves, and when he took a last glance at the shell containing all that was mortal of his old friend, he buried the last tear of his young manhood--a tear drawn by a sacred emotion from a pure heart.
Eugène wandered to the most elevated part of the cemetery, whence he surveyed that portion of the city between the Place Vendome and the dome of the Invalides, where lives that world of fashion which he had hungered to penetrate. With bitterness he muttered: "Now there is relentless war between us." And as the first act of defiance which he had sworn against society, Rastignac went to dine with Madame Nucingen!
The Magic Skin
In no other work is the special quality of Balzac's genius displayed so completely as in "La Peau de Chagrin," which we render as "The Magic Skin." Published in 1831, it is the earliest in date of his veritable masterpieces, and the finest in conception. There is no novel more soberly true to life than this strange fairy tale. His hero, the Marquis de Valentin, is a young aristocrat of the Byronic type. He rejects the simple joys and stern realities of human existence; he wants more than life can give. He gets what he wants. He obtains a magic skin which enables him to fulfil his every wish. But in so doing he uses up his vital powers. Such is the idea which makes this fantastic story a profound philosophical study.
I.--The Seal of Solomon
On a dull morning towards the end of October, 1830, a tall, pale, and rather handsome young man came to the Pont Royal, and leaned over the bridge, and gazed with wild and yet resolute eyes at the swirling waters below. Just as he was preparing to leap down, a ragged old woman passed by.
"Wretched weather for drowning oneself, isn't it?" she said, with a grin. "How cold and dirty the Seine looks!"
The young man turned and smiled at her in the delirium of his courage. Then, suddenly he shuddered. On a shed by the Tuileries he saw, written in large letters: "Help for the drowned." He foresaw the whole thing. A boat would put off to the rescue. If the rowers did not smash his skull in with their oars as he came to the surface, he would be taken to the shed and revived. If he were dead, a crowd would collect, newspaper men would come; his body would be recognised; and the Press would publish the news of the suicide of Raphael de Valentin. No! He would wait till nightfall, and then in a decent, private manner bequeath an unrecognizable corpse to a world that had disregarded his genius.