MME. VAUQUER (née de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the past forty years has kept a lodging-house in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, in the district that lies between the Latin Quarter and the Faubourg Saint-Marcel. Her house (known in the neighborhood as the Maison Vauquer) receives men and women, old and young, and no word has ever been breathed against her respectable establishment; but, at the same time, it must be said that as a matter of fact no young woman has been under her roof for thirty years, and that if a young man stays there for any length of time it is a sure sign that his allowance must be of the slenderest. In 1819, however, the time when this drama opens, there was an almost penniless young girl among Mme. Vauquer's boarders.
That word drama has been somewhat discredited of late; it has been overworked and twisted to strange uses in these days of dolorous literature; but it must do service again here, not because this story is dramatic in the restricted sense of the word, but because some tears may perhaps be shed intra et extra muros before it is over.
Will any one without the walls of Paris understand it? It is open to doubt. The only audience who could appreciate the results of close observation, the careful reproduction of minute detail and local color, are dwellers between the heights of Montrouge and Montmartre, in a vale of crumbling stucco watered by streams of black mud, a vale of sorrows which are real and of joys too often hollow; but this audience is so accustomed to terrible sensations that only some unimaginable and well-nigh impossible woe could produce any lasting impression there. Now and again there are tragedies so awful and so grand by reason of the complication of virtues and vices that bring them about, that egoism and selfishness are forced to pause and are moved to pity; but the impression that they receive is like a luscious fruit, soon consumed. Civilization, like the car of Juggernaut, is scarcely stayed perceptibly in its progress by a heart less easy to break than the others that lie in its course; this also is broken, and Civilization continues on her course triumphant. And you, too, will do the like; you who with this book in your white hand will sink back among the cushions of your armchair, and say to yourself: "Perhaps this may amuse me." You will read the story of Old Goriot's secret woes, and, dining thereafter with an unspoiled appetite, will lay the blame of your insensibility upon the writer, and accuse him of exaggeration, of writing romances. Ah! once for all, this drama is neither a fiction nor a romance! All is true—so true that every one can discern the elements of the tragedy in his own house, perhaps in his own heart.
The lodging-house is Mme. Vauquer's own property. It is still standing at the lower end of the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, just where the road slopes so sharply down to the Rue de l'Arbalète that wheeled traffic seldom passes that way, because it is so stony and steep. This position is sufficient to account for the silence prevalent in the streets shut in between the dome of the Panthéon and the dome of the Val-de-Grace, two conspicuous public buildings which give a yellowish tone to the landscape and darken the whole district that lies beneath the shadow of their leaden-hued cupolas.
In that district the pavements are clean and dry, there is neither mud nor water in the gutters, grass grows in the chinks of the walls. The most heedless passer-by feels the depressing influences of a place where the sound of wheels creates a sensation; there is a grim look about the houses, a suggestion of a jail about those high garden walls. A Parisian straying into a suburb apparently composed of lodging-houses and public institutions would see poverty and dullness, old age lying down to die, and joyous youth condemned to drudgery. It is the ugliest quarter of Paris, and, it may be added, the least known. But, before all things, the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève is like a bronze frame for a picture for which the mind cannot be too well prepared by the contemplation of sad hues and sober images. Even so, step by step the daylight decreases, and the cicerone's droning voice grows hollower as the traveler descends into the Catacombs. The comparison holds good! Who shall say which is more ghastly, the sight of the bleached skulls or of dried-up human hearts?
The front of the lodging-house is at right angles to the road, and looks out upon a little garden, so that you see the side of the house in section, as it were, from the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève. Beneath the wall of the house front there lies a channel, a fathom wide, paved with cobble-stones, and beside it runs a graveled walk bordered by geraniums and oleanders and pomegranates set in great blue and white glazed earthenware pots. Access into the graveled walk is afforded by a door, above which the words MAISON VAUQUER may be read, and beneath, in rather smaller letters, "Lodgings for both sexes, and others. "
During the day a glimpse into the garden is easily obtained through a wicket to which a bell is attached. On the opposite wall, at the further end of the graveled walk, a green marble arch was painted once upon a time by a local artist, and in this semblance of a shrine a statue representing Cupid is installed; a Parisian Cupid, so blistered and disfigured that he looks like a candidate for one of the adjacent hospitals, and might suggest an allegory to lovers of symbolism. The half-obliterated inscription on the pedestal beneath determines the date of this work of art, for it bears witness to the widespread enthusiasm felt for Voltaire on his return to Paris in 1777:
Whoe'er thou art, thy master see;
He is, or was, or ought to be.
At night the wicket gate is replaced by a solid door. The little garden is no wider than the front of the house; it is shut in between the wall of the street and the partition wall of the neighboring house. A mantle of ivy conceals the bricks and attracts the eyes of passers-by to an effect which is picturesque in Paris, for each of the walls is covered with trellised vines that yield a scanty dusty crop of fruit, and furnish besides a subject of conversation for Mme. Vauquer and her lodgers; every year the widow trembles for her vintage.
A straight path beneath the walls on either side of the garden leads to a clump of lime-trees at the further end of it; line-trees, as Mme. Vauquer persists in calling them, in spite of the fact that she was a de Conflans, and regardless of repeated corrections from her lodgers.
The central space between the walks is filled with artichokes and rows of pyramid fruit-trees, and surrounded by a border of lettuce, pot-herbs, and parsley. Under the lime-trees there are a few green-painted garden seats and a wooden table, and hither, during the dog-days, such of the lodgers as are rich enough to indulge in a cup of coffee come to take their pleasure, though it is hot enough to roast eggs even in the shade.
The house itself is three stories high, without counting the attics under the roof. It is built of rough stone, and covered with the yellowish stucco that gives a mean appearance to almost every house in Paris. There are five windows in each story in the front of the house; all the blinds visible through the small square panes are drawn up awry, so that the lines are all at cross purposes. At the side of the house there are but two windows on each floor, and the lowest of all are adorned with a heavy iron grating.
Behind the house a yard extends for some twenty feet, a space inhabited by a happy family of pigs, poultry, and rabbits; the wood-shed is situated on the further side, and on the wall between the wood-shed and the kitchen window hangs the meat-safe, just above the place where the sink discharges its greasy streams. The cook sweeps all the refuse out through a little door into the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, and frequently cleanses the yard with copious supplies of water, under pain of pestilence.
The house might have been built on purpose for its present uses. Access is given by a French window to the first room on the ground floor, a sitting-room which looks out upon the street through the two barred windows already mentioned. Another door opens out of it into the dining-room, which is separated from the kitchen by the well of the staircase, the steps being constructed partly of wood, partly of tiles, which are colored and beeswaxed. Nothing can be more depressing than the sight of that sitting-room. The furniture is covered with horse-hair woven in alternate dull and glossy stripes. There is a round table in the middle, with a black and white marble top, on which there stands, by way of ornament, the inevitable white china tea-service, covered with a half-effaced gilt network. The floor is sufficiently uneven, the wainscot rises to elbow height, and the rest of the wall space is decorated with a varnished paper, on which the principal scenes from Télémaque are depicted, the various classical personages being colored. The subject between the two windows is the banquet given by Calypso to the son of Ulysses, displayed thereon for the admiration of the boarders, and has furnished jokes these forty years to the young men who show themselves superior to their position by making fun of the dinners to which poverty condemns them. The hearth is always so clean and neat that it is evident that a fire is only kindled there on great occasions; the stone chimney-piece is adorned by a couple of vases filled with faded artificial flowers imprisoned under glass shades, on either side of a bluish marble clock in the very worst taste.
The first room exhales an odor for which there is no name in the language, and which should be called the odeur de pension. The damp atmosphere sends a chill through you as you breathe it; it has a stuffy, musty, and rancid quality; it permeates your clothing; after-dinner scents seem to be mingled in it with smells from the kitchen and scullery and the reek of a hospital. It might be possible to describe it if someone should discover a process by which to distil from the atmosphere all the nauseating elements with which it is charged by the catarrhal exhalations of every individual lodger, young or old. Yet, in spite of these stale horrors, the sitting-room is as charming and as delicately perfumed as a boudoir, when compared with the adjoining dining-room.
The paneled walls of that apartment were once painted some color, now a matter of conjecture, for the surface is encrusted with accumulated layers of grimy deposit, which cover it with fantastic outlines. A collection of dim-ribbed glass decanters, metal discs with a satin sheen on them, and piles of blue-edged earthenware plates of Tournay ware cover the sticky surfaces of the sideboards that line the room. In a corner stands a box containing a set of numbered pigeon-holes, in which the lodgers' table napkins, more or less soiled and stained with wine, are kept. Here you see that indestructible furniture never met with elsewhere, which finds its way into lodging-houses much as the wrecks of our civilization drift into hospitals for incurables. You expect in such places as these to find the weather-house whence a Capuchin issues on wet days; you look to find the execrable engravings which spoil your appetite, framed every one in a black varnished frame with a gilt beading round it; you know the sort of tortoise-shell wall-clock, inlaid with copper; the green stove, the Argand lamps, streaked with oil and dust, have met your eyes before. The oil-cloth which covers the long table is so greasy that a waggish externe will write his name on the surface, using his thumb-nail as a style. The chairs are broken-down invalids; the wretched little hempen mats slip away from under your feet without slipping away for good; and finally, the foot-warmers are miserable wrecks, hingeless, charred, broken away about the holes. It would be impossible to give an idea of the old, rotten, shaky, cranky, worm-eaten, halt, maimed, one-eyed, rickety, and ramshackle condition of the furniture without an exhaustive description, which would delay the progress of the story to an extent that impatient people would not pardon. The red tiles of the floor are full of depressions brought about by scouring and periodical renewings of color. In short, there is no illusory grace left to the poverty that reigns here; it is dire, parsimonious, concentrated, threadbare poverty; as yet it has not sunk into the mire, it is only splashed by it, and though not in rags as yet, its clothing is ready to drop to pieces.
This apartment is in all its glory at seven o'clock in the morning, when Mme. Vauquer's cat appears, announcing the near approach of his mistress, and jumps upon the sideboards to sniff at the milk in the bowls, each protected by a plate, while he purrs his morning greeting to the world. A moment later the widow shows her face; she is tricked out in a net cap attached to a false front set on awry, and shuffles into the room in her slipshod fashion. She is an oldish woman, with a bloated countenance and a nose like a parrot's beak set in the middle of it; her fat little hands (she is as sleek as a church rat) and her shapeless, slouching figure are in keeping with the room that reeks of misfortune, where hope is reduced to speculate for the meanest stakes. Mme. Vauquer alone can breathe that tainted air without being disheartened by it. Her face is as fresh as a frosty morning in autumn; there are wrinkles about the eyes that vary in their expression from the set smile of a ballet-dancer to the dark, suspicious scowl of a discounter of bills; in short, she is at once the embodiment and interpretation of her lodging-house, as surely as her lodging-house implies the existence of its mistress. You can no more imagine the one without the other than you can think of a jail without a turnkey. The unwholesome corpulence of the little woman is produced by the life she leads, just as typhus fever is bred in the tainted air of a hospital. The very knitted woolen petticoat that she wears beneath a skirt made of an old gown, with the wadding protruding through the rents in the material, is a sort of epitome of the sitting-room, the dining-room, and the little garden; it discovers the cook, it foreshadows the lodgers—the picture of the house is completed by the portrait of its mistress.
Mme. Vauquer at the age of fifty is like all women who "have seen a deal of trouble." She has the glassy eyes and innocent air of a procuress, who will wax virtuously indignant to obtain a higher price for her services, but who is quite ready to betray a Georges or a Pichegru, if a Georges or a Pichegru were in hiding and still to be betrayed, or for any other expedient that may alleviate her lot. Still, "she is a good woman at heart," said the lodgers, who believed that the widow was wholly dependent upon the money that they paid her, and sympathized when they heard her cough and groan like one of themselves.
What had M. Vauquer been? The lady was never very explicit on this head. How had he lost his money? "Through trouble," was her answer. He had treated her badly, had left her nothing but her eyes to cry over his cruelty, the house she lived in, and the privilege of pitying nobody, because, so she was wont to say, she herself had been through every possible misfortune.
Sylvie, the stout cook, hearing her mistress' shuffling footsteps, hastened to serve the lodgers' breakfasts. Beside those who lived in the house, Mme. Vauquer took boarders who came for their meals; but these externes usually only came to dinner, for which they paid thirty francs a month.
At the time when this story begins, the lodging-house contained seven inmates. The best rooms in the house were on the first story, Mme. Vauquer herself occupying the least important, while the rest were let to a Mme. Couture, the widow of a paymaster in the service of the Republic. With her lived Victorine Taillefer, a schoolgirl, to whom she filled the place of mother. These two ladies paid eighteen hundred francs a year.
The two sets of rooms on the second floor were respectively occupied by an old man named Poiret and a man of forty or thereabouts, the wearer of a black wig and dyed whiskers, who gave out that he was a retired merchant, and was addressed as M. Vautrin. Two of the four rooms on the third floor were also let—one to an elderly spinster, a Mlle. Michonneau, and the other to a retired manufacturer of vermicelli, Italian paste, and starch, who allowed the others to address him as "Old Gorito." The remaining rooms were allotted to various birds of passage, to impecunious students, who, like "Old Gorito" and Mlle. Michonneau, could only muster forty-five francs a month to pay for their board and lodging. Mme. Vauquer had little desire for lodgers of this sort; they ate too much bread, and she only took them in default of better.
At that time one of the rooms was tenanted by a law student, a young man from the neighborhood of Angoulême, one of a large family who pinched and starved themselves to spare twelve hundred francs a year for him. Misfortune had accustomed Eugène de Rastignac, for that was his name, to work. He belonged to the number of young men who know as children that their parents' hopes are centered on them, and deliberately prepare themselves for a great career, subordinating their studies from the first to this end, carefully watching the indications of the course of events, calculating the probable turn that affairs will take, that they may be the first to profit by them. But for his observant curiosity, and the skill with which he managed to introduce himself into the salons of Paris, this story would not have been colored by the tones of truth which it certainly owes to him, for they are entirely due to his penetrating sagacity and desire to fathom the mysteries of an appalling condition of things, which was concealed as carefully by the victim as by those who had brought it to pass.
Above the third story there was a garret where the linen was hung to dry, and a couple of attics. Christophe, the man-of-all-work, slept in one, and Sylvie, the stout cook, in the other. Beside the seven inmates thus enumerated, taking one year with another, some eight law or medical students dined in the house, as well as two or three regular comers who lived in the neighborhood. There were usually eighteen people at dinner, and there was room, if need be, for twenty at Mme. Vauquer's table; at breakfast, however, only the seven lodgers appeared. It was almost like a family party. Every one came down in dressing-gown and slippers, and the conversation usually turned on anything that had happened the evening before; comments on the dress or appearance of the dinner contingent were exchanged in friendly confidence.
These seven lodgers were Mme. Vauquer's spoiled children. Among them she distributed, with astronomical precision, the exact proportion of respect and attention due to the varying amounts they paid for their board. One single consideration influenced all these human beings thrown together by chance. The two second-floor lodgers only paid seventy-two francs a month. Such prices as these are confined to the Faubourg Saint-Marcel and the district between La Bourbe and the Salpêtrière; and, as might be expected, poverty, more or less apparent, weighed upon them all, Mme. Couture being the sole exception to the rule.
The dreary surroundings were reflected in the costumes of the inmates of the house; all were alike threadbare. The color of the men's coats was problematical; such shoes, in more fashionable quarters, are only to be seen lying in the gutter; the cuffs and collars were worn and frayed at the edges; every limp article of clothing looked like the ghost of its former self. The women's dresses were faded, old-fashioned, dyed and re-dyed; they wore gloves that were glazed with hard wear, much-mended lace, dingy ruffles, crumpled muslin fichus. So much for their clothing; but, for the most part, their frames were solid enough; their constitutions had weathered the storms of life; their cold, hard faces were worn like coins that have been withdrawn from circulation, but there were greedy teeth behind the withered lips. Dramas brought to a close or still in progress are foreshadowed by the sight of such actors as these, not the dramas that are played before the footlights and against a background of painted canvas, but dumb dramas of life, frost-bound dramas that sear hearts like fire, dramas that do not end with the actors' lives.
Mlle. Michonneau, that elderly young lady, screened her weak eyes from the daylight by a soiled green silk shade with a rim, an object fit to scare away the Angel of Pity himself. Her shawl, with its scanty, draggled fringe, might have covered a skeleton, so meagre and angular was the form beneath it. Yet she must have been pretty and shapely once. What corrosive had destroyed the feminine outlines? Was it trouble, or vice, or greed? Had she loved too well? Had she been a second-hand clothes dealer, or merely a courtesan? Was she expiating the flaunting triumphs of a youth overcrowded with pleasures by an old age in which she was shunned by every passer-by? Her vacant gaze sent a chill through you; her shriveled face seemed like a menace. Her voice was like the shrill, thin note of the grasshopper sounding from the thicket when winter is at hand. She said that she had nursed an old gentleman, ill of catarrh of the bladder, and left to die by his children, who thought that he had nothing left. His bequest to her, a life annuity of a thousand francs, was periodically disputed by his heirs, who mingled slander with their persecutions. In spite of the ravages of conflicting passions, her face retained some traces of its former fairness and fineness of tissue, some vestiges of the physical charms of her youth still survived.
M. Poiret was a sort of automaton. He might be seen any day sailing like a gray shadow along the walks of the Jardin des Plantes, on his head a shabby cap, a cane with an old yellow ivory handle in the tips of his thin fingers; the outspread skirts of his threadbare overcoat failed to conceal his meagre figure; his breeches hung loosely on his shrunken limbs; the thin, blue-stockinged legs trembled like those of a drunken man; there was a notable breach of continuity between the dingy white waistcoat and crumpled shirt frills and the cravat twisted about a throat like a turkey gobbler's; altogether, his appearance set people wondering whether this outlandish ghost belonged to the audacious race of the sons of Japhet who flutter about on the Boulevard Italien. What kind of toil could have so shriveled him? What devouring passions had darkened that bulbous countenance, which would have seemed outrageous as a caricature? What had he been? Well, perhaps he had been part of the machinery of justice, a clerk in the office to which the executioner sends in his accounts—so much for providing black veils for parricides, so much for sawdust, so much for pulleys and cord for the knife. Or he might have been a receiver at the door of a public slaughter-house, or a sub-inspector of nuisances. Indeed, the man appeared to have been one of the beasts of burden in our great social mill; one of those Parisian Ratons who do not even know by sight their Bertrands; a pivot in the obscure machinery that disposes of misery and things unclean; one of those men, in short, at sight of whom we are prompted to remark that: "After all, we cannot do without them."
Stately Paris ignores the existence of these faces bleached by moral or physical suffering; but then Paris is in truth an ocean that no line can plumb. You may survey its surface and describe it; but no matter what pains you take with your investigations, no matter how numerous and painstaking the toilers in this sea, there will always be lonely and unexplored regions in its depths, caverns unknown, flowers and pearls and monsters of the deep overlooked or forgotten by the divers of literature. The Maison Vauquer is one of these curious monstrosities.
Two, however, of Mme. Vauquer's boarders formed a striking contrast to the rest. There was a sickly pallor, such as is often seen in anaemic girls, in Mlle. Victorine Taillefer's face; and her unvarying expression of sadness, like her embarrassed manner and pinched look, was in keeping with the general wretchedness of the establishment in the Rue Neuve-Saint-Geneviève, which forms a background to this picture; but her face was young, there was youthfulness in her voice and elasticity in her movements. This young misfortune was not unlike a shrub newly planted in an uncongenial soil, where its leaves have already begun to wither. The outlines of her figure, revealed by her dress of the simplest and cheapest materials, were also youthful. There was the same kind of charm about her too slender form, her faintly colored face and light-brown hair, that modern poets find in mediaeval statuettes; and a sweet expression, a look of Christian resignation in the dark gray eyes. She was pretty by force of contrast; if she had been happy, she would have been charming. Happiness is the poetry of woman, as the toilette is her tinsel. If the delightful excitement of a ball had made the pale face glow with color; if the delights of a luxurious life had brought the color to the wan cheeks that were slightly hollowed already; if love had put light into the sad eyes, then Victorine might have ranked among the fairest; but she lacked the two things which create woman a second time—pretty dresses and love-letters.
A book might have been made of her story. Her father was persuaded that he had sufficient reason for declining to acknowledge her, and allowed her a bare six hundred francs a year; he had further taken measures to disinherit his daughter, and had converted all his real estate into personalty, that he might leave it undivided to his son. Victorine's mother had died broken-hearted in Mme. Couture's house; and the latter, who was a near relation, had taken charge of the little orphan. Unluckily, the widow of the paymaster of the armies of the Republic had nothing in the world but her jointure and her widow's pension, and some day she might be obliged to leave the helpless, inexperienced girl to the mercy of the world. The good soul, therefore, took Victorine to mass every Sunday, and to confession once a fortnight, thinking that, in any case, she would bring up her ward to be devout. She was right; religion offered a solution of the problem of the young girl's future. The poor child loved the father who refused to acknowledge her. Once every year she tried to see him to deliver her mother's message of forgiveness, but every year hitherto she had knocked at that door in vain; her father was inexorable. Her brother, her only means of communication, had not come to see her for four years, and had sent her no assistance; yet she prayed to God to unseal her father's eyes and to soften her brother's heart, and no accusations mingled with her prayers. Mme. Couture and Mme. Vauquer exhausted the vocabulary of abuse, and failed to find words that did justice to the banker's iniquitous conduct; but while they heaped execrations on the millionaire, Victorine's words were as gentle as the moan of the wounded dove, and affection found expression even in the cry drawn from her by pain.
Eugène de Rastignac was a thoroughly southern type; he had a fair complexion, blue eyes, black hair. In his figure, manner, and his whole bearing it was easy to see that he either came of a noble family, or that, from his earliest childhood, he had been gently bred. If he was careful of his wardrobe, only taking last year's clothes into daily wear, still upon occasion he could issue forth as a young man of fashion. Ordinarily he wore a shabby coat and waistcoat, the limp black cravat, untidily knotted, that students affect, trousers that matched the rest of his costume, and boots that had been resoled.
Vautrin (the man of forty with the dyed whiskers) marked a transition stage between these two young people and the others. He was the kind of man that calls forth the remark: "He looks a jovial sort!" He had broad shoulders, a well-developed chest, muscular arms, and strong square-fisted hands; the joints of his fingers were covered with tufts of fiery red hair. His face was furrowed by premature wrinkles; there was a certain hardness about it in spite of his bland and insinuating manner. His bass voice was by no means unpleasant, and was in keeping with his boisterous laughter. He was always obliging, always in good spirits; if anything went wrong with one of the locks, he would soon unscrew it, take it to pieces, file it, oil and clean and set it in order, and put it back in its place again: "I am an old hand at it," he used to say. Not only so, he knew all about ships, the sea, France, foreign countries, men, business, law, great houses and prisons—there was nothing that he did not know. If any one complained rather more than usual, he would offer his services at once. He had several times lent money to Mme. Vauquer, or to the boarders; but, somehow, those whom he obliged felt that they would sooner face death than fail to repay him; a certain resolute look, sometimes seen on his face, inspired fear of him, for all his appearance of easy good-nature. In the way he spat there was an imperturbable coolness which seemed to indicate that this was a man who would not stick at a crime to extricate himself from a false position. His eyes, like those of a pitiless judge, seemed to go to the very bottom of all questions, to read all natures, all feelings and thoughts. His habit of life was very regular; he usually went out after breakfast, returning in time for dinner, and disappeared for the rest of the evening, letting himself in about midnight with a latchkey, a privilege that Mme. Vauquer accorded to no other boarder. But then he was on very good terms with the widow; he used to call her "mamma," and put his arm round her waist, a piece of flattery perhaps not appreciated to the full! The worthy woman might imagine this to be an easy feat; but, as a matter of fact, no arm but Vautrin's was long enough to encircle that solid circummfrence.
It was a characteristic trait of his generously to pay fifteen francs a month for the cup of coffee with a dash of brandy in it, which he took after dinner. Less superficial observers than young men engulfed by the whirlpool of Parisian life, or old men, who took no interest in anything that did not directly concern them, would not have stopped short at the vaguely unsatisfactory impression that Vautrin made upon them. He knew or guessed the concerns of every one about him; but none of them had been able to penetrate his thoughts, or to discover his occupation. He had deliberately made his apparent good-nature, his unfailing readiness to oblige, and his high spirits into a barrier between himself and the rest of them, but not seldom he gave glimpses of appalling depths of character. He seemed to delight in scourging the upper classes of society with the lash of his tongue, to take pleasure in convicting it of inconsistency, in mocking at law and order with some grim jest worthy of Juvenal, as if some grudge against the social system rankled in him, as if there were some mystery carefully hidden away in his life.
Mlle. Taillefer felt attracted, perhaps unconsciously, by the strength of the one man, and the good looks of the other; her stolen glances and secret thoughts were divided between them; but neither of them seemed to take any notice of her, although some day a chance might alter her position, and she would be a wealthy heiress. For that matter, there was not a soul in the house who took any trouble to investigate the various chronicles of misfortunes, real or imaginary, related by the rest. Each one regarded the others with indifference tempered by suspicion; it was a natural result of their relative positions. Practical assistance not one of them could give, this they all knew, and they had long since exhausted their stock of condolence over previous discussions of their grievances. They were in something of the same position as an elderly couple who have nothing left to say to each other. The routine of existence kept them in contact, but they were parts of a mechanism which wanted oil. There was not one of them but would have passed a blind man begging in the street, not one that felt moved to pity by a tale of misfortune, not one who did not see in death the solution of the all absorbing problem of misery which left them cold to the most terrible anguish in others.
The happiest of these hapless beings was certainly Mme. Vauquer, who reigned supreme over this hospital supported by voluntary contributions. For her, the little garden, which silence, and cold, and rain, and drought combined to make as dreary as an Asian steppe, was a pleasant shaded nook; the gaunt yellow house, the musty odors of a back shop had charms for her, and for her alone. Those cells belonged to her. She fed those convicts condemned to penal servitude for life, and her authority was recognized among them. Where else in Paris would they have found wholesome food in sufficient quantity at the prices she charged them, and rooms which they were at liberty to make, if not exactly elegant or comfortable, at any rate clean and healthy? If she had committed some flagrant act of injustice, the victim would have borne it in silence.
Such a gathering contained, as might have been expected, the elements out of which a complete society might be constructed. And, as in a school, as in the world itself, there was among the eighteen men and women who met round the dinner table a poor creature, despised by all the others, condemned to be the butt of all their jokes. At the beginning of Eugène de Rastignac's second twelvemonth, this figure suddenly started out into bold relief against the background of human forms and faces among which the law student was yet to live for another two years to come. This laughing-stock was the retired vermicelli merchant, Old Goriot, upon whose face a painter, like the historian, would have concentrated all the light in his picture.
How had it come about that the boarders regarded him with a half-malignant contempt? Why did they subject the oldest among their number to a kind of persecution, in which there was mingled some pity, but no respect for his misfortunes? Had he brought it upon himself by some eccentricity or absurdity, which is less easily forgiven or forgotten than more serious defects? The question strikes at the root of many a social injustice. Perhaps it is only human nature to inflict suffering on anything that will endure suffering, whether by reason of its genuine humility, or indifference, or sheer helplessness. Do we not, one and all, like to feel our strength even at the expense of someone or of something? The poorest sample of humanity, the street arab, will pull the bell handle at every street door in bitter weather, and scramble up to write his name on the unsullied marble of a monument.
In the year 1813, at the age of sixty-nine or thereabouts, "Old Goriot" had sold his business and retired—to Mme. Vauquer's boarding-house. When he first came there he had taken the rooms now occupied by Mme. Couture; he had paid twelve hundred francs a year like a man to whom five louis more or less was a mere trifle. For him Mme. Vauquer had made various improvements in the three rooms destined for his use, in consideration of a certain sum paid in advance, so it was said, for the miserable furniture, that is to say, for some yellow cotton curtains, a few chairs of stained wood covered with Utrecht velvet, several wretched colored prints in frames, and wall-papers that a little suburban tavern would have disdained. Possibly it was the careless generosity with which Old Goriot allowed himself to be overreached at this period of his life (they called him Monsieur Goriot very respectfully then) that gave Mme. Vauquer the meanest opinion of his business abilities; she looked on him as an imbecile where money was concerned.
Goriot had brought with him a considerable wardrobe, the gorgeous outfit of a retired tradesman who denies himself nothing. Mme. Vauquer's astonished eyes beheld no less than eighteen cambric-fronted shirts, the splendor of their fineness being enhanced by a pair of pins each bearing a large diamond, and connected by a short chain, an ornament which adorned the vermicelli-maker's shirt-front. He usually wore a coat of cornflower blue; his rotund and portly person was still further set off by a clean white waistcoat, and a gold chain and seals which dangled over that broad expanse. His snuff-box, likewise of gold, contained a locket which enclosed a lock of hair, suggesting pleasant adventures of the past. When his hostess accused him of being "a bit of a beau," he smiled with the vanity of a citizen whose foible is gratified. His cupboards (ormoires, as he called them in the popular dialect) were filled with a quantity of plate that he brought with him. The widow's eyes gleamed as she obligingly helped him to unpack the soup ladles, table-spoons, forks, cruet-stands, tureens, dishes, and breakfast services—all of silver, which were duly arranged upon the shelves, besides a few more or less handsome pieces of plate, all weighing no inconsiderable number of ounces; he could not bring himself to part with these gifts that reminded him of past domestic festivals.
This was my wife's present to me on the first anniversary of our wedding day, he said to Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little silver posset-dish, with two turtle-doves billing on the cover. "Poor dear! she spent on it all the money she had saved before we married. Do you know, I would sooner scratch the earth with my nails for a living, madame, than part with that. But I shall be able to take my coffee out of it every morning for the rest of my days, thank the Lord! I am not to be pitied. There's not much fear of my starving for some time to come."
Finally, Mme. Vauquer's magpie's eye had discovered several government bonds, and, after a rough calculation, was disposed to credit Goriot (worthy man) with something like ten thousand francs a year. From that day forward Mme. Vauquer (née de Conflans), who, as a matter of fact, had seen forty-eight summers, though she would only own to thirty-nine of them—Mme. Vauquer had her own ideas. Though Goriot's eyes seemed to have shrunk in their sockets, though they were weak and watery, owing to some glandular affection which compelled him to wipe them continually, she considered him to be a very gentlemanly and pleasant-looking man. Moreover, the widow saw favorable indications of character in the well-developed calves of his legs and in his square-shaped nose, indications still further borne out by the worthy man's full-moon countenance and look of stupid good-nature. This, in all probability, was a strongly-build animal, whose brains mostly consisted in a capacity for affection. His hair, worn in "pigeon wings", and duly powdered every morning by the barber from the école Polytechnique, described five points on his low forehead, and made an elegant setting to his face. Though his manners were somewhat boorish, he was always as neat as a new pin, and he took his snuff in a lordly way, like a man who knows that his snuff-box is always likely to be filled with maccaboy; so that when Mme. Vauquer lay down to rest on the day of M. Goriot's installation, her heart, like a larded partridge, sweltered before the fire of a burning desire to shake off the shroud of Vauquer and rise again as Goriot. She would marry again, sell her boarding-house, give her hand to this fine flower of citizenship, become a lady of consequence in the quarter, and ask for subscriptions for charitable purposes; she would make little Sunday excursions to Choisy, Soissy, Gentilly; she would have a box at the theatre when she liked, instead of waiting for the author's tickets that one of her boarders sometimes gave her, in July; the whole Eldorado of a little Parisian household rose up before Mme. Vauquer in her dreams. Nobody knew that she herself possessed forty thousand francs, accumulated sou by sou, that was her secret; surely as far as money was concerned she was a very tolerable match. "And in other respects, I am quite his equal," she said to herself, turning as if to assure herself of the charms of a form that the portly Sylvie found moulded in down feathers every morning.
For three months from that day Mme. Veuve Vauquer availed herself of the services of M. Goriot's coiffeur, and went to some expense over her toilette, expense justifiable on the ground that she owed it to herself and her establishment to pay some attention to appearances when such highly respectable persons honored her house with their presence. She expended no small amount of ingenuity in a sort of weeding process of her lodgers, announcing her intention of receiving henceforward none but people who were in every way select. If a stranger presented himself, she let him know that M. Goriot, one of the best known and most highly respected merchants in Paris, had singled out her boarding-house for a residence. She drew up a prospectus headed MAISON VAUQUER, in which it was asserted that hers was "one of the oldest and most highly recommended boarding-houses in the Latin Quarter." "From the windows of the house"—thus ran the prospectus— "there is a charming view of the Vallée des Gobelins [so there is—from the third floor], and a beautiful garden, extending down to an avenue of lindens at the further end." Mention was made of the bracing air of the place and its quiet situation.
It was this prospectus that attracted Mme. la Comtesse de l'Ambermesnil, a widow of six-and-thirty, who was awaiting the final settlement of her husband's affairs, and of another matter regarding a pension due to her as the wife of a general who had died "on the fields of battle." On this Mme. Vauquer saw to her table, lighted a fire daily in the sitting-room for nearly six months, and kept the promise of her prospectus, even going to some expense to do so. And the Countess, on her side, addressed Mme. Vauquer as "my dear," and promised her two more boarders, the Baronne de Vaumerland and the widow of a colonel, the late Comte Picquoiseau, who were about to leave a boarding-house in the Marais, where the terms were higher than at the Maison Vauquer. Both these ladies, moreover, would be very well-to-do when the people at the War Office had come to an end of their formalities. "But government departments are always so dilatory," the lady added.
After dinner the two widows went together up to Mme. Vauquer's room, and had a snug little chat over some cordial and various delicacies reserved for the mistress of the house. Mme. Vauquer's ideas as to Goriot were cordially approved by Mme. de l'Ambermesnil; it was a capital notion, which for that matter she had guessed from the very first; in her opinion the vermicelli-maker was an excellent man.
Ah! my dear lady, such a well-preserved man of his age, as sound as my eyesight—a man who might still make a woman happy! said the widow.
The good-natured Countess turned to the subject of Mme. Vauquer's dress, which was not in harmony with her projects. "You must put yourself on a war footing," said she.
After much serious consideration the two widows went shopping together—they purchased a hat adorned with ostrich feathers and a cap at the Palais Royal, and the Countess took her friend to the Magasin de la Petite Jeannette, where they chose a dress and a scarf. Thus equipped for the campaign, the widow looked exactly like "the ox à la mode"; but she herself was so much pleased with the improvement, as she considered it, in her appearance, that she felt that she lay under some obligation to the Countess; and, though by no means open-handed, she begged that lady to accept a hat that cost twenty francs. The fact was that she needed the Countess' services on the delicate mission of sounding Goriot; the Countess must sing her praises in his ears. Mme. de l'Ambermesnil lent herself very good-naturedly to this manoeuvre, began her operations, and succeeded in obtaining a private interview; but the overtures that she made, with a view to securing him for herself, were received with embarrassment, not to say a repulse. She left him, revolted by his coarseness.
My angel, said she to her dear friend, "you will make nothing of that man yonder. He is absurdly suspicious, and he is a mean curmudgeon, an idiot, a fool; you would never be happy with him."
After what had passed between M. Goriot and Mme. de l'Ambermesnil, the Countess would no longer live under the same roof. She left the next day, forgot to pay for six months' board, and left behind her wardrobe, cast-off clothing to the value of five francs. Eagerly and persistently as Mme. Vauquer sought her quondam lodger, the Comtesse de l'Ambermesnil was never heard of again in Paris. The widow often talked of this deplorable business, and regretted her own too confiding disposition. As a matter of fact, she was as suspicious as a cat; but she was like many other people, who cannot trust their own kin and put themselves at the mercy of the next chance comer—an odd but common phenomenon, whose causes may readily be traced to the depths of the human heart.
Perhaps there are people who know that they have nothing more to look for from those with whom they live; they have shown the emptiness of their hearts to their housemates, and in their secret selves they are conscious that they are severely judged, and that they deserve to be judged severely; but still they feel an unconquerable craving for praises that they do not hear, or they are consumed by a desire to appear to possess, in the eyes of a new audience, the qualities which they have not, hoping to win the admiration or affection of strangers at the risk of forfeiting it again some day. Or, once more, there are other mercenary natures who never do a kindness to a friend or a relation simply because these have a claim upon them, while a service done to a stranger brings its reward to self-love. Such natures feel but little affection for those who are nearest to them; they keep their kindness for remoter circles of acquaintance, and show most to those who dwell on its utmost limits. Mme. Vauquer belonged to both these essentially mean, false, and execrable classes.
If I had been there at the time, Vautrin would say at the end of the story, "I would have shown her up, and that misfortune would not have befallen you. I know that kind of phiz!"
Like all narrow natures, Mme. Vauquer was wont to confine her attention to events, and did not go very deeply into the causes that brought them about; she likewise preferred to throw the blame of her own mistakes on other people, so she chose to consider that the honest vermicelli-maker was responsible for her misfortune. It had opened her eyes, so she said, with regard to him. As soon as she saw that her blandishments were in vain, and that her outlay on her toilette was money thrown away, she was not slow to discover the reason of his indifference. It became plain to her at once that there was some other attraction, to use her own expression. In short, it was evident that the hope she had so fondly cherished was a baseless delusion, and that she would "never make anything out of that man yonder," in the Countess' forcible phrase. The Countess seemed to have been a judge of character. Mme. Vauquer's aversion was naturally more energetic than her friendship, for her hatred was not in proportion to her love, but to her disappointed expectations. The human heart may find here and there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred. Still, M. Goriot was a lodger, and the widow's wounded self-love could not vent itself in an explosion of wrath; like a monk harassed by the prior of his convent, she was forced to stifle her sighs of disappointment, and to gulp down her craving for revenge. Little minds find gratification for their feelings, benevolent or otherwise, by a constant exercise of petty ingenuity. The widow employed her woman's malice to devise a system of covert persecution. She began by a course of retrenchment— various luxuries which had found their way to the table appeared there no more.
No more gherkins, no more anchovies; they have made a fool of me! she said to Sylvie one morning, and they returned to the old bill of fare.
The thrifty frugality necessary to those who mean to make their way in the world had become an inveterate habit of life with M. Goriot. Soup, boiled beef, and a dish of vegetables had been, and always would be, the dinner he liked best, so Mme. Vauquer found it very difficult to annoy a boarder whose tastes were so simple. He was proof against her malice, and in desperation she spoke to him and of him slightingly before the other lodgers, who began to amuse themselves at his expense, and so gratified her desire for revenge.
Towards the end of the first year the widow's suspicions had reached such a pitch that she began to wonder how it was that a retired merchant with a secure income of seven or eight thousand livres, the owner of such magnificent plate and jewelry handsome enough for a kept mistress, should be living in her house. Why should he devote so small a proportion of his money to his expenses? Until the first year was nearly at an end, Goriot had dined out once or twice every week, but these occasions came less frequently, and at last he was scarcely absent from the dinner table twice a month. It was hardly to be expected that Mme. Vauquer should regard the increased regularity of her boarder's habits with complacency, when those little excursions of his had been so much to her interest. She attributed the change not so much to a gradual diminution of fortune as to a spiteful wish to annoy his hostess. It is one of the most detestable habits of a Liliputian mind to credit other people with its own malignant pettiness.
Unluckily, towards the end of the second year, M. Goriot's conduct gave some color to the idle talk about him. He asked Mme. Vauquer to give him a room on the second floor, and to make a corresponding reduction in her charges. Apparently, such strict economy was called for, that he did without a fire all through the winter. Mme. Vauquer asked to be paid in advance, an arrangement to which M. Goriot consented, and thenceforward she spoke of him as "Old Goriot."
What had brought about this decline and fall? Conjecture was keen, but investigation was difficult. Old Goriot was not communicative; in the sham countess' phrase he was "a curmudgeon." 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, Old Goriot was a man who went on Change 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 "Goriot was not sharp enough for one of that sort." There were yet other solutions; Old Goriot was a skinflint, a shark of a money-lender, a man who kept feeding the same lottery number. 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 society—he paid his way. Besides, Goriot had his uses, every one 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. Vauquer's 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. Vauquer's 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 widow's expense, Mme. Vauquer (not yet dressed) heard the rustle of a silk dress and a young woman's light footstep on the stair; someone was going to Goriot's 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, "dressed like a goddess," 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. Goriot's 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.
M. Goriot must be awfully rich, all the same, madame, she reported on her return, "to keep her in such style. Just imagine it! There was a splendid carriage waiting at the corner of the Place de l'Estrapade, and she got into it."
While they were at dinner that evening, Mme. Vauquer went to the window and drew the curtain, as the sun was shining into Goriot's eyes.
You are beloved of fair ladies, M. Goriot—the sun seeks you out, she said, alluding to his visitor. "Peste! you have good taste; she was very pretty."
That was my daughter, 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 Old Goriot's.
Two of them! cried the portly Sylvie, who did not recognize the lady of the first visit.
A few days later, and another young lady—a tall, well-moulded brunette, with dark hair and bright eyes—came to ask for M. Goriot.
Three of them! 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.
Four of them! commented Mme. Vauquer and her plump maid. 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 boarder's indifference to her, she went so far (at the end of the second year) as to speak of him as an "ugly old wretch." 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. Old Goriot answered that the lady was his eldest daughter.
So you have two or three dozen daughters, have you? said Mme. Vauquer sharply.
I have only two, 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 year Old Goriot reduced his expenses still further; he went up to the third story, and now paid forty-five francs a month. He did without snuff, told his hairdresser that he no longer required his services, and gave up wearing powder. When Goriot appeared for the first time in this condition, an exclamation of astonishment broke from his hostess at the color of his hair—a dingy olive gray. He had grown sadder day by day under the influence of some hidden trouble; among all the faces round the table, his was the most woe-begone. There was no longer any doubt. Goriot was an elderly libertine, whose eyes had only been preserved by the skill of the physician from the malign influence of the remedies necessitated by the state of his health. The disgusting color of his hair was a result of his excesses and of the drugs which he had taken that he might continue his career. The poor old man's mental and physical condition afforded some grounds for the absurd rubbish talked about him. When his outfit was worn out, he replaced the fine linen by calico at fourteen sous the ell. His diamonds, his gold snuff-box, watch-chain, and trinkets disappeared one by one. He had left off wearing the cornflower-blue coat, and was sumptuously arrayed, summer as winter, in a coarse chestnut-brown coat, a plush waistcoat, and doeskin breeches. He grew thinner and thinner; his legs were shrunken, his cheeks, once so puffed out by contented bourgeois prosperity, were covered with wrinkles, and the outlines of the jawbones were distinctly visible; there were deep furrows in his forehead. In the fourth year of his residence in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève he was no longer like his former self. The hale vermicelli manufacturer, sixty-two years of age, who had looked scarce forty, the stout, comfortable, prosperous tradesman, with an almost bucolic air, and such a brisk demeanor that it did you good to look at him; the man with something boyish in his smile, had suddenly sunk into his dotage, and had become a feeble, vacillating septuagenarian.
The keen, bright blue eyes had grown dull, and faded to a steel-gray color; the red inflamed rims looked as though they had shed tears of blood. He excited feelings of repulsion in some, and of pity in others. The young medical students who came to the house noticed the drooping of his lower lip and the conformation of the facial angle; and, after teasing him for some time to no purpose, they declared that cretinism was setting in.
One evening after dinner Mme. Vauquer said half banteringly to him, "So those daughters of yours don't come to see you any more, eh?" meaning to imply her doubts as to his paternity; but Old Goriot shrank as if his hostess had touched him with a sword point.
They come sometimes, he said in a tremulous voice.
Aha! you still see them sometimes? cried the students. "Bravo, Old Goriot!"
The old man scarcely seemed to hear the witticisms at his expense that followed on the words; he had relapsed into the dreamy state of mind that these superficial observers took for senile torpor, due to his lack of intelligence. If they had only known, they might have been deeply interested by the problem of his condition; but few problems were more obscure. It was easy, of course, to find out whether Goriot had really been a vermicelli manufacturer; the amount of his fortune was readily discoverable; but the old people, who were most inquisitive as to his concerns, never went beyond the limits of the Quarter, and lived in the lodging-house much as oysters cling to a rock. As for the rest, the current of life in Paris daily awaited them, and swept them away with it; so soon as they left the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, they forgot the existence of the old man, whom they mocked at dinner. For those narrow souls, or for careless youth, the misery in Old Goriot's withered face and its dull apathy were quite incompatible with wealth or any sort of intelligence. As for the creatures whom he called his daughters, all Mme. Vauquer's boarders were of her opinion. With the faculty for severe logic sedulously cultivated by elderly women during long evenings of gossip till they can always find an hypothesis to fit all circumstances, she was wont to reason thus:
If Old Goriot had daughters of his own as rich as those ladies who came here seemed to be, he would not be lodging in my house, on the third floor, at forty-five francs a month; and he would not go about dressed like a poor man.
No objection could be raised to these inferences. So by the end of the month of November 1819, at the time when the curtain rises on this drama, every one in the house had come to have a very decided opinion as to the poor old man. He had never had either wife or daughter; excesses had reduced him to this sluggish condition; he was a sort of human mollusk who should be classed among the capulidae, so said one of the dinner contingent, an employe at the Museum, who had a pretty wit of his own. Poiret was an eagle, a gentleman, compared with Goriot. Poiret would join the talk, argue, answer when he was spoken to; as a matter of fact, his talk, arguments, and responses contributed nothing to the conversation, for Poiret had a habit of repeating what the others said in different words; still, he did join in the talk; he was alive, and seemed capable of feeling; while Old Goriot (to quote the Museum official again) was invariably at zero—Réaumur.
Eugène de Rastignac had just returned to Paris in a state of mind not unknown to young men who are conscious of unusual powers, and to those whose faculties are so stimulated by a difficult position, that for the time being they rise above the ordinary level.
Rastignac's first year of study for the preliminary examinations in law had left him free to see the sights of Paris and to enjoy some of its amusements. A student has not much time on his hands if he sets himself to learn the repertory of every theatre, and to study the ins and outs of the labyrinth of Paris. To know its customs; to learn the language, and become familiar with the amusements of the capital, he must explore its recesses, good and bad, follow the studies that please him best, and form some idea of the treasures contained in galleries and museums.
At this stage of his career a student grows eager and excited about all sorts of follies that seem to him to be of immense importance. He has his hero, his great man, a professor at the Collège de France, paid to talk down to the level of his audience. He adjusts his cravat, and strikes various attitudes for the benefit of the women in the first galleries at the Opéra-Comique. As he passes through all these successive initiations, and breaks out of his sheath, the horizons of life widen around him, and at length he grasps the plan of society with the different human strata of which it is composed.
If he begins by admiring the procession of carriages on sunny afternoons in the Champs-Elysées, he soon reaches the further stage of envying their owners. Unconsciously, Eugène had served his apprenticeship before he went back to Angoulême for the long vacation after taking his degrees as bachelor of arts and bachelor of law. The illusions of childhood had vanished, so also had the ideas he brought with him from the provinces; he had returned thither with an intelligence developed, with loftier ambitions, and saw things as they were at home in the old manor house. His father and mother, his two brothers and two sisters, with an aged aunt, whose whole fortune consisted in annuities, lived on the little estate of Rastignac. The whole property brought in about three thousand francs; and though the amount varied with the season (as must always be the case in a vine-growing district), they were obliged to spare an unvarying twelve hundred francs out of their income for him. He saw how constantly the poverty, which they had generously hidden from him, weighed upon them; he could not help comparing the sisters, who had seemed so beautiful to his boyish eyes, with women in Paris, who had realized the beauty of his dreams. The uncertain future of the whole family depended upon him. It did not escape his eyes that not a crumb was wasted in the house, nor that the wine they drank was made from the second pressing; a multitude of small things, which it is useless to speak of in detail here, made him burn to distinguish himself, and his ambition to succeed increased tenfold.
He meant, like all great souls, that his success should be owing entirely to his merits; but his was pre-eminently a southern temperament, the execution of his plans was sure to be marred by the hesitancy that seizes on youth when youth sees itself alone in a wide sea, uncertain how to spend its energies, whither to steer its course, how to adapt its sails to the winds. At first he determined to fling himself heart and soul into his work, but he was diverted from this purpose by the need of establishing the most useful social connections; then he saw how great an influence women exert in social life, and suddenly made up his mind to go out into this world to seek a protectress there. Surely a clever and high-spirited young man, whose wit and courage were set off to advantage by a graceful figure and the vigorous kind of beauty that readily strikes a woman's imagination, need not despair of finding a protectress. These ideas occurred to him in his country walks with his sisters, whom he had once joined so gaily. The girls thought him very much changed.
His aunt, Mme. de Marcillac, had been presented at court, and had moved among the aristocratic heights of that lofty region. Suddenly the young man's ambition discerned in those recollections of hers, which had been like nursery fairy tales to her nephews and nieces, the elements of a social success at least as important as the success which he had achieved at the Law School. He began to ask his aunt about those relations; some of the old ties might still hold good. After much shaking of the branches of the family tree, the old lady came to the conclusion that of all persons who could be useful to her nephew among the selfish tribe of rich relations, the Vicomtesse de Beauséant was the least likely to refuse. To this lady, therefore, she wrote in the old-fashioned style, recommending Eugène to her; pointing out to her nephew that if he succeeded in pleasing Mme. de Beauséant, the Vicomtesse would introduce him to other relations. A few days after his return to Paris, therefore, Rastignac sent his aunt's letter to Mme. de Beauséant. The Vicomtesse replied by an invitation to a ball for the following evening. This was the position of affairs at the Maison Vauquer at the end of November 1819.
A few days later, after Mme. de Beauséant's ball, Eugène came in at two o'clock in the morning. The persevering student meant to make up for the lost time by working until daylight. It was the first time that he had attempted to spend the night in this way in that silent quarter. The spell of a factitious energy was upon him; he had beheld the pomp and splendor of the world. He had not dined at the Maison Vauquer; the boarders probably would think that he would walk home at daybreak from the dance, as he had done sometimes on former occasions, after an evening at the Prado or a ball at the Odéon, splashing his silk stockings thereby, and ruining his pumps.
It so happened that Christophe took a look into the street before drawing the bolts of the door; and Rastignac, coming in at that moment, could go up to his room without making any noise, followed by Christophe, who made a great deal. Eugène exchanged his dress suit for a shabby overcoat and slippers, kindled a fire with some blocks of patent fuel, and prepared for his night's work in such a sort that the faint sounds he made were drowned by Christophe's heavy tramp on the stairs.
Eugène sat absorbed in thought for a few moments before plunging into his law books. He had just become aware of the fact that the Vicomtesse de Beauséant was one of the queens of fashion, that her house was thought to be the pleasantest in the Faubourg Saint-Germain. And not only so, she was, by right of her fortune and the name she bore, one of the most conspicuous figures in that aristocratic world. Thanks to his aunt, thanks to Mme. de Marcillac's letter of introduction, the poor student had been kindly received in that house before he knew the extent of the favor thus shown to him. It was almost like a patent of nobility to be admitted to those gilded salons; he had appeared in the most exclusive circle in Paris, and now all doors were open for him. Eugène had been dazzled at first by the brilliant assembly, and had scarcely exchanged a few words with the Vicomtesse; he had been content to single out a goddess from among this throng of Parisian divinities, one of those women who are sure to attract a young man's fancy.
The Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud was tall and gracefully made; she had one of the prettiest figures in Paris. Imagine a pair of great dark eyes, a magnificently moulded hand, a shapely foot. There was a fiery energy in her movements; the Marquis de Ronquerolles had called her "a thoroughbred," but this fineness of nervous orgainization had brought no allompanying defect; the outlines of her form were full and rounded, without any tendency to stontness. "A thoroughbred," "a pure pedigree," these figures of speech have replaced the "heavenly angel" and Ossianic nomenclature; the old mythology of love is extinct, doomed to perish by modern dandyism. But for Rastignac, Mme. Anastasie de Restaud was the woman for whom he had sighed. He had contrived to write his name twice upon the list of partners upon her fan, and had snatched a few words with her during the first quadrille.
Where shall I meet you again, Madame? he asked abruptly, and the tones of his voice were full of the vehement energy that women like so well.
Oh, everywhere! said she, "in the Bois, at the Bouffons, in my own house."
With the impetuosity of his adventurous southern temper, he did all he could to cultivate an acquaintance with this lovely countess, making the best of his opportunities in the quadrille and during a waltz that she gave him. When he had told her that he was a cousin of Mme. de Beauséant's, the Countess, whom he took for a great lady, asked him to call at her house, and after her parting smile, Rastignac felt convinced that he must make this visit. He was so lucky as to light upon someone who did not laugh at his ignorance, a fatal defect among the gilded and insolent youth of that period; the coterie of Maulincourts, Maxime de Trailles, de Marsays, Ronquerolles, Ajuda-Pintos, and Vandenesses who shone there in all the glory of fatuous complacency among the best-dressed women of fashion in Paris—Lady Brandon, the Duchesse de Langeais, the Comtesse de Kergarou?t, Mme. de Sérisy, the Duchesse de Carigliano, the Comtesse Férraud, Mme. de Lanty, the Marquise d'Aiglemont, Mme. Firmiani, the Marquise de Listomère and the Marquise d'Espard, the Duchesse de Maufrigneuse and the Grandlieus. Luckily, therefore, for him, the novice happened upon the Marquis de Montriveau, the lover of the Duchesse de Langeais, a general as simple as a child; from him Rastignac learned that the Comtesse lived in the Rue du Helder.
Ah, what it is to be young, eager to see the world, greedily on the watch for any chance that brings you nearer the woman of your dreams, and behold two houses open their doors to you! To set foot in the Vicomtesse de Beauséant's house in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; to fall on your knees before a Comtesse de Restaud in the Chaussée d'Antin; to look at one glance across a vista of Paris drawing-rooms, conscious that, possessing sufficient good looks, you may hope to find aid and protection there in a feminine heart! To feel ambitious enough to spurn the tight-rope on which you must walk with the steady head of an acrobat for whom a fall is impossible, and to find in a charming woman the best of all balancing poles.
He sat there with his thoughts for a while, Law on the one hand, and Poverty on the other, beholding a radiant vision of a woman rise above the dull, smouldering fire. Who would not have paused and questioned the future as Eugène was doing? who would not have pictured it full of success? His wondering thoughts took wings; he was transported out of the present into that blissful future; he was sitting by Mme. de Restaud's side, when a sort of sigh, like the grunt of an overburdened St. Joseph, broke the silence of the night. It vibrated through the student, who took the sound for a death groan. He opened his door noiselessly, went out upon the landing, and saw a thin streak of light under Old Goriot's door. Eugène feared that his neighbor had been taken ill; he went over and looked through the keyhole; the old man was busily engaged in an occupation so singular and so suspicious that Rastignac thought he was only doing a piece of necessary service to society to watch the self-styled vermicelli-maker's nocturnal industries.
The table was upturned, and Goriot had doubtless in some way secured a silver plate and cup to the bar before knotting a thick rope round them; he was pulling at this rope with such enormous force that they were being crushed and twisted out of shape; to all appearance he meant to convert the richly wrought metal into ingots.
Gad! what a man! said Rastignac, as he watched Goriot's muscular arms; there was not a sound in the room while the old man, with the aid of the rope, was kneading the silver like dough. "Was he then, indeed, a thief, or a receiver of stolen goods, who affected imbecility and decrepitude, and lived like a beggar that he might carry on his pursuits the more securely?" Eugène stood for a moment revolving these questions, then he looked again through the keyhole.
Old Goriot had unwound his coil of rope; he had covered the table with a blanket, and was now employed in rolling the flattened mass of silver into a bar, an operation which he performed with marvelous dexterity.
Why, he must be as strong as Augustus, King of Poland! said Eugène to himself when the bar was nearly finished.
Old Goriot looked sadly at his handiwork, tears fell from his eyes, he blew out the dip which had served him for a light while he manipulated the silver, and Eugène heard him sigh as he lay down again.
He is mad, thought the student.
Poor child! Old Goriot said aloud. Rastignac, hearing those words, concluded to keep silence; he would not hastily condemn his neighbor. He was just in the doorway of his room when a strange sound from the staircase below reached his ears; it might have been made by two men coming up in list slippers. Eugène listened; two men there certainly were, he could hear their breathing. Yet there had been no sound of opening the street door, no footsteps in the passage. Suddenly, too, he saw a faint gleam of light on the second story; it came from M. Vautrin's room.
There are a good many mysteries here for a lodging-house! he said to himself.
He went part of the way downstairs and listened again. The rattle of gold reached his ears. In another moment the light was put out, and again he distinctly heard the breathing of two men, but no sound of a door being opened or shut. The two men went downstairs, the faint sounds growing fainter as they went.
Who is there? cried Mme. Vauquer out of her bedroom window.
I, Mme. Vauquer, answered Vautrin's deep bass voice. "I am coming in."
That is odd! Christophe drew the bolts, said Eugène, going back to his room. "You have to sit up at night, it seems, if you really mean to know all that is going on about you in Paris."
These incidents turned his thought from his ambitious dreams; he betook himself to his work, but his thought wandered back to Old Goriot's suspicious occupation; Mme. de Restaud's face swam again and again before his eyes like a vision of a brilliant future; and at last he lay down and slept with clenched fists. When a young man makes up his mind that he will work all night, the chances are that seven times out of ten he will sleep till morning. Such vigils do not begin before we are turned twenty.
The next morning Paris was wrapped in one of the dense fogs that throw the most punctual people out in their calculations as to the time; even the most business-like folk fail to keep their appointments in such weather, and ordinary mortals wake up at noon and fancy it is eight o'clock. On this morning it was half-past nine, and Mme. Vauquer still lay abed. Christophe was late, Sylvie was late, but the two sat comfortably taking their coffee as usual. It was Sylvie's custom to take the cream off the milk destined for the boarders' breakfast for her own, and to boil the remainder for some time, so that Madame should not discover this illegal exaction.
Sylvie, said Christophe, as he dipped a piece of toast into the coffee,"M. Vautrin, who is not such a bad sort, all the same, had two people come to see him again last night. If Madame says anything, mind you know nothing about it."
Has he given you something?
He gave me a five-franc piece this month, which is as good as saying, ‘Hold your tongue.'
Except him and Mme. Couture, who doesn't look twice at every penny, there's no one in the house that doesn't try to get back with the left hand all that they give with the right at New Year, said Sylvie.
And, after all, said Christophe, "what do they give you? A miserable five-franc piece. There is Old Goriot, who has cleaned his shoes himself these two years past. There is that old beggar Poiret, who goes without blacking altogether; he would sooner drink it than put it on his boots. Then there is that whipper-snapper of a student, who gives me a couple of francs. Two francs will not pay for my brushes, and he sells his old clothes, and gets more for them than they are worth. What a hole this is!"
Pooh! said Sylvie, sipping her coffee, "our places are the best in the Quarter, that I know. But about that great big chap Vautrin, Christophe; has any one told you anything about him?"
Yes. I met a gentleman in the street a few days ago; he said to me, 'There's a gentleman at your place, isn't there—a tall man that dyes his whiskers?' I told him: ‘No, sir; they aren't dyed. A gay fellow like him hasn't the time to do it.' And when I told M. Vautrin about it afterwards, he said, 'Quite right, my boy. That is the way to answer them. There is nothing more disagreeable than to have your little weaknesses known; it might spoil many a match.'
Well, and for my part, said Sylvie, "a man tried to kid me at the market wanting to know if I had seen him put on his shirt. Such bosh! There," she cried, interrupting herself, "that's a quarter to ten striking at the Val-de-Grace, and not a soul stirring!"
Pooh! they are all gone out. Mme. Couture and the girl went out at eight o'clock to take the wafer at Saint-étienne. Old Goriot started off somewhere with a parcel, and the student won't be back from his lecture till ten o'clock. I saw them go while I was sweeping the stairs; Old Goriot knocked up against me, and his parcel was as hard as iron. What is the old fellow up to, I wonder? The rest of them spin him around like a top; they can never let him alone; but he is a good man, all the same, and worth more than all of them put together. He doesn't give you much himself, but he sometimes sends you with a message to ladies who fork out handsome tips; they are dressed pretty grand, too.
His daughters, as he calls them, eh? There are a dozen of them.
I have never been to more than two—the two who came here.
There is Madame moving overhead; I shall have to go, or she will raise a fine racket. Just keep an eye on the milk, Christophe; don't let the cat get at it.
Sylvie went up to her mistress's room.
Sylvie! How is this? It's nearly ten o'clock, and you let me sleep on like a dormouse! Such a thing has never happened before.
It's the fog; it is that thick, you could cut it with a knife.
But how about breakfast?
Bah! the boarders are crazy, I'm sure. They all cleared out before there was a wink of daylight.
Do speak properly, Sylvie, Mme. Vauquer retorted; "say a blink of daylight."
Ah, well, madame, whichever you please. Anyhow, you can have breakfast at ten o'clock. La Michonnette and Poireau have neither of them stirred. There are only those two upstairs, and they are sleeping like the logs they are.
But, Sylvie, you put them 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 for him. 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; Old 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, 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.
Old 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 leaving town; I had been to see him off on the Royal Mail, and was coming back here. I waited after that to see what Old Goriot would do; it is a comical affair. He came back to this quarter of the world, to the Rue des Grès, 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 Jew, an Arab, a Greek, a gipsy; it would be a difficult matter to rob him, for he puts all his coin into the bank.
Then what was Old 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 women who—"
There he is! said Sylvie.
Christophe, cried Old Goriot's voice, "come upstairs with me."
Christophe went up, and shortly afterwards came down again.
Where are you going? Mme. Vauquer asked of her servant.
Out on an errand for M. Goriot.
What may that be? said Vautrin, pouncing on a letter in Christophe's hand. "Mme. la Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud," he read. "Where are you going with it?" he added, as he gave the letter back to Christophe.
To the Rue du Helder. I have orders to give this into her hands myself.
What is there inside it? said Vautrin, holding the letter up to the light. "A banknote? No." He peered into the envelope. "A receipted account!" he cried. "My word! 'tis a gallant old dotard. Off with you, old devil," he said, bringing down a hand on Christophe's head, and spinning the man round like a thimble; "you will have a fine tip."
By this time the table was set. Sylvie was boiling the milk, Mme. Vauquer was lighting a fire in the stove with some assistance from Vautrin, who kept on humming to himself:
"The same old story everywhere,

　　A roving heart and a roving glance."
When everything was ready, Mme. Couture and Mlle. Taillefer came in.
Where have you been this morning, fair lady? said Mme. Vauquer, turning to Mme. Couture.
We have just been to say our prayers at Saint-étienne du Mont. Today is the day when we must go to see M. Taillefer. Poor little thing! She is trembling like a leaf, Mme. Couture went on, as she seated herself before the fire and held the steaming soles of her boots to the blaze.
Warm yourself, Victorine, said Mme. Vauquer.
It is quite right and proper, mademoiselle, to pray to Heaven to soften your father's heart, said Vautrin, as he drew a chair nearer to the orphan girl; "but that is not enough. What you want is a friend who will give the monster a piece of his mind; a barbarian that has three millions (so they say), and will not give you a dowry; and a pretty girl needs a dowry nowadays."
Poor child! said Mme. Vauquer. "Never mind, my pet, your wretch of a father is going just the way to bring trouble upon himself."
Victorine's eyes filled with tears at the words, and the widow checked herself at a sign from Mme. Couture.
If we could only see him! said the paymaster's widow; "if I could speak to him myself and give him his wife's last letter! I have never dared to run the risk of sending it by post; he knows my handwriting—"
‘Oh woman, persecuted and injured innocent!' exclaimed Vautrin, breaking in upon her. "So that is how you are, is it? In a few days' time I will look into your affairs, and it will be all right, you shall see."
Oh! sir, said Victorine, with a tearful but eager glance at Vautrin, who showed no sign of being touched by it, "if you know of any way of communicating with my father, please be sure and tell him that his affection and my mother's honor are more to me than all the money in the world. If you can induce him to relent a little towards me, I will pray to God for you. You may be sure of my gratitude—"
The same old story everywhere, sang Vautrin, with a satirical intonation. At this juncture, Goriot, Mlle. Michonneau, and Poiret came downstairs together; possibly the scent of the gravy which Sylvie was making to serve with the mutton had announced breakfast. The seven people thus assembled bade each other good morning, and took their places at the table; the clock struck ten, and the student's footstep was heard outside.
Ah! here you are, M. Eugène, said Sylvie; "every one is breakfasting at home today."
The student exchanged greetings with the lodgers, and sat down beside Goriot.
I have just met with a queer adventure, he said, as he helped himself abundantly to the mutton, and cut a slice of bread, which Mme. Vauquer's eyes gauged as usual.
An adventure? queried Poiret.
Well, and what is there to astonish you in that, old boy? Vautrin asked of Poiret. "M. Eugène is cut out for that kind of thing."
Mlle. Taillefer stole a timid glance at the young student.
Tell us about your adventure! demanded Mme. Vanquer.
Yesterday evening I went to a ball given by a cousin of mine, the Vicomtesse de Beauséant. She has a magnificent house; the rooms were hung with silk—in short, it was a splendid affair, and I was as happy as a king——-
Fisher, put in Vautrin, interrupting.
What do you mean, sir? said Eugène sharply.
I said ‘fisher,' because kingfishers see a good deal more fun than kings.
Quite true; I would much rather be the little careless bird than a king, said Poiret the ditto-ist, "because—"
In fact—the law-student cut him short— "I danced with one of the handsomest women in the room, a charming countess, the most exquisite creature I have ever seen. There was peach blossom in her hair, and she had the loveliest bouquet of flowers—real flowers, that scented the air—but there! it is no use trying to describe a woman glowing with the dance. You ought to have seen her! Well, and this morning I met this divine countess about nine o'clock, on foot in the Rue de Gres. Oh! how my heart beat! I began to think—"
That she was coming here, said Vautrin, with a keen look at the student. "I expect that she was going to call on old Gobseck, a money-lender. If ever you explore a Parisian woman's heart, you will find the money-lender first, and the lover afterwards. Your countess is called Anastasie de Restaud, and she lives in the Rue du Helder."
The student stared hard at Vautrin. Old Goriot raised his head at the words, and gave the two speakers a glance so full of intelligence and uneasiness that the lodgers beheld him with astonishment.
Then Christophe was too late, and she must have gone to him! cried Goriot, with anguish in his voice.
It is just as I guessed, said Vautrin, leaning over to whisper in Mme. Vauquer's ear.
Goriot went on with his breakfast, but seemed unconscious of what he was doing. He had never looked more stupid nor more taken up with his own thoughts than he did at that moment.
Who the devil could have told you her name, M. Vautrin? asked Eugène.
Aha! there you are! answered Vautrin. "Papa Goriot there knew it quite well! and why should I not know it too?"
M. Goriot? the student cried.
What is it? asked the old man. "So she was very beautiful, was she, yesterday night?"
Who?
Mme. de Restaud.
Look at the old wretch, said Mme. Vauquer, speaking to Vautrin; "how his eyes light up!"
Then does he really keep her? said Mlle. Michonneau, in a whisper per to the student.
Oh! yes, she was damnably pretty, Eugène answered. Old Goriot watched him with eager eyes. "If Mme. de Beauséant had not been there, my divine countess would have been the queen of the ball; none of the younger men had eyes for any one else. I was the twelfth on her list, and she danced every quadrille. The other women were furious. She must have enjoyed herself, if ever creature did! It is a true saying that there is no more beautiful sight than a frigate in full sail, a galloping horse, or a woman dancing."
So the wheel turns, said Vautrin; "yesterday night at a duchess' ball, this morning in a money-lender's office, on the lowest rung of the ladder— just like a Parisienne! If their husbands cannot afford to pay for their frantic extravagance, they will sell themselves. Or if they cannot do that, they will tear out their mothers' hearts to find something to pay for their splendor. They will turn the world upside down. Just a Parisienne through and through!"
Old Goriot's face, which had shone at the student's words like the sun on a bright day, clouded over all at once at this cruel speech of Vautrin's.
Well, said Mme. Vauquer, "but where is your adventure? Did you speak to her? Did you ask her if she wanted to study law?"
She did not see me, said Eugène. "But only think of meeting one of the prettiest women in Paris in the Rue des Grès at nine o'clock! She could not have reached home after the ball till two o'clock this morning. Wasn't it queer? There is no place like Paris for this sort of adventures."
Pshaw! much funnier things than that happen here! exclaimed Vautrin.
Mlle. Taillefer had scarcely heeded the talk, she was so absorbed by the thought of the new attempt that she was about to make. Mme. Couture made a sign that it was time to go upstairs and dress; the two ladies went out, and Old Goriot followed their example.
Well, did you see? said Mme. Vauquer, addressing Vautrin and the rest of the circle. "He is ruining himself for those women, that is plain."
Nothing will ever make me believe that that beautiful Comtesse de Restaud is being kept by Old Goriot, cried the student.
Well, and if you don't, broke in Vautrin, "we are not set on convincing you. You are too young to know Paris thoroughly yet; later on you will find out that there are what we call men with certain passions—"
Mlle. Michonneau gave Vautrin an intelligent glance at these words. It was like an old war hores who had just heard his regimental bugle. "Aha!" said Vautrin, stopping in his speech to give her a searching glance, "so we have had our little experiences, have we?"
The old maid lowered her eyes like a nun who sees a statue.
Well, he went on, "when folk of that kind get a notion into their heads, they cannot drop it. They must drink the water from some particular spring— it is stagnant as often as not; but they will sell their wives and families, they will sell their own souls to the devil to get it. For some this spring is play, or the Stock Exchange, or music, or a collection of pictures or insects; for others it is some woman who can give them the dainties they like. You might offer these last all the women on earth—they would turn up their noses; they will have the only one who can gratify their passion. It often happens that the woman does not care for them at all, and treats them cruelly; they buy their morsels of satisfaction very dear; but no matter, the fools are never tired of it; they will take their last blanket to the pawnbroker's to give their last five-franc piece to her. Old Goriot here is one of that sort. He is discreet, so the Countess exploits him—just the way of the gay world. The poor old fellow thinks of her and of nothing else. In all other respects you see he is a stupid animal; but get him on that subject, and his eyes sparkle like diamonds. That secret is not difficult to guess. He took some plate himself this morning to the melting-pot, and I saw him at Daddy Gobseck's in the Rue des Grès. And now, mark what follows—he came back here, and gave a letter for the Comtesse de Restaud to that noodle of a Christophe, who showed us the address; there was a receipted bill inside it. It is clear that it was an urgent matter if the Countess also went herself to the old money lender. Old Goriot has financed her handsomely. There is no need to tack a tale together; the thing is self-evident. So that shows you, sir student, that all the time your Countess was smiling, dancing, flirting, swaying her peach-flower-crowned head, with her gown gathered into her hand, her slippers were pinching her, as they say; she was thinking of her protested bills, or her lover's protested bills."
You have made me wild to know the truth, cried Eugène; "I will go to call on Mme. de Restaud to-morrow."
Yes, echoed Poiret; "you must go and call on Mme. de Restaud."
And perhaps you will find Old Father Goriot there, who will take payment for the assistance he politely rendered.
Eugène looked disgusted. "Why, then, this Paris of yours is a slough."
And an uncommonly queer slough, too, replied Vautrin. "The mud splashes you as you drive through it in your carriage—you are a respectable person; you go afoot and are splashed—you are a scoundrel. You are so unlucky as to walk off with something or other belonging to somebody else, and they exhibit you as a curiosity in the Place du Palais-de-Justice; you steal a million, and you are pointed out in every salon as a model of virtue. And you pay thirty millions for the police and the courts of justice, for the maintenance of law and order! A pretty slate of things it is!"
What, cried Mme. Vauquer, "has Old Goriot really melted down his silver posset-dish?"
There were two turtle-doves on the lid, were there not? asked Eugène.
Yes, that there were.
He was fond of it. said Eugène. "He cried while he was breaking up the cup and plate. I happened to see him by accident."
It was dear to him as his own life, answered the widow.
There! you see how infatuated the old fellow is! cried Vautrin. "The woman yonder can coax the soul out of him."
The student went up to his room. Vautrin went out, and a few minutes later Mme. Couture and Victorine drove away in a cab which Sylvie had called for them. Poiret gave his arm to Mlle. Michonneau, and they went together to spend the two sunniest hours of the day in the Jardin des Plantes.
Well, those two are as good as married, was the portly Sylvie's comment. "They are going out together today for the first time. They are such a couple of dry sticks that if they happen to strike against each other they will draw sparks like flint and steel."
Keep clear of Mlle. Michonneau's shawl, then, said Mme. Vauquer, laughing; "it would flare up like tinder."
At four o'clock that evening, when Goriot came in, he saw, by the light of two smoky lamps, that Victorine's eyes were red. Mme. Vauquer was listening to the history of the visit made that morning to M. Taillefer; it had been made in vain. Taillefer was tired of the annual application made by his daughter and her elderly friend; he gave them a personal interview in order to arrive at an understanding with them.
My dear lady, said Mme. Couture, addressing Mme. Vauquer, "just imagine it; he did not even ask Victorine to sit down, she was standing the whole time. He said to me quite coolly, without putting himself in a passion, that we might spare ourselves the trouble of going there; that the young lady (he would not call her his daughter) was injuring her cause by importuning him (importuning! once a year, the wretch!); that as Victorine's mother had nothing when he married her, Victorine ought not to expect anything from him; in fact, he said the most cruel things, that made the poor child burst out crying. The little thing threw herself at her father's feet and spoke up bravely; she said that she only persevered in her visits for her mother's sake; that she would obey him without a murmur, but that she begged him to read her poor dead mother's farewell letter. She took it up and gave it to him, saying the most beautiful things in the world, most beautifully expressed; I do not know where she learned them; God must have put them into her head, for the poor child was inspired to speak so nicely that it made me cry like a fool to hear her talk. And what do you think the monster was doing all the time? Cutting his nails! He took the letter that poor Mme. Taillefer had soaked with tears, and flung it on to the chimneypiece. ‘That is all right,' he said. He held out his hands to raise his daughter, but she covered them with kisses, and he drew them away again. Scandalous, isn't it? And his great booby of a son came in and took no notice of his sister."
What inhuman wretches they must be! said Old Goriot.
And then they both went out of the room, Mme. Couture went on, without heeding the worthy vermicelli-maker's exclamation; "father and son bowed to me, and asked me to excuse them on account of urgent business! That is the history of our call. Well, he has seen his daughter at any rate. How he can refuse to acknowledge her I cannot think, for they are as alike as two peas."
The boarders dropped in one after another, interchanging greetings and the empty jokes that certain classes of Parisians regard as humorous and witty. Dullness is their prevailing ingredient, and the whole point consists in mispronouncing a word or in a gesture. This kind of argot is always changing. The essence of the jest consists in some catchword suggested by a political event, an incident in the police courts, a street song, or a bit of burlesque at some theatre, and forgotten in a month. Anything and everything serves to keep up a game of battledore and shuttlecock with words and ideas. The diorama, a recent invention, which carried an optical illusion a degree further than panoramas, had given rise to a mania among art students for ending every word with rama. The Maison Vauquer had caught the infection from a young artist among the boarders.
Well, Monsieur-r-r Poiret, said the employee from the Museum, "how is your health-orama?" Then, without waiting for an answer, he turned to Mme. Couture and Victorine with a "Ladies, you seem melancholy."
Is dinner ready? cried Horace Bianchon, a medical student, and a friend of Rastignac's; "my stomach is sinking usque ad talones."
There is an uncommon frozerama outside, said Vautrin. "Make room there, Old Goriot! Confound it! your foot covers the whole front of the stove."
Illustrious M. Vautrin, put in Bianchon, "why do you say frozerama? It is incorrect; it should be frozenrama."
No, it shouldn't, said the official from the Museum; "frozerama is right by the same rule that you say ‘My feet are froze.'"
Ah! ah!
Here is his Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the Law of Contraries, cried Bianchon, seizing Eugène by the throat, and almost throttling him.
Hallo there! hallo!
Mlle. Michonneau came noiselessly in, bowed to the rest of the party, and took her place beside the three women without saying a word.
That old bat always makes me shudder, said Bianchon in a low voice, indicating Mlle. Michonneau to Vautrin. "I have studied Gall's system, and I am sure she has the bump of Judas."
Then you have seen a case before? said Vautrin.
Who has not? answered Bianchon. "Upon my word, that ghastly old maid looks just like one of the long worms that will gnaw a beam through, give them time enough."
That is the way, young man, returned he of the forty years and the dyed whiskers:
"The rose has lived the life of a rose—

A morning's space."
Aha! here is a magnificent soupe-au-rama, cried Poiret as Christophe came in bearing the soup with cautious heed.
I beg your pardon, sir, said Mme. Vauquer; "it is soupe aux choux."
All the young men roared with laughter.
Had you there, Poiret!
Poir-r-r-rette! she had you there!
Score two points to Mamma Vauquer, said Vautrin.
Did any one notice the fog this morning? asked the official.
It was a frantic fog, said Bianchon, "a fog unparalleled, doleful, melancholy, sea-green, asthmatical—a Goriot of a fog!"
A Goriorama, said the art student, "because you couldn't see a thing in it."
Hey! Milord Ga?riotte, they air talking about yoo-o-ou!
Old Goriot, seated at the lower end of the table, close to the door through which the servant entered, raised his face; he had smelt at a scrap of bread that lay under his table napkin, an old trick acquired in his commercial capacity, that still showed itself at times.
Well, Mme. Vauquer cried in sharp tones, that rang above the rattle of spoons and plates and the sound of other voices, "and is there anything the matter with the bread?"
Nothing whatever, madame, he answered; "on the contrary, it is made of the best quality of corn; flour from étampes."
How could you tell? asked Eugène.
By the color, by the flavor.
You knew the flavor by the smell, I suppose, said Mme. Vauquer. "You have grown so economical, you will find out how to live on the smell of cooking at last."
Take out a patent for it then, cried the Museum official; "you would make a handsome fortune."
Never mind him, said the artist; "he does that sort of thing to delude us into thinking that he was a vermicelli-maker."
Your nose is a corn-sampler, it appears? inquired the official.
Corn what? asked Bianchon.
Corn-el.
Corn-et.
Corn-elian.
Corn-ice.
Corn-ucopia.
Corn-crake.
Corn-cockle.
Corn-orama.
The eight responses came like a rolling fire from every part of the room, and the laughter that followed was the more uproarious because poor Old Goriot stared at the others with a puzzled look, like a foreigner trying to catch the meaning of words in a language which he does not understand.
Corn?... he said, turning to Vautrin, his next neighbor.
Corn on your foot, old man! said Vautrin, and he drove Old Goriot's cap down over his eyes by a blow on the crown.
The poor old man thus suddenly attacked was for a moment too bewildered to do anything. Christophe carried off his plate, thinking that he had finished his soup, so that when Goriot had pushed back his cap from his eyes his spoon encountered the table. Every one burst out laughing. "You are a disagreeable joker, sir," said the old man, "and if you take any further liberties with me—"
Well, what then, old boy? Vautrin interrupted.
Well, then, you shall pay dearly for it some day—
Down below, eh? said the artist, "in the little dark corner where they put naughty boys."
Well, mademoiselle, Vautrin said, turning to Victorine, "you are eating nothing. So papa was refractory, was he?"
A monster! said Mme. Couture.
He must be brought to see reason, said Vantrin.
Why, sid Rastignac, who was sitting near Bianchon, "Mademoiselle might make application for aliment pending her suit; she is not eating anything. Eh! eh! just see how Old Goriot is staring at Mlle. Victorine."
The old man had forgotten his dinner, he was so absorbed in gazing at the poor girl; the sorrow in her face was unmistakable,—the grief of a slighted child whose father would not recognize her.
We are mistaken about Old Goriot, my dear boy, said Eugène in a low voice. "He is not an idiot, nor wanting in energy. Try your Gall system on him, and let me know what you think. I saw him crush a silver dish last night as if it had been made of wax; there seems to be something extraordinary going on in his mind just now, to judge by his face. His life is so mysterious that it must be worth studying. Oh! you may laugh, Bianchon; I am not joking."
The man is a medical case, is he? said Bianchon; "all right! I will dissect him, if he will give me the chance."
No; feel his bumps.
Hm!—his stupidity might perhaps be contagious.

一个夫家姓伏盖，娘家姓龚弗冷的老妇人，四十年来在巴黎开着一所兼包客饭的公寓，坐落在拉丁区与圣·玛梭城关之间的圣·日内维新街上。大家称为伏盖家的这所寄宿舍，男女老少，一律招留，从来没有为了风化问题受过飞短流长的攻击，可是三十年间也不曾有姑娘们寄宿；而且非要家庭给的生活费少得可怜，才能使一个青年男子住到这儿来。话虽如此，一八一九年上，正当这幕惨剧开场的时候，公寓里的确住着一个可怜的少女。虽然惨剧这个字眼被近来多愁善感、颂赞痛苦的文学用得那么滥，那么歪曲，以致无人相信；这儿可是不得不用。并非在真正的字义上说，这个故事有什么戏剧意味；但我这部书完成之后，京城内外也许有人会掉几滴眼泪。出了巴黎是不是还有人懂得这件作品，确是疑问。书中有许多考证与本地风光，只有住在蒙玛脱岗和蒙罗越高地之间的人能够领会。这个著名的盆地，墙上的石灰老是在剥落，阳沟内全是漆黑的泥浆；到处是真苦难，空欢喜，而且那么忙乱，不知要怎么重大的事故才能在那儿轰动一下。然而也有些东零西碎的痛苦，因为罪恶与德行混在一块而变得伟大庄严，使自私自利的人也要定一定神，生出一点同情心；可是他们的感触不过是一刹那的事，像匆匆忙忙吞下的一颗美果。文明好比一辆大车，和印度的神车一样，[1]碰到一颗比较不容易粉碎的心，略微耽搁了一下，马上把它压碎了，又浩浩荡荡地继续前进。你们读者大概也是如此。雪白的手捧了这本书，埋在软绵绵的安乐椅里，想道：也许这部小说能够让我消遣一下。读完了高老头隐秘的痛史以后，你依旧胃口很好地用晚餐，把你的无动于衷推给作者负责，说作者夸张，渲染过分。殊不知这惨剧既非杜撰，亦非小说。一切都是真情实事，[2]真实到每个人都能在自己身上或者心里发现剧中的要素。
公寓的屋子是伏盖太太的产业，坐落在圣·日内维新街下段，正当地面从一个斜坡向弩箭街低下去的地方。坡度陡峭，马匹很少上下，因此挤在华·特·葛拉斯军医院和先贤祠之间的那些小街道格外清静。两座大建筑罩下一片黄黄的色调，改变了周围的气息；穹隆阴沉严肃，使一切都暗淡无光。街面上石板干燥，阳沟内没有污泥，没有水，沿着墙根生满了草。一到这个地方，连最没心事的人也会像所有的过路人一样无端端地不快活。一辆车子的声音在此简直是件大事；屋子死沉沉的，墙垣全带几分牢狱气息。一个迷路的巴黎人[3]在这一带只看见些公寓或者私塾，苦难或者烦恼，垂死的老人或是想作乐而不得不用功的青年。巴黎城中没有一个区域更丑恶，更没有人知道的了。特别是圣·日内维新街，仿佛一个古铜框子，跟这个故事再合适没有。为求读者了解起见，尽量用上灰黑的色彩和沉闷的描写也不嫌过分，正如游客参观初期基督徒墓窟的时候，走下一级级的石梯，日光随着暗淡，向导的声音越来越空洞。这个比较的确是贴切的。谁又能说，枯萎的心灵和空无一物的骷髅，究竟哪一样看上去更可怕呢？
公寓侧面靠街，前面靠小花园，屋子跟圣·日内维新街成直角。屋子正面和小园之间有条中间微凹的小石子路，大约宽两公尺；前面有一条平行的沙子铺的小路，两旁有风吕草、夹竹桃和石榴树，种在蓝白二色的大陶盆内。小路靠街的一头有扇小门，上面钉一块招牌，写着：伏盖宿舍；下面还有一行：本店兼包客饭，男女宾客，一律欢迎。临街的栅门上装着一个声音刺耳的门铃。白天你在栅门上张望，可以看到小路那一头的墙上，画着一个模仿青色大理石的神龛，大概是本区画家的手笔。神龛内画着一个爱神像：浑身斑驳的釉彩，一般喜欢象征的鉴赏家可能认作爱情病的标记，那是在邻近的街坊上就可医治的。[4]神像座子上模糊的铭文，令人想起雕像的年代，伏尔泰在一七七七年上回到巴黎大受欢迎的年代。那两句铭文是：[5]
不论你是谁，她总是你的师傅，
现在是，曾经是，或者将来是。
天快黑的时候，栅门换上板门。小园的宽度正好等于屋子正面的长度。园子两旁，一边是临街的墙，一边是和邻居分界的墙。大片的常春藤把那座界墙统统遮盖了，在巴黎城中格外显得清幽，引人注目。各处墙上都钉着果树和葡萄藤，瘦小而灰土密布的果实成为伏盖太太年年发愁的对象，也是和房客谈天的资料。沿着侧面的两堵墙各有一条狭小的走道，走道尽处是一片菩提树荫。伏盖太太虽是龚弗冷出身，菩提树三字老是念别音的，房客们用文法来纠正她也没用。两条走道之间，一大块方地上种着朝鲜蓟，左右是修成圆锥形的果树，四周又围着些莴苣、旱芹、酸菜。菩提树荫下有一张绿漆圆桌，周围放几个凳子。逢着大暑天，一般有钱喝咖啡的主顾，在热得可以孵化鸡子的天气到这儿来品尝咖啡。
四层楼外加阁楼的屋子用的材料是粗沙石，粉的那种黄颜色差不多使巴黎所有的屋子不堪入目。每层楼上开着五扇窗子，全是小块的玻璃；细木条子的遮阳撑起来高高低低，参差不一。屋子侧面有两扇窗，楼下的两扇装有铁栅和铁丝网。正屋之后是一个二十尺宽的院子：猪啊，鸭啊，兔子啊，和和气气地混在一块儿；院子底上有所堆木柴的棚子。棚子和厨房的后窗之间挂一口凉橱，下面淌着洗碗池流出来的脏水。靠圣·日内维新街有扇小门，厨娘为了避免瘟疫不得不冲洗院子的时候，就把垃圾打这扇门里扫到街上。
房屋的分配本是预备开公寓的。底层第一间有两扇临街的窗子取光，通往园子的是一扇落地长窗。客厅侧面通到饭厅，饭厅和厨房中间是楼梯道，楼梯的踏级是用木板和彩色地砖拼成的。一眼望去，客室的景象再凄凉没有：几张沙发和椅子，上面包的马鬃布满是一条条忽而暗淡忽而发光的纹缕。正中放一张黑地白纹的云石面圆桌，桌上摆一套白瓷小酒杯，金线已经剥落一大半，这种酒杯现在还到处看得到。房内地板很坏，四周的护壁板只有半人高，其余的地方糊着上油的花纸，画着《忒勒马科》[6]主要的几幕，一些有名的人物都着着彩色。两扇有铁丝网的窗子之间的壁上，画着加里泼梭款待攸里斯的儿子的盛宴。[7]四十年来这幅画老是给年轻的房客当作说笑的引子，把他们为了穷而不得不将就的饭食取笑一番，表示自己的身份比处境高出许多。石砌的壁炉架上有两瓶藏在玻璃罩下的旧纸花，中间放一座恶俗的半蓝不蓝的云石摆钟。壁炉内部很干净，可见除了重大事故，难得生火。
这间屋子有股说不出的味道，应当叫作公寓味道。那是一种闭塞的、霉烂的、酸腐的气味，叫人发冷，吸在鼻子里潮腻腻的，直往衣服里钻；那是刚吃过饭的饭厅的气味，酒菜和碗盏的气味，救济院的气味。老老少少的房客特有的气味，跟他们伤风的气味合凑成的令人作呕的成分，倘能加以分析，也许这味道还能形容。话得说回来，这间客室虽然教你恶心，同隔壁的饭厅相比，你还觉得客室很体面，芬芳，好比女太太们的上房呢。
饭厅全部装着护壁，漆的颜色已经无从分辨，只有一块块油迹画出奇奇怪怪的形状。几口黏手的食器柜上摆着暗淡无光的破裂的水瓶，刻花的金属垫子，好几堆都奈窑的蓝边厚瓷盆。屋角有口小橱，分成许多标着号码的格子，存放寄膳客人满是污迹和酒痕的饭巾。在此有的是销毁不了的家具，没处安插而扔在这儿，跟那些文明的残骸留在痼疾救济院里一样。你可以看到一个晴雨表，下雨的时候有一个教士出现；还有些令人倒胃的版画，配着黑漆描金的框子；一口镶铜的贝壳座钟；一只绿色火炉；几盏灰尘跟油混在一块儿的挂灯；一张铺有漆布的长桌，油腻之厚，足够爱淘气的医院实习生用手指在上面刻画姓名；几张断腿折臂的椅子；几块可怜的小脚毯，草辫老在散率而始终没有分离；还有些破烂的脚炉，洞眼碎裂，铰链零落，木座子像炭一样的焦黑。这些家具的古旧，龟裂，腐烂，摇动，虫蛀，残缺，老弱无能，奄奄一息，倘使详细描写，势必长篇累牍，妨碍读者对本书的兴趣，恐非性急的人所能原谅。红色的地砖，因为擦洗或上色之故，画满了高高低低的沟槽。总之，这儿是一派毫无诗意的贫穷，那种锱铢必较的、浓缩的、百孔千疮的贫穷；即使还没有泥浆，却已有了污迹；即使还没有破洞，还不会褴褛，却快要崩溃腐朽，变成垃圾。
这间屋子最有光彩的时间是早上七点左右，伏盖太太的猫赶在主人之前，先行出现，它跳上食器柜，把好几罐盖着碟子的牛奶闻嗅一番，呼啊呼啊地做它的早课。不久寡妇出现了，网纱做的便帽下面，露出一圈歪歪斜斜的假头发，懒洋洋地趿着愁眉苦脸的软鞋。她的憔悴而多肉的脸，中央耸起一个鹦鹉嘴般的鼻子，滚圆的小手，像教堂的耗子[8]一般胖胖的身材，膨亨饱满而颠颠耸耸的乳房，一切都跟这寒酸气十足而暗里蹲着冒险家的饭厅调和。她闻着室内暖烘烘的臭味，一点不觉得难受。她的面貌像秋季初霜一样新鲜，眼睛四周布满皱纹，表情可以从舞女那样的满面笑容，一变而为债主那样的竖起眉毛，板起脸孔。总之她整个的人品足以说明公寓的内容，正如公寓可以暗示她的人品。监狱少不了牢头禁卒，你想象中决不能有此无彼。这个小妇人的没有血色的肥胖，便是这种生活的结果，好像传染病是医院气息的产物。罩裙底下露出毛线编成的衬裙，罩裙又是用旧衣衫改的，棉絮从开裂的布缝中钻出来；这些衣衫就是客室、饭厅和小园的缩影，同时也泄露了厨房的内容与房客的流品。她一出场，舞台面就完全了。五十岁左右的伏盖太太跟一切经过忧患的女人一样。无精打采的眼睛，假惺惺的神气像一个会假装恼怒，以便敲竹杠的媒婆，而且她也存心不择手段地讨便宜，倘若世界上还有什么乔治或毕希葛吕可以出卖，她是决计要出卖的。[9]房客们却说她骨子里是个好人，他们听见她同他们一样咳嗽、哼哼，便相信她真穷。伏盖先生当初是怎么样的人，她从无一字提及。他怎样丢了家私的呢？她回答说是遭了厄运。他对她不好，只留给她一双眼睛好落眼泪，这所屋子好过活，还有给了她不必同情别人灾祸的权利，因为她说，她什么苦难都受尽了。
一听见女主人急促的脚声，胖子厨娘西尔维赶紧打点房客们的中饭。一般寄饭客人通常只包每月三十法郎的一顿晚饭。
这个故事开始的时代，寄宿的房客共有七位。二层楼上是全屋最好的两套房间，伏盖太太住了小的一套，另外一套住着古的太太，她过世的丈夫在共和政府时代当过军需官。和她同住的是一个年纪轻轻的少女，维多莉·泰伊番小姐，把古的太太当作母亲一般。这两位女客的膳宿费每年一千八百法郎。三层楼上的两套房间，分别住着一个姓波阿莱的老人，和一个年纪四十上下、戴假头发、鬓角染黑的男子，自称为退休的商人，叫作伏脱冷先生。四层楼上有四个房间：老姑娘米旭诺小姐住了一间；从前做粗细面条和淀粉买卖，大家叫作高老头的，住了另外一间；其余两间预备租给候鸟[10]，像高老头和米旭诺小姐般只能付四十五法郎一月膳宿费的穷学生；可是伏盖太太除非没有办法，不大乐意招留这种人，因为他们面包吃得太多。
那时代，两个房间中的一个，住着一位从安古兰末乡下到巴黎来读法律的青年，欧也纳·特·拉斯蒂涅。人口众多的老家，省吃俭用，熬出他每年一千二百法郎的生活费。他是那种因家境清寒而不得不用功的青年，从小就懂得父母的期望，自己在那里打点美妙的前程，考虑学业的影响，把学科迎合社会未来的动向，以便捷足先登，榨取社会。没有问题，这点真实性完全要归功于他敏锐的头脑，归功于他有……倘没有他的有趣的观察，没有他在巴黎交际场中无孔不入的本领，我们这故事就要缺乏真实的色彩；没有问题，这点真实性完全要归功于他敏锐的头脑，归功于他有种欲望，想刺探一桩惨事的秘密；而这惨事是制造的人和身受的人一致讳莫如深的。
四层楼的顶上有一间晾衣服的阁楼，还有做粗活的男仆克利斯朵夫和胖子厨娘西尔维的两间卧房。
除了七个寄宿的房客，伏盖太太旺季淡季统扯总有八个法科或医科的大学生，和两三个住在近段的熟客，包一顿晚饭。可以容纳一二十人的饭厅，晚餐时坐到十八个人；中饭只有七个房客，团团一桌的情景颇有家庭风味。每个房客趿着软鞋下楼，对包饭客人的衣着神气，隔夜的事故，毫无顾忌地议论一番。这七位房客好比伏盖太太特别宠爱的孩子，她按照膳宿费的数目，对各人定下照顾和尊敬的分寸，像天文家一般不差毫厘。这批萍水相逢的人心里都有同样的打算。三层楼的两位房客只付七十二法郎一月。这等便宜的价钱（唯有古的太太的房饭钱是例外），只能在圣·玛梭城关，在产科医院和流民习艺所中间的那个地段找到。这一点，证明那些房客明里暗里全受着贫穷的压迫，因此这座屋子内部的悲惨景象，在住户们破烂的衣着上照样暴露。男人们穿着说不出颜色的大褂，像高等住宅区扔在街头巷尾的靴子，快要磨破的衬衫，有名无实的衣服。女人们穿着黯淡陈旧，染过而又褪色的服装；戴着补过的旧花边，用得发亮的手套，老是暗黄色的领围，经纬散率的围巾。衣服虽是这样，人却差不多个个生得很结实，抵抗过人世的风波；冷冷的狠巴巴的脸，好像用旧而不再流通的银币一般模糊；干瘪的嘴巴配着一副尖利的牙齿。你看到他们会体会到那些已经演过的和正在搬演的戏剧——并非在脚灯和布景前面上演的，而是一些活生生的，或是无声无息的，冰冷的，把人的心搅得发热的，连续不断的戏剧。
老姑娘米旭诺，疲倦的眼睛上面戴着一个油腻的绿绸眼罩，扣在脑袋上的铜丝连怜悯之神也要为之大吃一惊。身体只剩一把骨头，穗子零零落落像眼泪一般的披肩，仿佛披在一副枯骨上面。当初她一定也俊俏过来，现在怎么会形销骨立的呢？为了荒唐胡闹吗？有什么伤心事吗？过分的贪心吗？是不是谈爱情谈得太多了？有没有做过花粉生意？还是单单是个娼妓？她是否因为年轻的时候骄奢过度，而受到老年时路人侧目的报应？惨白的眼睛教人发冷，干瘪的脸孔带点儿凶相。尖厉的声音好似丛林中冬天将临时的蝉鸣。她自称服侍过一个患膀胱炎的老人，被儿女们当作没有钱而丢在一边。老人给她一千法郎的终身年金，至今他的承继人常常为此跟她争执，说她坏话。虽然她的面貌被情欲摧残得很厉害，肌肤之间却还有些白皙与细腻的遗迹，足见她身上还保存一点儿残余的美。
波阿莱先生差不多是架机器。他走在植物园的小道上像一个灰色的影子：戴着软绵绵的旧鸭舌帽，有气无力地抓着一根手杖，象牙球柄已经发黄了；褪色的大褂遮不了空荡荡的扎脚裤，只见衣襟在那里扯来扯去；套着蓝袜子，两条腿摇摇晃晃像喝醉了酒；上身露出腌臜的白背心，枯草似的粗纱颈围，跟绕在火鸡式脖子上别扭的领带，乱糟糟地搅在一起。看他那副模样，大家都心里思忖，这个幽灵是否跟在意大利大街上溜达的哥儿们同样属于泼辣放肆的白种民族？什么工作使他这样干瘪缩小的？什么情欲把他生满小球刺儿的脸变成了黑沉沉的猪肝色？这张脸画成漫画，简直不像是真的。他当过什么差事呢？说不定做过司法部的职员，经手过刽子手们送来的账单——执行逆伦犯所用的蒙面黑纱，刑台下铺的糠，[11]刑架上挂铡刀的绳子等等的账单。也许他当过屠宰场收款员，或卫生处副稽查之类。总之，这家伙好比社会大磨坊里的一匹驴子，做了傀儡而始终不知道牵线的是谁，也仿佛多少公众的灾殃或丑事的轴心；总括一句，他是我们见了要说一声究竟这等人也少不得的人。这些被精神的或肉体的痛苦磨得色如死灰的脸相，巴黎的漂亮人物是不知道的。巴黎真是一片海洋，丢下探海锤也没法测量这海洋的深度。不论花多少心血到里面去搜寻去描写，不管海洋的探险家如何众多如何热心，都会随时找到一片处女地，一个新的洞穴，或是几朵鲜花，几颗明珠，一些妖魔鬼怪，一些闻所未闻、文学家想不到去探访的事。伏盖公寓便是这些奇怪的魔窟之一。
其中有两张脸跟多数房客和包饭的主顾成为显著的对比。维多莉·泰伊番小姐虽则皮色苍白，带点儿病态，像害干血痨的姑娘；虽则经常的忧郁，局促的态度，寒酸和娇弱的外貌，使她脱不了这幅画面的基本色调——痛苦；可是她的脸究竟不是老年人的脸，动作和声音究竟是轻灵活泼的。这个不幸的青年人仿佛一株新近移植的灌木，因为水土不宜而叶子萎黄了。黄里带红的脸色，灰黄的头发，过分纤瘦的腰身，颇有近代诗人在中世纪小雕像上发现的那种妩媚。灰中带黑的眼睛表现她有基督徒式的温柔与隐忍。朴素而经济的装束勾勒出年轻人的身材。她的好看是由于五官四肢配搭得巧。只要心情快乐，她可能非常动人；女人要有幸福才有诗意，正如穿扮齐整才显得漂亮。要是舞会的欢情把这张苍白的脸染上一些粉红的色调，要是讲究的生活使这对已经微微低陷的面颊重新丰满而泛起红晕，要是爱情使这双忧郁的眼睛恢复光彩，维多莉大可跟最美的姑娘们见个高低。她只缺少教女人返老还童的东西：衣衫和情书。她的故事足够写一本书。她的父亲自以为有不认亲生女儿的理由，不让她留在身边，只给六百法郎一年，又改变他财产的性质，以便全部传给儿子。维多莉的母亲在悲苦绝望之中死在远亲古的太太家里；古的太太便把孤儿当作亲女一样抚养长大。共和政府军需官的寡妇不幸除了丈夫的预赠年金和公家的抚恤金以外一无所有，可能一朝丢下这个既无经验又无资财的少女，任凭社会摆布。好心的太太每星期带维多莉去望弥撒，每半个月去忏悔一次，让她将来至少能做一个虔诚的姑娘。这办法的确不错。有了宗教的热情，这个弃女将来也能有一条出路。她爱她的父亲，每年回家去转达母亲临终时对父亲的宽恕；每年父亲总是闭门不纳。能居间斡旋的只有她的哥哥，而哥哥四年之中没有来探望过她一次，也没有帮助过她什么。她求上帝使父亲开眼，使哥哥软心，毫无怨恨地为他们祈福。古的太太和伏盖太太只恨字典上咒骂的字眼太少，不够形容这种野蛮的行为。她们咒骂混账的百万富翁的时候，总听到维多莉说些柔和的话，好似受伤的野鸽，痛苦的叫喊仍然吐露着爱。
欧也纳·特·拉斯蒂涅纯粹是南方型的脸：白皮肤，黑头发，蓝眼睛。风度，举动，姿势，都显出他是大家子弟，幼年的教育只许他有高雅的习惯。虽然衣着朴素，平日尽穿隔年的旧衣服，有时也能装扮得风度翩翩地上街。平常他只穿一件旧大褂，粗背心；蹩脚的旧黑领带扣得马马虎虎，像一般大学生一样；裤子也跟上装差不多，靴子已经换过底皮。
在两个青年和其余的房客之间，那四十上下、鬓角染色的伏脱冷，正好是个中间人物。人家看到他那种人都会喊一声好家伙！肩头很宽，胸部很发达，肌肉暴突，方方的手非常厚实，手指中节生着一簇簇茶红色的浓毛。没有到年纪就打皱的脸似乎是性格冷酷的标记；但是看他软和亲热的态度，又不像冷酷的人。他的低中音嗓子，跟他嘻嘻哈哈的快活脾气刚刚配合，绝对不讨厌。他很殷勤，老堆着笑脸。什么锁钥坏了，他立刻拆下来，粗枝大叶地修理，上油，锉一阵磨一阵，装配起来，说：“这一套我是懂的。”而且他什么都懂：帆船，海洋，法国，外国，买卖，人物，时事，法律，旅馆，监狱。要是有人过于抱怨诉苦，他立刻凑上来帮忙。好几次他借钱给伏盖太太和某些房客；但受惠的人死也不敢赖他的债，因为他尽管外表随和，自有一道深沉而坚决的目光教人害怕。看那唾口水的功架，就可知道他头脑冷静的程度：要解决什么尴尬局面的话，一定是杀人不眨眼的。像严厉的法官一样，他的眼睛似乎能看透所有的问题，所有的心地，所有的感情。他的日常生活是中饭后出门，回来用晚饭，整个黄昏都在外边，到半夜前后回来，用伏盖太太给他的百宝钥匙开大门。百宝钥匙这种优待只有他一个人享受。他待寡妇也再好没有，叫她妈妈，搂着她的腰，可惜这种奉承对方体会得不够。老妈妈还以为这是轻而易举的事，殊不知唯有伏脱冷一个人才有那么长的胳膊，够得着她粗大的腰身。他另外一个特点是饭后喝一杯葛洛丽亚[12]，每个月很阔绰地花十五法郎。那般青年人固然卷在巴黎生活的旋涡内一无所见，那般老年人也固然对一切与己无干的事漠不关心，但即使不像他们那么肤浅的人，也不会注意到伏脱冷形迹可疑。旁人的事，他都能知道或者猜到；他的心思或营生，却没有一个人看得透。虽然他把亲热的态度，快活的性情，当作墙壁一般挡在他跟旁人之间，但他不时流露的性格颇有些可怕的深度。往往他发一阵可以跟于凡那[13]相比的牢骚，专爱挖苦法律，鞭挞上流社会，攻击它的矛盾，似乎他对社会抱着仇恨，心底里密不透风地藏着什么秘密事儿。
泰伊番小姐暗中偷觑的目光和私下的念头，离不了这个中年人跟那个大学生。一个是精力充沛，一个是长得俊美，她无意之间受到他们吸引。可是那两位好似一个也没有想到她，虽说天道无常，她可能一变而为陪嫁富裕的对象。并且，那些人也不愿意推敲旁人自称为的苦难是真是假。除了漠不关心之外，他们还因为彼此境况不同而提防人家。他们知道没有力量减轻旁人的痛苦，而且平时叹苦经叹得太多了，互相劝慰的话也早已说尽。像老夫妻一样的无话可谈，他们之间的关系只有机械的生活，等于没有上油的齿轮在那里互相推动。他们可以在路上遇到一个瞎子而头也不回地走过，也可以无动于衷地听人家讲一桩苦难，甚至把死亡看作一个悲惨局面的解决；饱经忧患的结果，大家对最惨痛的苦难都冷了心。这些伤心人中最幸福的还算伏盖太太，高高在上地管着这所私人救济院。唯有伏盖太太觉得那个小园是一座笑盈盈的树林；事实上，静寂和寒冷，干燥和潮湿，使园子像大草原一样广漠无垠。唯有为她，这所黄黄的，阴沉沉的，到处是账台的铜绿味的屋子，才充满愉快。这些牢房是属于她的。她喂养那批终身做苦役的囚犯，他们尊重她的威权。以她所定的价目，这些可怜虫在巴黎哪儿还能找到充足而卫生的饭食，以及即使不能安排得高雅舒适、至少可以收拾得干干净净的房间？哪怕她做出极不公道的事来，人家也只能忍受，不敢叫屈。
整个社会的分子在这样一个集团内当然应有尽有，不过是具体而微罢了。像学校或交际场中一样，饭桌上十八个客人中间有一个专受白眼的可怜虫，老给人家打哈哈的出气筒。欧也纳·特·拉斯蒂涅住到第二年开头，发觉在这个还得住上两年的环境中，最堪注目的便是那个出气筒——从前做面条生意的高里奥老头。要是画家来处理这个对象，一定会像史家一样把画面上的光线集中在他头上。半含仇恨的轻蔑，带着轻视的虐待，对苦难毫不留情的态度，为什么加之于一个最老的房客身上呢？难道他有什么可笑的或是古怪的地方，比恶习更不容易原谅吗？这些问题牵涉到社会上许多暴行。也许人的天性就喜欢教那些为了谦卑，为了懦弱，或者为了满不在乎而忍受一切的人，忍受一切。我们不是都喜欢把什么人或物做牺牲品，来证明我们的力量吗？最幼弱的生物，儿童，就会在大冷天按人家的门铃，或者提着脚尖在崭新的建筑物上涂写自己的名字。
六十九岁的高老头，在一八一三年上结束了买卖，住到伏盖太太这儿来。他先住古的太太的那套房间，每年付一千二百法郎膳宿费，那气派仿佛多五个路易少五个路易[14]都无所谓。伏盖太太预收了一笔补偿费，把那三间屋子整新了一番，添置一些起码家具，例如黄布窗帘，羊毛绒面的安乐椅，几张胶画，以及连乡村酒店都不要的糊壁纸。高老头那时还被尊称为高里奥先生，也许房东看他那种满不在乎的阔气，以为他是个不知市面的冤大头。高里奥搬来的时候箱笼充实，里外服装，被褥行头，都很讲究，表示这位告老的商人很会享福。十八件二号荷兰细布衬衫，教伏盖太太叹赏不止，面条商还在纱颈围上扣着两只大金刚钻别针，中间系一条小链子，愈加显出衬衣料子的细洁。他平时穿一套宝蓝衣服，每天换一件雪白的细格布背心，下面鼓起一个滚圆的大肚子在那儿翕动，把一条挂有各色坠子的粗金链子，震动得一蹦一跳。鼻烟匣也是金的，里面有一个装满头发的小圆匣子，仿佛他还有风流艳事呢。听到房东太太说他风流，他嘴边立刻浮起笑容，好似一个小财主听见旁人称赞他的爱物。他的柜子（他把这个名词跟穷人一样念别了音）装满许多家用的银器。伏盖寡妇殷勤地帮他整东西时，不由得眼睛发亮，什么勺子、羹匙、食品、油瓶、汤碗、盘子、镀金的早餐用具，以及美丑不一，有相当分量，他舍不得放手的东西。这些礼物使他回想起家庭生活中的大事。他抓起一个盘，跟一个盖上有两只小鸽亲嘴的小钵，对伏盖太太说：
“这是内人在我们结婚的第一周年送我的。好心的女人为此花掉了做姑娘时候的积蓄。噢，太太，要我动手翻土都可以，这些东西我决不放手。谢天谢地！这一辈子总可以天天早上用这个钵喝咖啡；我不用发愁，有现成饭吃的日子还长哩。”
末了，伏盖太太那双喜鹊眼还瞥见一叠公债票，约略加起来，高里奥这个好人每年有八千到一万法郎的进款。从那天起，龚弗冷家的姑奶奶，年纪四十八而只承认三十九的伏盖太太，打起主意来了。虽然高里奥的里眼角向外翻转，又是虚肿又是往下掉，他常常要用手去抹，她觉得这副相貌还体面，讨人喜欢。他的多肉而突出的腿肚子，跟他的方鼻子一样暗示他具备伏盖寡妇所重视的若干优点；而那张满月似的，又天真又痴呆的脸，也从旁证实。伏盖寡妇理想中的汉子应当精壮结实，能把全副精神花在感情方面。每天早晨，多艺学校[15]的理发匠来替高里奥把头发扑粉，梳成鸽翅式，在他的低额角上留出五个尖角，十分好看。虽然有点儿土气，他穿扮得十分整齐，倒起烟来老是一大堆，吸进鼻孔的神气表示他从来不愁烟壶里会缺少玛古巴[16]。所以高里奥搬进伏盖太太家的那一天，她晚上睡觉的时候便盘算怎样离开伏盖的坟墓，到高里奥身上去再生；她把这个念头放在欲火上烧烤，仿佛烤一只涂满油脂的竹鸡。再醮，把公寓出盘，跟这位布尔乔亚的精华结合，成为本区中一个显要的太太，替穷人募捐，星期日逛旭阿西、梭阿西、香蒂伊[17]；随心所欲地上戏院，坐包厢，无须再等房客在七月中弄几张作家的赠券送她；总而言之，她做着一般巴黎小市民的黄金梦。她有一个铜子一个铜子积起来的四万法郎，对谁也没有提过。当然，她觉得以财产而论，自己还是一个出色的对象。
“至于其他，我还怕比不上这家伙！”想到这儿她在床上翻了个身，仿佛有心表现一下美妙的身段，所以胖子西尔维每天早上看见褥子上有个陷下去的窝。
从这天起，约莫有三个月，伏盖寡妇利用高里奥先生的理发匠，在装扮上花了点心血，推说公寓里来往的客人都很体面，自己不能不修饰得和他们相称。她想出种种玩意儿要调整房客，声言从今以后只招待在各方面看来都是最体面的人。遇到生客上门，她便宣传说高里奥先生，巴黎最有名望最有地位的商界钜头，特别选中她的公寓。她分发传单，上面大书特书：伏盖宿舍，后面写着：“拉丁区最悠久最知名的包饭公寓。风景优美，可以远眺高勃冷盆地（那是要在四层楼上远眺的），园亭幽雅，菩提树夹道成荫。”另外还提到环境清静、空气新鲜的话。
这份传单替她招来了特·朗倍梅尼伯爵夫人，三十六岁，丈夫是一个死在战场上的将军；她以殉职军人的寡妇身份，等公家结算抚恤金。伏盖太太把饭菜弄得很精美，客厅里生火有六个月之久，传单上的诺言都严格履行，甚至花了她的血本。伯爵夫人称伏盖太太为亲爱的朋友，说预备把特·伏曼朗男爵夫人和上校毕各阿梭伯爵的寡妇，她的两个朋友，介绍到这儿来；她们住在玛莱区[18]一家比伏盖公寓贵得多的宿舍里，租期快要满了。一朝陆军部各司署把手续办完之后，这些太太都是很有钱的。
“可是，”她说，“衙门里的公事老不结束。”
两个寡妇晚饭之后一齐上楼，到伏盖太太房里谈天，喝着果子酒，嚼着房东留备自用的糖果。特·朗倍梅尼夫人大为赞成房东太太对高里奥的看法，认为确是高见，据说她一进门就猜到房东太太的心思；觉得高里奥是个十全十美的男人。
“啊！亲爱的太太，”伏盖寡妇对她说，“他一点毛病都没有，保养得挺好，还能给一个女人许多快乐哩。”
伯爵夫人对伏盖太太的装束很热心地贡献意见，认为还不能跟她的抱负配合。“你得武装起来。”她说。仔细计算一番之后，两个寡妇一同上王宫市场的木廊[19]，买了一顶饰有羽毛的帽子和一顶便帽。伯爵夫人又带她的朋友上小耶纳德铺子挑了一件衣衫和一条披肩。武装买齐，扎束定当之后，寡妇真像煨牛肉饭店的招牌[20]。她却觉得自己大为改观，添加了不少风韵，便很感激伯爵夫人，虽是生性吝啬，也硬要伯爵夫人接受一顶二十法郎的帽子；实际是打算托她去探探高里奥，替自己吹嘘一番。朗倍梅尼夫人很乐意当这个差事，跟老面条商做了一次密谈，想笼络他，把他勾引过来派自己的用场；可是种种的诱惑，对方即使不曾明白拒绝，至少是怕羞得厉害；他的伧俗把她气走了。
“我的宝贝，”她对她的朋友说，“你在这个家伙身上什么都挤不出来的！他那疑神疑鬼的态度简直可笑；这是个吝啬鬼、笨蛋、蠢货，只能讨人厌。”
高里奥先生和朗倍梅尼太太会面的经过，甚至使伯爵夫人从此不愿再同他住在一幢屋里。第二天她走了，把六个月的膳宿费都忘了，留下的破衣服只值五法郎。伏盖太太拼命寻访，总没法在巴黎打听到一些关于特·朗倍梅尼伯爵夫人的消息。她常常提起这件倒霉事儿，埋怨自己过于相信人家，其实她的疑心病比猫还要重；但她像许多人一样，老是提防亲近的人而遇到第一个陌生人就上当。这种古怪的，也是实在的现象，很容易在一个人的心里找到根源。也许有些人，在共同生活的人身上再也得不到什么；把自己心灵的空虚暴露之后，暗中觉得受着旁人严厉的批判；而那些得不到的恭维，他们又偏偏极感需要，或者自己素来没有的优点，竭力想显得具备；因此他们希望争取陌生人的敬重或感情，顾不得将来是否会落空。更有一等人，天生势利，对朋友或亲近的人绝对不行方便，因为那是他们的义务，没有报酬的；不比替陌生人效劳，可以让自尊心满足一下。所以在感情圈内同他们离得越近的人，他们越不爱；离得越远，他们越殷勤。伏盖太太显然兼有上面两种性格，骨子里都是鄙陋的，虚伪的，恶劣的。
“我要是在这儿，”伏脱冷说，“包你不会吃这个亏！我会揭破那个女骗子的面皮，教她当场出彩。那种嘴脸我是一望而知的。”
像所有心路不宽的人一样，伏盖太太从来不能站在事情之外推究它的原因。她喜欢把自己的错处推在别人头上。受了那次损失，她认为老实的面条商是罪魁祸首；并且据她自己说，从此死了心。当她承认一切的挑引和搔首弄姿都归无用之后，她马上猜到了原因，以为这个房客像她所说的另有所欢。事实证明她那个美丽动人的希望只是一场空梦，在这家伙身上是什么都挤不出来的，正如伯爵夫人那句一针见血的话，她倒像是个内行呢。伏盖太太此后敌视的程度，当然远过于先前友谊的程度。仇恨的原因并非为了她的爱情，而是为了希望的破灭。一个人向感情的高峰攀登，可能中途休息；从怨恨的险坡往下走，就难得留步了。然而高里奥先生是她的房客，寡妇不能不捺着受伤的自尊心不让爆发，把失望以后的长吁短叹藏起来，把报复的念头闷在肚里，好似修士受了院长的气。逢到小人要发泄感情，不问是好感是恶感，总是不断地玩小手段的。那寡妇凭着女人的狡狯，想出许多暗中捉弄的方法，折磨她的仇人。她先取消公寓里添加出来的几项小节目。
“用不着什么小黄瓜跟鱼了。都是上当的东西！”她恢复旧章的那天早晨，这样吩咐西尔维。
可是高里奥先生自奉菲薄，正如一般白手成家的人，早年不得已的俭省已经成为习惯。素羹，或是肉汤，加上一盘蔬菜，一向是，而且永远就该是，他最称心的晚餐。因此伏盖太太要折磨她的房客极不容易，他简直无所谓嗜好，也就没法跟他为难。遇到这样一个无懈可击的人，她觉得无可奈何，只能瞧不起他，把她对高里奥的敌意感染别的房客；而他们为了好玩，竟然帮着她出气。
第一年将尽，寡妇对他十分猜疑，甚至在心里思忖：这个富有七八千法郎进款的商人，银器和饰物的精美不下于富翁的外室，为什么住到这儿来，只付一笔在他财产比例上极小的膳宿费？这第一年的大半时期，高里奥先生每星期总有一两次在外面吃晚饭；随后，不知不觉改为一个月两次。高里奥大爷那些甜蜜的约会，对伏盖太太的利益配合得太好了；所以他在家用餐的习惯越来越正常，伏盖太太不能不生气。这种改变被认为一方面由于他的财产慢慢减少，同时也由于他故意跟房东为难。小人许多最可鄙的习惯中间，有一桩是以为别人跟他们一样小气。不幸，第二年年终，高里奥先生竟证实了关于他的谰言，要求搬上三楼，膳宿费减为九百法郎。他需要极度撙节，甚至整整一冬屋里没有生火。伏盖寡妇要他先付后住，高里奥答应了，从此她便管他叫高老头。
关于他降级的原因，大家议论纷纷，可是始终猜不透！像那假伯爵夫人所说的，高老头是一个城府很深的家伙。一般头脑空空如也，并且因为只会胡扯而随便乱说的人，自有一套逻辑，认为不提自己私事的人决没有什么好事。在他们眼中，那么体面的富商一变而为骗子，风流人物一变而为老浑蛋了。一忽儿，照那个时代搬入公寓的伏脱冷的说法，高老头是做交易所的，送完了自己的钱，还在那里靠公债做些小投机，这句话，在伏脱冷嘴里用的是有声有色的金融上的术语。一忽儿，他是个起码赌鬼，天天晚上去碰运气，赢他十来个法郎。一忽儿，他又是特务警察雇用的密探；但伏脱冷认为他还不够狡猾当这个差事。又有一说，高老头是个放印子钱的守财奴，再不然是一个追同号奖券的人[21]。总之，大家把他当作恶劣的嗜好、无耻、低能所能产生的最神秘的人物。不过无论他的行为或恶劣的嗜好如何要不得，人家对他的敌意还不至于把他撵出门外：他从没欠过房饭钱。况且他也有他的用处，每个人快乐的或恶劣的心绪，都可用打趣或咕噜的方式借他来发泄。最近似而被众人一致认可的意见，是伏盖太太的那种说法。这个保养得那么好，一点毛病都没有，还能给一个女人许多快乐的人，据她说，实在是个古怪的好色鬼。伏盖寡妇的这种坏话有下面的事实做根据。
那个晦气星伯爵夫人白吃白住了半年，溜掉以后几个月，伏盖太太一天早上起身之前，听见楼梯上有绸衣窸窣的声音，一个年轻的女人轻轻巧巧地溜进高里奥房里，打开房门的方式又像有暗号似的。胖子西尔维立即上来报告女主人，说有个漂亮得不像良家妇女的姑娘，装扮得神仙似的，穿着一双毫无灰土的薄底呢靴，像鳗鱼一样从街上一直溜进厨房，问高里奥先生的房间在哪儿。伏盖太太带着厨娘去凑在门上偷听，耳朵里掠到几句温柔的话；两人会面的时间也有好一会。高里奥送女客出门，胖子西尔维马上抓起菜篮，装作上菜市的模样去跟踪这对情人。
她回来对女主人说：“太太，高里奥先生一定钱多得作怪，才撑得起那样的场面。你真想不到吊刑街转角，有一辆漂亮马车等在那里，我看她上去的。”
吃晚饭的时候，伏盖太太去拉了一下窗帘，把射着高里奥眼睛的那道阳光遮掉。[22]
“高里奥先生，你阳光高照，艳福不浅呢，”她说话之间暗指他早晨的来客，“吓！你眼力真好，她漂亮得很啊。”
“那是我的女儿呐。”他回答时那种骄傲的神气，房客都以为是老人故意遮面子。
一个月以后，又有一个女客来拜访高里奥先生。他女儿第一次来是穿的晨装，这次是晚餐以后，穿得像要出去应酬的模样。房客在客厅里聊天，瞥见一个美丽的金发女子，瘦瘦的身腰，极有丰韵，那种高雅大方的气度绝不可能是高老头的女儿。
“哎啊！竟有两个！”胖子西尔维说；她完全认不出是同一个人。
过了几天，另外一个女儿，高大，结实，深色皮肤，黑头发，配着炯炯有神的眼睛，跑来见高里奥先生。
“哎啊！竟有三个！”西尔维说。
这第二个女儿初次也是早上来的，隔了几天又在黄昏时穿了跳舞衣衫，坐了车来。
“哎啊！竟有四个！”伏盖太太和西尔维一齐嚷着。她们在这位阔太太身上一点没有看出她上次早晨穿扮朴素的影子。
那时高里奥还付着一千二百法郎的膳宿费。伏盖太太觉得一个富翁养四五个情妇是挺平常的，把情妇充作女儿也很巧妙。他把她们叫到公寓里来，她也并不生气。可是那些女客既然说明了高里奥对她冷淡的原因，她在第二年年初便唤他做老雄猫。等到他降级到九百法郎之后，有一次她看见这些女客之中的一个下楼，就恶狠狠地问他打算把她的公寓当作什么地方。高老头回答说这位太太是他的大女儿。
“你女儿有两三打吗？”伏盖太太尖刻地说。
“我只有两个。”高老头答话的口气非常柔和，正如一个落难的人，什么贫穷的委屈都受得了。
快满第三年的时候，高老头还要节省开支，搬上四层楼，每个月的房饭钱只有四十五法郎了。他戒掉了鼻烟，打发了理发匠，头上也不再扑粉。高老头第一次不扑粉下楼，房东太太大吃一惊，直叫起来；他的头发原是灰中带绿的腌臜颜色。他的面貌被暗中的忧患磨得一天比一天难看，似乎成了饭桌上最忧郁的一张脸。如今是毫无疑问了：高老头是一个老色鬼。要不是医生本领高强，他的眼睛早就保不住，因为治他那种病的药品是有副作用的。他的头发所以颜色那么丑恶，也是由于他纵欲无度，和服用那些使他继续纵欲的药物之故。可怜虫的精神与身体的情形，使那些无稽之谈显得凿凿有据。漂亮的被褥衣物用旧了，他买十四铜子一码的棉布来代替。金刚钻，金烟匣，金链条，饰物，一样一样地不见了。他脱下宝蓝大褂跟那些华丽的服装，不分冬夏，只穿一件栗色粗呢大褂，羊毛背心，灰色毛料长裤。他越来越瘦，腿肚子掉了下去；从前因心满意足而肥胖的脸，不知打了多少皱裥；脑门上有了沟槽，牙床骨突了出来。他住到圣·日内维新街的第四年上，完全变了样。六十二岁时的面条商，看上去不满四十，又胖又肥的小财主，仿佛不久才荒唐过来，雄赳赳气昂昂，教路人看了也痛快，笑容也颇有青春气息；如今忽然像七十老翁，龙龙钟钟，摇摇晃晃，面如死灰。当初那么生气勃勃的蓝眼睛，变了黯淡的铁灰色，转成苍白，眼泪水也不淌了，殷红的眼眶好似在流血。有些人觉得他可憎，有些人觉得他可怜。一般年轻的医学生注意到他下唇低垂，量了量他面角的顶尖，再三戏弄他而什么话都探不出来之后，说他害着甲状腺肿大。[23]
有一天黄昏，吃过饭，伏盖太太挖苦他说：“啊，喂！她们不来看你了吗，你那些女儿？”口气之间显然怀疑他做父亲的身份。高老头一听之下，浑身发抖，仿佛给房东太太刺了一针。
“有时候来的。”他声音抖动地回答。
“哎啊！有时你还看到她们！”那般大学生齐声嚷着，“真了不起，高老头！”
老人并没听见他的答话所引起的嘲笑，又恢复了迷迷糊糊的神气。光从表面上观察的人以为他老态龙钟。倘使对他彻底认识了，也许大家会觉得他的身心交瘁是个大大的疑案；可是认识他真是谈何容易。要打听高里奥是否做过面条生意，有多少财产，都不是难事；无奈那般注意他的老年人从来不走出本区的街坊，老躲在公寓里像牡蛎黏着岩石；至于旁人，巴黎生活特有的诱惑，使他们一走出圣·日内维新街便忘记了他们所调侃的可怜老头。头脑狭窄的人和漠不关心的年轻人，一致认为以高老头那种寒碜，那种蠢头蠢脑，根本谈不上有什么财产或本领。至于他称为女儿的那些婆娘，大家都接受伏盖太太的意见。像她那种每天晚上以嚼舌为事的老太婆，对什么事都爱乱猜，结果自有一套严密的逻辑，她说：
“要是高老头真有那么有钱的女儿，像来看他的那些女客，他决不会住在我四层楼上，每月只付四十五法郎的房饭钱，也不会穿得像穷人一样地上街了。”
没有一件事情可以推翻这个结论。所以到一八一九年十一月底，这幕惨剧爆发的时期，公寓里每个人都对可怜的老头儿有了极其肯定的意见。他压根儿不曾有过什么妻儿子女；荒淫的结果使他变成了一条蜗牛，一个人形的软体动物，据一个包饭客人，博物院职员说，应当列入加斯葛底番类[24]。跟高老头比较起来，波阿莱竟是老鹰一般，大有绅士气派了。波阿莱会说话，会理论，会对答；虽然他的说话、理论、对答，只是用不同的字眼重复旁人的话；但他究竟参加谈话，他是活的，还像有知觉的；不比高老头，照那博物院职员的说法，在寒暑表上永远指着零度。
欧也纳·特·拉斯蒂涅过了暑假回来，他的心情正和一般英俊有为的青年或是因家境艰难而暂时显得高卓的人一样。寄寓巴黎的第一年，法科学生考初级文凭的作业并不多，尽可享受巴黎的繁华。要知道每个戏院的戏码，摸出巴黎迷宫的线索，学会规矩，谈吐，把京城里特有的娱乐搅上瘾，走遍好好坏坏的地方，选听有趣的课程，背得出各个博物院的宝藏……一个大学生决不嫌时间太多。他会对无聊的小事情入迷，觉得伟大得了不得。他有他的大人物，例如法兰西学院的什么教授，拿了薪水吸引群众的人。他整着领带，对喜歌剧院楼厅里的妇女搔首弄姿。一样一样地入门以后，他就脱了壳，扩大眼界，终于体会到社会的各阶层是怎样重叠起来的。大太阳的日子，在香榭丽舍大道上辐辏成行的车马，他刚会欣赏，跟着就眼红了。
欧也纳得了文学士和法学士学位，回乡过暑假的时节，已经不知不觉经过这些学习。童年的幻象，外省人的观念，完全消灭了。见识改换，雄心奋发之下，他看清了老家的情形。父亲，母亲，两个兄弟，两个妹妹，和一个除了养老金外别无财产的姑母，统统住在拉斯蒂涅家小小的田地上。年收三千法郎左右的田，进款并没把握，因为葡萄的行情跟着酒市上落，可是每年总得凑出一千二百法郎给他。家里一向为了疼他而瞒起的常年窘迫的景象；他把小时候觉得那么美丽的妹妹，和他认为美的典型的巴黎妇女所做的比较；压在他肩上的这个大家庭的渺茫的前途；眼见任何微末的农作物都珍藏起来的俭省的习惯；用榨床上的残渣剩滓制造的家常饮料，总之，在此无须一一列举的许多琐事，使他对于权位的欲望与出人头地的志愿，加强了十倍。像一切有志气的人，他发愿一切都要靠自己的本领去挣。但他的性格明明是南方人的性格：临到实行就狐疑不决，主意动摇了，仿佛青年人在汪洋大海中间，既不知向哪方面驶去，也不知把帆挂成怎样的角度。先是他想没头没脑地用功，后来又感到应酬交际的必要，发觉女子对社会生活影响极大，突然想投身上流社会，去征服几个可以做他后台的妇女。一个有热情有才气的青年，加上倜傥风流的仪表，和很容易叫女人着迷的那种阳性的美，还愁找不到那样的女子吗？他一边在田野里散步一边不断转着这些念头。从前他同妹妹们出来闲逛完全无忧无虑，如今她们觉得他大大地变了。他的姑母特·玛西阿太太，当年也曾入宫觐见，认识一批名门贵族的领袖。野心勃勃的青年忽然记起姑母时常讲给他听的回忆中，有不少机会好让他到社会上去显露头角，这一点至少跟他在法学院的成就同样重要；他便盘问姑母，那些还能拉到关系的人是怎么样的亲戚。老姑太太把家谱上的各支各脉想了一想，认为在所有自私的阔亲戚中间，特·鲍赛昂子爵夫人大概最容易相与。她用老派的体裁写了封信交给欧也纳，说如果能接近这位子爵夫人，她自会帮他找到其余的亲戚。回到巴黎几天之后，拉斯蒂涅把姑母的信寄给特·鲍赛昂夫人，夫人寄来一张第二天的跳舞会的请帖，代替复信。
以上是一八一九年十一月底公寓里的大概情形。过了几天，欧也纳参加了特·鲍赛昂太太的舞会，清早两点左右回家。为了补偿损失的光阴，勇气十足的大学生一边跳舞一边发愿回去开夜车。他预备第一次在这个万籁无声的区域中熬夜，自以为精力充沛，其实只是见到豪华的场面的冲动。那晚他没有在伏盖太太家用餐，同居的人可能以为他要天亮回来，好像他有几次赴柏拉杜舞会[25]或奥迪安舞会，丝袜上溅满污泥，漆皮鞋走了样地回家。克利斯朵夫拴上大门之前，开出门来向街上瞧了瞧。拉斯蒂涅恰好在这时赶回，悄悄地上楼，跟在他后面上楼的克利斯朵夫却闹出许多响声。欧也纳进了卧房，卸了装，换上软鞋，披了一件破大褂，点起泥炭，急匆匆地准备用功。克利斯朵夫笨重的脚声还没有完，把青年人轻微的响动盖过了。
欧也纳没有开始读书，先出神地想了一会。他看出特·鲍赛昂子爵夫人是当今的阔太太之一，她的府第被认为圣·日耳曼区[26]最愉快的地方。以门第与财产而论，她也是贵族社会的一个领袖。靠了特·玛西阿姑母的力量，这个穷学生居然受到鲍府的优待，可还不知道这优待的作用多大。能够在那些金碧辉煌的客厅中露面，就等于一纸阀阅世家的证书。一朝踏进了这个比任何社会都不容易进去的地方，可以到处通行无阻。盛会中的鬓光钗影看得他眼睛都花了；他和子爵夫人仅仅寒暄了几句，便在那般争先恐后赴此晚会的巴黎女神中，发现了一个教青年人一见倾心的女子。阿娜斯大齐·特·雷斯多伯爵夫人生得端正，高大，被称为巴黎身腰最好看的美人之一。一对漆黑的大眼睛，美丽的手，有样的脚，举动之间流露出热情的火焰；这样一个女人，照特·龙格罗侯爵的说法，是一匹纯血种的马。泼辣的气息并没影响她的美；身腰丰满圆浑而并不肥胖。纯血种的马，贵种的美人，这些成语已经开始代替天上的安琪儿，仙女般的脸庞，以及新派公子哥儿早已唾弃不用的关于爱情的老神话。在拉斯蒂涅心目中，阿娜斯大齐·特·雷斯多夫人干脆就是一个迷人的女子。他想法在她的扇子上登记了两次[27]，并且在第一次四组舞时就有机会对她说：
“以后在哪儿跟你见面呢，太太？”说话之间那股热情冲动的劲儿，正是女人们最喜欢的。
“森林[28]啊，喜剧院啊，我家里啊，到处都可以。”她回答。
于是这南方的冒险家，在一场四组舞或华尔兹舞中间可能接触的范围内，竭力和这个动人心魄的伯爵夫人周旋。一经说明他是特·鲍赛昂太太的表弟，他心目中的那位贵妇人立刻邀请他，说随时可以上她家去玩儿。她对他最后一次的微笑，使他觉得登门拜访之举是少不了的了。宾客之中有的是当时出名放肆的男人，什么摩冷古，龙格罗，玛克辛·特·脱拉伊，特·玛赛，阿瞿达—宾多，王特奈斯，都是自命不凡、煊赫一世之辈，尽跟最风雅的妇女们厮混，例如勃朗同爵士夫人，特·朗日公爵夫人，特·甘尔迦罗哀伯爵夫人，特·赛里齐夫人，特·加里里阿诺公爵夫人，法洛伯爵夫人，特·朗蒂夫人，特·哀格勒蒙侯爵夫人，菲尔米阿尼夫人，特·李斯多曼侯爵夫人，特·埃斯巴侯爵夫人，特·摩弗里纽斯公爵夫人，葛朗第安夫人。在这等场合，年轻人闹出不通世面的笑话是最糟糕的。拉斯蒂涅遇到的幸而不是一个嘲笑他愚昧无知的人，而是特·朗日公爵夫人的情人，特·蒙脱里伏侯爵，一位淳朴如儿童的将军，告诉他特·雷斯多伯爵夫人住在海尔特街。
年纪轻轻，渴想踏进上流社会，饥荒似的想弄一个女人，眼见高门大户已有两处打通了路子：在圣·日耳曼区能够跨进特·鲍赛昂子爵夫人的府第，在唐打区[29]能够在特·雷斯多伯爵夫人家出入！一眼之间望到一连串的巴黎沙龙，自以为相当英俊，足够博取女人的欢心而得到她的帮助与庇护！也自认为雄心勃勃，尽可像江湖卖技的汉子似的，走在绳索上四平八稳，飞起大腿做一番精彩表演，把一个迷人的女子当作一个最好的平衡棒，支持他的重心！脑中转着这些念头，那女人仿佛就巍巍然站在他的炭火旁边，站在法典与贫穷之间；在这种情形之下，谁又能不像欧也纳一样沉思遐想，探索自己的前途，谁又能不用成功的幻想点缀前途？他正在胡思乱想，觉得将来的幸福十拿九稳，甚至自以为已经在特·雷斯多太太身旁了；不料静悄悄的夜里忽然“哼”的一声叹息，欧也纳听了几乎以为是病人的痰厥。他轻轻开了门，走入甬道，瞥见高老头房门底下有一线灯光；他怕邻居病了，凑上锁孔张望，不料老人干的事非常可疑，欧也纳觉得为了公众安全，应当把自称为的面条商深更半夜干的勾当看个明白。原来高老头把一张桌子仰倒着，在桌子横档上缚了一个镀金的盘和一件好似汤钵一类的东西，另外用根粗绳绞着那些镌刻精工的器物，拼命拉紧，似乎要绞成金条。老人不声不响，用筋脉隆起的胳膊，靠绳索帮忙，扭着镀金的银器，像捏面粉一般。
“哟！好家伙！”拉斯蒂涅私下想着，挺起身子站了一会，“他是一个贼还是一个窝赃的？是不是为了遮人耳目，故意装疯作傻，过着叫花子般的生活？”
大学生又把眼睛凑上锁孔，只见高老头解开绳索，拿起银块，在桌上铺了一条毯子，把银块放在上面卷滚，非常利落地搓成一根条子。条子快搓成的时候，欧也纳心上想：“难道他力气跟波兰王奥古斯德一样大吗？”
高老头伤心地瞧了瞧他的作品，掉下几滴眼泪，吹灭蜡烛，躺上床去，叹了一口气。
欧也纳私忖道：“他疯了。”
“可怜的孩子！”高老头忽然叫了一声。
听到这一句，拉斯蒂涅认为这件事还是不声张为妙，觉得不该冒冒失失断定邻居是坏人。他正要回房，又听见一种难以形容的声音，大概是几个穿布底鞋的人上楼梯。欧也纳侧耳细听，果然有两个人不同的呼吸，既没有开门声，也没有脚步声，忽然三楼伏脱冷的屋内漏出一道微光。
“一所公寓里竟有这么些怪事！”他一边想一边走下几级听着，居然还有洋钱的声音。一忽儿，灯光灭了，没有开门的声音，却又听到两个人的呼吸。他们慢慢地下楼，声音也就跟着低下去。
“谁啊？”伏盖太太打开卧房的窗子问。
“是我回来喔，伏盖妈妈。”伏脱冷大声回答。
“真怪！”欧也纳回到房内想，“克利斯朵夫明明把大门上了闩。在巴黎真要通宵不睡才弄得清周围的事。”
这些小事打断了他关于爱情的幻想，他开始用功了。可是，他先是猜疑高老头，心思乱了，而打扰得更厉害的是特·雷斯多太太的面貌不时出现，仿佛一个预告幸运的使者；结果他上床睡熟了。年轻人发狠要在夜里读书，十有九夜是睡觉完事的。要熬夜，一定要过二十岁。
第二天早上，巴黎浓雾蔽天，罩住全城，连最准时的人也弄错了时间。生意上的约会全失误了，中午十二点，大家还当是八点。九点半，伏盖太太在床上还没动弹。克利斯朵夫和胖子西尔维也起迟了，正在消消停停地喝他们的咖啡，里面羼着从房客的牛奶上撩起来的一层乳脂。西尔维把牛乳放在火上尽煮，教伏盖太太看不出他们揩油的痕迹。
克利斯朵夫把第一块烤面包浸在咖啡里，说道：“喂，西尔维，你知道，伏脱冷先生是个好人；昨晚又有两个客人来看他。太太要有什么疑心，你一个字都别提。”
“他有没有给你什么？”
“五法郎，算本月份的赏钱，意思叫我不要声张。”
西尔维回答：“除了他跟古的太太舍得花钱以外，旁的都想把新年里右手给的，左手拿回去！”
“哼！他们给的也是天晓得！”克利斯朵夫接着说，“一块起码洋钱，五法郎！高老头自己擦皮鞋擦了两年了。波阿莱那小气鬼根本不用鞋油，大概他宁可吞在肚里，舍不得擦他的破靴子。至于那瘦小的大学生，他只给两法郎。两法郎还不够我买鞋刷，临了他还卖掉他的旧衣服。真是没出息的地方！”
西尔维一小口一小口喝着咖啡。“话得说回来，咱们这个还算这一区的好差事哩。哎，克利斯朵夫，关于伏脱冷先生，人家有没有对你说过什么？”
“怎么没有！前几天街上有位先生和我说：你们那里住着一位鬓角染黑的胖子是不是？——我回答说：不，先生。他并没有染鬓角。他那样爱寻快活的人，才没有这个闲工夫呢。我把这个告诉了伏脱冷先生，他说：伙计，你对付得好！以后就这样说吧。顶讨厌是给人家知道我们的缺点，娶起亲来不麻烦吗？”
“也有人在菜市上哄我，要知道我有没有看见他穿衬衫。你想好笑不好笑！”西尔维忽然转过话头：“哟！华·特·葛拉斯已经敲九点三刻了，还没一个人动弹。”
“啊，喂！他们都出去啦。古的太太同她的小姑娘八点钟就上圣·丹蒂安拜老天爷去了。高老头挟着一个小包上街了。大学生要十点钟上完课才回来。我打扫楼梯的时候看他们出去的；我还给高老头的小包裹撞了一下，硬得像铁。这老头儿究竟在干什么呢？旁人耍弄他，当作陀螺一样，人倒是挺好的，比他们都强。他不给什么钱，可是我替他送信去的地方，那般太太酒钱给得很阔气，穿也穿得漂亮。”
“是他所说的那些女儿吗，嗯？统共有一打吧？”
“我一向只去过两家，就是到这儿来过的两个。”
“太太起来了；一忽儿就要叫叫嚷嚷的，我该上去了。你当心着牛奶，克利斯朵夫，仔细那猫儿。”
西尔维走进女主人的屋子。
“怎么？西尔维，已经十点差一刻了，你让我睡得像死人一样！真是从来没有的事！”
“那是浓雾作怪，浓得用刀劈也劈不开。”
“中饭怎么了？”[30]
“呕！那些房客都见了鬼，一太早就滚出去了。”
“说话要清楚，西尔维。应该说一大早。”
“哦！太太，你要我怎么说都可以。包你十点钟有饭吃。米旭诺跟波阿莱还没动弹。只有他们俩在家，睡得像猪一样。”
“西尔维，你把他们两个放在一块儿讲，好像……”
“好像什么？”西尔维大声痴笑起来，“两个不是一双吗？”
“真怪，西尔维，昨夜克利斯朵夫把大门上了闩，怎么伏脱冷先生还能进来？”
“不是的，太太。他听见伏脱冷先生回来，下去开门的。你当作……”
“把短袄给我，快快去弄饭。剩下的羊肉再加些番薯；饭后点心用煮熟梨子，挑两个小钱[31]一个的。”
过了一会，伏盖太太下楼了，她的猫刚刚一脚掀开罩盆，急匆匆地舐着牛奶。
“咪斯蒂格里！”她叫了一声，猫逃了，又回来在她腿边厮磨。“好，好，你拍马屁，你这老畜生！”
她接着又叫：“西尔维！西尔维！”
“哎，哎，什么事呀，太太？”
“你瞧，猫喝掉了多少！”
“都是混账的克利斯朵夫不好，我早告诉他摆桌子，他到哪儿去了？不用急，太太；那份牛奶倒在高老头的咖啡里吧。让我冲些水，他不会发觉的。他对什么都不在意，连吃什么都不知道。”
“他上哪儿去了，这怪物？”伏盖太太摆着盘子，问。
“谁知道？大概在跟魔鬼打交道吧。”
“我睡得太多了。”伏盖太太说。
“可是太太，你新鲜得像一朵玫瑰……”
这时门铃一响，伏脱冷大声唱着，走进客厅：
我久已走遍了世界，
人家到处看见我呀……
“哦！哦！你早，伏盖妈妈。”他招呼了房东，又亲热地拥抱她。
“喂，放手呀。”
“干吗不说放肆呀！”他回答，“说啊，说我放肆啊！哦，哦，我来帮你摆桌子。你看我多好！……
勾搭褐发和金发的姑娘，
爱一阵呀叹一声……
“我才看见一桩怪事……
……全是偶然……”
寡妇道：“什么事？”
“高老头八点半在太子街，拿了一套镀金餐具，走进一家收买旧食器旧肩章的银匠铺，卖了一笔好价钱。亏他不吃这行饭的人，绞出来的条子倒很像样呢。”
“真的？”
“当然真的。我有个伙计出远门，送他上了邮车回来，我看到高老头，就想瞧瞧是怎么回事。他回到本区格莱街上，走进放印子钱的高布赛克家；你知道高布赛克是个了不起的坏蛋，会把他老子的背脊梁雕成骰子的家伙！真是个犹太人，阿拉伯人，希腊人，波希米人，哼，你休想抢到他的钱，他把洋钱都存在银行里。”
“那么高老头去干什么？”
“干什么？吃尽当光！”伏脱冷回答，“这糊涂虫不惜倾家荡产去爱那些婊子……”
“他来了！”西尔维叫着。
“克利斯朵夫，你上来。”高老头招呼用人。
克利斯朵夫跟着高老头上楼，一忽儿下来了。
“你上哪儿去？”伏盖太太问。
“替高里奥先生跑一趟。”
“什么东西呀？”伏脱冷说着，从克利斯朵夫手中抢过一个信封，念道：送阿娜斯大齐·特·雷斯多伯爵夫人。他把信还给克利斯朵夫，问：“送哪儿呢？”
“海尔特街。他吩咐一定要面交伯爵夫人。”
“里面是什么东西？”伏脱冷把信照着亮处说，“钞票？不是的。”他把信封拆开一点：“哦，是一张债务清讫的借票。嘿！这老妖精倒有义气！”他伸出大手摸了摸克利斯朵夫的头发，把他的身体像骰子般骨碌碌地转了几下，“去吧，坏东西，你又好挣几个酒钱了。”
刀叉杯盘已经摆好。西尔维正在煮牛奶。伏盖太太生着火炉，伏脱冷在旁帮忙，嘴里哼着：
我久已走遍了世界，
人家到处看见我呀……
一切准备停当，古的太太和泰伊番小姐回来了。
“这么早到哪儿去啦，漂亮的太太？”伏盖太太问。
“我们在圣·丹蒂安教堂祈祷。今儿不是要去泰伊番先生家吗？可怜的孩子浑身哆嗦，像一张树叶。”古的太太说着坐在火炉前面，鞋子搁在火门口冒起烟来。
“来烤火吧，维多莉。”伏盖太太说。
“小姐，”伏脱冷端了一把椅子给她，“求上帝使你父亲回心转意固然不错，可是不够。还得有个朋友去教这个丑八怪把头脑醒醒。听说这蛮子手头有三百万，偏偏不肯给你一分陪嫁。这年月，一个美人儿是少不得陪嫁的。”
“可怜的孩子，”伏盖太太接口道，“你那魔王老子不怕报应吗？”
一听这几句，维多莉眼睛湿了；伏盖太太看见古的太太对她摆摆手，就不出声了。
军需官的寡妇接着说：“只要我能见到他的面，和他说话，把他妻子的遗书交给他，也就罢了。我从来不敢冒险从邮局寄去；他认得我的笔迹……”
“哦！那些无辜的女人，遭着灾殃，受着欺侮，”伏脱冷这么嚷着，忽然停下，说：“你现在就是落到这个田地！过几天让我来管这笔账，包你称心满意。”
“哦！先生，”维多莉一边说，一边对伏脱冷又畏怯又热烈地望了一眼，伏脱冷却毫不动心，“倘若你有方法见到家父，请你告诉他，说我把父亲的慈爱和母亲的名誉，看得比世界上所有的财宝都贵重。如果你能把他的铁石心肠劝转一些，我要在上帝面前为你祈祷，我一定感激不尽……”
“我久已走遍了世界……”伏脱冷用讽刺的口吻唱着。
这时高里奥、米旭诺小姐、波阿莱都下楼了，也许都闻到了肉汁的味道，那是西尔维做来浇在隔夜的羊肉上的。七个同居的人正在互相问好，围着桌子坐下，时钟敲了十点，大学生的脚步也在门外响了。
“嗳，行啦，欧也纳先生，”西尔维说，“今儿你可以跟大家一块儿吃饭了。”
大学生招呼了同居，在高老头身旁坐下。
“我今天有桩意想不到的奇遇。”他说着夹了好些羊肉，割了一块面包——伏盖太太老在那里估计面包的大小。
“奇遇！”波阿莱叫道。
“哎！你大惊小怪干什么，老糊涂？”伏脱冷对波阿莱说。“难道他老人家不配吗？”
泰伊番小姐怯生生地对大学生瞧了一眼。
伏盖太太说道：“把你的奇遇讲给我们听吧。”
“昨天我去赴特·鲍赛昂子爵夫人的舞会，她是我的表姊，有一所华丽的住宅，每间屋子都铺满了绫罗绸缎。她举行一个盛大的跳舞会，把我乐得像一个皇帝……”
“像黄雀。”伏脱冷打断了他的话。
“先生，”欧也纳气恼地问，“你这是什么意思？”
“我说黄雀，因为黄雀比皇帝快活得多。”
应声虫波阿莱说：“不错，我宁可做一只无忧无虑的黄雀，不要做皇帝，因为……”
“总之，”大学生截住了波阿莱的话，“我同舞会里最漂亮的一位太太跳舞，一位千娇百媚的伯爵夫人，真的，我从没见过那样的美人儿。她头上插着桃花，胸部又是最好看的花球，都是喷香的鲜花；啊唷！真要你们亲眼看见才行。一个女人跳舞跳上了劲，真是难画难描。唉！哪知今儿早上九点，我看见这位神仙似的伯爵夫人在格莱街上走。哦！我的心跳啦，以为……”
“以为她上这儿来，嗯？”伏脱冷对大学生深深地瞧了一眼。“其实她是去找放印子钱的高布赛克老头。要是你在巴黎妇女的心窝里掏一下，包你先发现债主，后看见情夫。你的伯爵夫人叫作阿娜斯大齐·特·雷斯多，住在海尔特街。”
一听见这个名字，大学生瞪着伏脱冷。高老头猛地抬起头来，把他们俩瞧了一眼，又明亮又焦急的目光教大家看了奇怪。
“克利斯朵夫走晚了一步，她到过那儿了。”高里奥不胜懊恼地自言自语。
“我猜着了。”伏脱冷咬着伏盖太太的耳朵。
高老头糊里糊涂地吃着东西，根本不知道吃的什么；愣头傻脑、心不在焉到这个程度，他还从来不曾有过。
欧也纳问：“伏脱冷先生，她的名字谁告诉你的？”
伏脱冷回答：“嗳！嗳！既然高老头会知道，干吗我不能知道？”
“什么！高里奥先生？”大学生叫起来。
“真的？昨天晚上她很漂亮吗？”可怜的老人问。
“谁？”
“特·雷斯多太太。”
“你瞧这老东西眼睛多亮。”伏盖太太对伏脱冷说。
“他难道养着那个女人吗？”米旭诺小姐低声问大学生。
“哦！是的，她漂亮得了不得，”欧也纳回答高老头，高老头不胜艳羡地望着他，“要没有特·鲍赛昂太太，那位神仙般的伯爵夫人竟可以算全场的王后了；年轻人的眼睛只钉住她一个，我在她的登记表上已经是第十二名，没有一次四组舞没有她，旁的女人都气坏了。昨天她的确是最得意的人。常言道：天下之美，莫过于满帆的巨舶，飞奔的骏马，婆娑起舞的美女，真是一点不错。”
“昨天在爵府的高堂上，今儿早晨在债主的脚底下，这便是巴黎女人的本相，”伏脱冷说，“丈夫要供给不起她们挥霍，她们就出卖自己。要不就破开母亲的肚子，搜搜刮刮地拿去摆架子，总而言之，她们什么千奇百怪的事都做得出。唉，有的是，有的是！”
高老头听了大学生的话，眉飞色舞，像晴天的太阳；听到伏脱冷刻毒的议论，立刻沉下了脸。
伏盖太太道：“你还没说出你的奇遇呢。你刚才有没有跟她说话？她要不要跟你补习法律？”
欧也纳道：“她没有看见我；可是九点钟在格莱街上碰到一个巴黎顶美的美人儿，清早两点才跳完舞回家的女子，不古怪吗？只有巴黎才会碰到这等怪事。”
“吓！比这个更怪的事还多咧。”伏脱冷嚷道。
泰伊番小姐并没留神他们的话，只想着等会儿要去尝试的事。古的太太向她递了个眼色，教她去换衣服。她们俩一走，高老头也跟着走了。
“喂，瞧见没有？”伏盖太太对伏脱冷和其余的房客说，“他明明是给那些婆娘弄穷的。”
大学生叫道：“我无论如何不相信美丽的伯爵夫人是高老头的情妇。”
“我们并没要你相信啊，”伏脱冷截住了他的话，“你年纪太轻，还没熟悉巴黎。慢慢你会知道自有一般所谓痴情汉……”
（米旭诺小姐听了这一句，会心地瞧了瞧伏脱冷，仿佛战马听见了号角。）
“哎！哎！”伏脱冷停了一下，深深地瞪了她一眼，“咱们都不是有过一点儿小小的痴情吗？……”
（老姑娘低下眼睛，好似女修士见到裸体雕像。）
伏脱冷又道：“再说，那些人啊，一朝有了一个念头就抓住不放。他们只认定一口井喝水，往往还是臭水；为了要喝这臭水，他们肯出卖老婆、孩子，或者把自己的灵魂卖给魔鬼。在某些人，这口井是赌场，是交易所，是收古画，收集昆虫，或者是音乐；在另外一些人，也许是做得一手好菜的女人。世界上所有的女人，他们都不在乎，一心一意只要满足自己疯魔的那个。往往那女的根本不爱他们，凶悍泼辣，教他们付很高的代价换一点儿小小的满足。唉！唉！那些傻蛋可没有厌倦的时候，他们会把最后一床被窝送进长生库，换几个最后的钱去孝敬她。高老头便是这等人。伯爵夫人剥削他，因为他不会声张；这就叫作上流社会！可怜的老头儿只想着她。一出痴情的范围，你们亲眼看到，他简直是个蠢笨的畜生。提到他那一门，他眼睛就发亮，像金刚钻。这个秘密是容易猜到的。今儿早上他把镀金盘子送进银匠铺，我又看他上格莱街高布赛克老头家。再看他的下文。回到这儿，他教克利斯朵夫送信给特·雷斯多太太，咱们都看见信封上的地址，里面是一张债务清讫的借票。要是伯爵夫人也去过那放债的家里，显见情形是紧急得很了。高老头很慷慨地替她还债。用不到多少联想，咱们就看清楚了。告诉你，年轻的大学生，当你的伯爵夫人嬉笑跳舞，搔首弄姿，把她的桃花一摇一摆，尖尖的手指拈着裙角的时候，她是像俗语所说的，大脚套在小鞋里，正想着她的或是她情人的，到了期付不出的借票。”
欧也纳叫道：“你们这么一说，我非把事情弄清楚不可了。明儿我就上特·雷斯多太太家。”
“对，”波阿莱接口道，“明儿就得上特·雷斯多太太家。”
“说不定你会碰到高老头放了情分在那边收账呢！”
欧也纳不胜厌恶地说：“那么你们的巴黎竟是一个垃圾坑了。”
“而且是一个古怪的垃圾坑，”伏脱冷接着说，“凡是浑身污泥而坐在车上的都是正人君子，浑身污泥而搬着两条腿走的都是小人流氓。扒窃一件随便什么东西，你就给牵到法院广场上去展览，大家拿你当把戏看。偷上一百万，交际场中就说你大贤大德。你们花三千万养着宪兵队和司法人员来维持这种道德。妙极了！”
“怎么，”伏盖太太插嘴道，“高老头把他的镀金餐具熔掉了？”
“盖上有两只小鸽的是不是？”欧也纳问。
“是呀。”
“大概那是他心爱的东西，”欧也纳说，“他毁掉那只碗跟盘的时候，他哭了。我无意中看到的。”
“那是他看作性命一般的呢。”寡妇回答。
“你们瞧这家伙多痴情！”伏脱冷叫道，“那女人有本领迷得他心眼儿都痒了。”
大学生上楼了，伏脱冷出门了。过了一会，古的太太和维多莉坐上西尔维叫来的马车。波阿莱搀着米旭诺小姐，上植物园去消磨一天之中最舒服的两个钟点。
“哎哟！他们这不像结了婚？”胖子西尔维说，“今儿他们第一次一块儿出去。两口儿都是又干又硬，碰起来一定会爆出火星，像打火石一样呢。”
“米旭诺小姐真要当心她的披肩才好，”伏盖太太笑道，“要不就会像艾绒一样烧起来的。”
四点钟，高里奥回来了，在两盏冒烟的油灯下看见维多莉红着眼睛。伏盖太太听她们讲着白天去看泰伊番先生一无结果的情形。他因为给女儿和这个老太太纠缠不清，终于答应接见，好跟她们说个明白。
“好太太，”古的太太对伏盖太太说，“你想得到吗，他对维多莉连坐也不教坐，让她从头至尾站在那里。对我，他并没动火，可是冷冷地对我说，以后不必再劳驾上他的门；说小姐（不说他的女儿）越跟他麻烦，（一年一次就说麻烦，这魔王！）越惹他厌；又说维多莉的母亲当初并没有陪嫁，所以她不能有什么要求；反正是许多狠心的话，把可怜的姑娘哭得泪人儿似的。她扑在父亲脚下，勇敢地说，她的劳苦哀求只是为了母亲，她愿意服从父亲的意旨，一点不敢抱怨，但求他把亡母的遗嘱读一遍。于是她呈上信去，说着世界上最温柔最诚心的话，不知她从哪儿学来的，一定是上帝的启示吧，因为可怜的孩子说得那么至情至性，把我听的人都哭昏了。哪想到老昏君铰着指甲，拿起可怜的泰伊番太太浸透眼泪的信，往壁炉里一扔，说道：‘好！’他想扶起跪在地下的女儿，一看见她捧着他的手要亲吻，马上缩了回去。你看他多恶！他那脓包儿子跑进来，对他的亲妹妹理都不理。”
“难道他们是野兽吗？”高里奥插了一句。
“后来，”古的太太并没留意高老头的慨叹，“父子俩对我点点头走了，说有要事。这便是我们今天拜访的经过。至少，他见过了女儿。我不懂他怎么会不认她，父女相像得跟两滴水一样。”
包饭的和寄宿的客人陆续来了，彼此问好，说些无聊的废话。在巴黎某些社会中，这种废话，加上古怪的发音和手势，就算诙谑，主要是荒唐胡闹。这一类的俗语常常在变化，作为根据的笑料不到一个月就听不见了。什么政治事件，刑事案子，街上的小调，戏子的插科打诨，都可以做这种游戏的材料，把思想、言语，当作羽毛球一般抛来抛去。一种新发明的玩意叫作狄奥喇嘛（diorama），比透景像真画（panorama）把光学的幻景更推进一步；某些画室用这个字打哈哈，无论说什么，字尾总添上一个喇嘛（rama）。有一个年轻的画家在伏盖公寓包饭，把这笑料带了来。
“啊，喂！波阿莱先生，”博物院管事说，“你的健康喇嘛怎么啦？”不等他回答，又对古的太太和维多莉说：“太太们，你们心里难受，是不是？”
“快开饭了吗？”荷拉斯·皮安训问。他是医科学生，拉斯蒂涅的朋友。“我的宝贝胃儿快要掉到脚底下去了。”
“天冷得要冰喇嘛！”伏脱冷叫着，“让一让啊，高老头。该死！你的脚把火门全占了。”
皮安训道：“大名鼎鼎的伏脱冷先生，干吗你说冷得要冰喇嘛？那是不对的。应该说冷得要命喇嘛。”
“不，”博物院管事说，“应当说冷得要冰喇嘛，意思是说我的脚冷。”
“啊！啊！原来如此！”
“嘿！拉斯蒂涅侯爵大人阁下，胡扯法学博士来了，”皮安训一边嚷一边抱着欧也纳的脖子，教他透不过气来，“哦！嗨！诸位，哦！嗨！”
米旭诺小姐轻轻地进来，一言不发对众人点点头，坐在三位太太旁边。
“我一看见她就打寒噤，这只老蝙蝠，”皮安训指着米旭诺低声对伏脱冷说，“我研究迦尔的骨相学，[32]发觉她有犹大的反骨。”
“你先生认识犹大吗？”伏脱冷问。
“谁没有碰到过犹大？”皮安训回答，“我敢打赌，这个没有血色的老姑娘，就像那些长条的虫，梁木都会给它们蛀空的。”
伏脱冷理着鬓角，说道：“这就叫作，孩子啊，
那蔷薇，就像所有的蔷薇，
只开了一个早晨。”
看见克利斯朵夫恭恭敬敬端了汤盂出来，波阿莱叫道：
“啊！啊！出色的喇嘛汤来了。”
“对不起，先生，”伏盖太太道，“那是蔬菜汤。”
所有的青年人都大声笑了。
“输了，波阿莱！”
“波阿莱输了！”
“给伏盖妈妈记上两分。”伏脱冷道。
博物院管事问：“可有人注意到今儿早上的雾吗？”
皮安训道：“那是一场狂雾，惨雾，绿雾，忧郁的、闷塞的、高里奥式的雾。”
“高里奥喇嘛的雾，”画家道，“因为混混沌沌，什么都瞧不见。”
“喂，葛里奥脱老爷，提到你啦。”
高老头坐在桌子横头，靠近端菜的门。他抬起头来，把饭巾下面的面包凑近鼻子去闻，那是他偶然流露的生意上的老习惯。
“哟！”伏盖太太带着尖刻的口气，粗大的嗓子盖住了羹匙、盘子和谈话的声音，“是不是面包不行？”
“不是的，太太。那用的是哀当卜面粉，头等货色。”
“你凭什么知道的？”欧也纳问。
“凭那种白，凭那种味道。”
“凭你鼻子里的味道，既然你闻着嗅着，”伏盖太太说，“你省俭到极点，有朝一日单靠厨房的气味就能过活的。”
博物院管事道：“那你不妨去领一张发明执照，倒好发一笔财哩。”
画家说：“别理他。他这么做，不过是教人相信他做过面条生意。”
“那么，”博物院管事又追问一句，“你的鼻子竟是一个提炼食物精华的蒸馏瓶了。”
“蒸——什么？”皮安训问。
“蒸饼。”
“蒸笼。”
“蒸汽。”
“蒸鱼。”
“蒸包子。”
“蒸茄子。”
“蒸黄瓜。”
“蒸黄瓜喇嘛。”
这八句回答从室内四面八方传来，像连珠炮似的，把大家笑得不可开交，高老头愈加目瞪口呆地望着众人，好像要想法懂一种外国话似的。
“蒸什么？”他问身旁的伏脱冷。
“蒸猪脚，朋友！”伏脱冷一边回答，一边望高里奥头上拍了一下，把他帽子压下去蒙住了眼睛。
可怜的老人被这下出其不意的攻击骇呆了，半晌不动。克利斯朵夫以为他已经喝过汤，拿走了他的汤盆。等到高老头掀起帽子，拿汤匙往身边掏的时候，一下碰到了桌子，引得众人哄堂大笑。
“先生，”老头儿说，“你真缺德，要是你敢再来捺我帽子的话……”
“那么老头儿，怎么样？”伏脱冷截住了他的话。
“那么，你总有一天要受大大的报应……”
“进地狱是不是？”画家问，“还是进那个关坏孩子的黑房？”
“喂，小姐，”伏脱冷招呼维多莉，“你怎么不吃东西？爸爸还是不肯让步吗？”
“简直是魔王。”古的太太说。
“总得要他讲个理才好。”伏脱冷说。
“可是，”跟皮安训坐得很近的欧也纳插嘴，“小姐大可为吃饭问题告一状，因为她不吃东西。嗨！嗨！你们瞧高老头打量维多莉小姐的神气。”
老人忘了吃饭，只顾端详可怜的女孩子；她脸上显出真正的痛苦，一个横遭遗弃的孝女的痛苦。
“好朋友，”欧也纳低声对皮安训说，“咱们把高老头看错了。他既不是一个蠢货，也不是毫无生气的人。拿你的骨相学来试一试吧，再告诉我你的意见。昨夜我看见他扭一个镀金盘子，像蜡做的一样轻便；此刻他脸上的神气表示他颇有点了不起的感情。我觉得他的生活太神秘了，值得研究一下。你别笑，皮安训，我说的是正经话。”
“不消说，”皮安训回答，“用医学的眼光看，这家伙是有格局的；我可以把他解剖，只要他愿意。”
“不，只要你量一量他的脑壳。”
“行，就怕他的傻气会传染。”
* * *
[1]印度每年逢Vichnou神纪念日，将神像置于车上游行，善男信女奉之若狂，甚至有攀附神车或置身轮下之举，以为如此则来世可托生于较高的阶级（Caste）。
[2]原文是用的英文All is true，且用斜体字。莎士比亚的悲剧《亨利八世》原名All is true，巴尔扎克大概是借用此句。
[3]真正的巴黎人是指住在塞纳河右岸的人。公寓所在地乃系左岸。迷路云云谓右岸的人偶尔漫步到左岸去的意思。
[4]指附近圣·雅各城关的加波桑医院。
[5]伏尔泰为梅仲宫堡园中的爱神像所作的铭文。
[6]《忒勒马科》系十七世纪费纳龙的名著。
[7]即《忒勒马科》中的情节。
[8]教堂的耗子原是一句俗语，指过分虔诚的人；因巴尔扎克以动物比人的用意在本书中特别显著，故改按字面译。
[9]乔治与毕希葛吕均系法国大革命时代人物，以阴谋推翻拿破仑而被处死刑。
[10]指短时期的过路客人。此语为作者以动物比人的又一例。
[11]法国刑法规定，凡逆伦犯押赴刑场时，面上须蒙以黑纱以为识别。刑台下铺糠乃预备吸收尸身之血。
[12]羼有酒精的咖啡或红茶。
[13]公元一世纪时以讽刺尖刻著名的拉丁诗人。
[14]路易为法国旧时金币，合二十至二十四法郎，随时代而异。
[15]法国有名的最高学府之一，校址在先贤祠附近，离伏盖公寓甚近。
[16]当时最著名的一种鼻烟。
[17]旭阿西、梭阿西、香蒂伊均巴黎近郊名胜。
[18]从十七世纪起，玛莱区即为巴黎高等住宅区。
[19]一八二八年以前王宫市场内有一条走廊，都是板屋，开着小铺子，廊子的名字叫作木廊。
[20]饭店当时开在中学街，招牌上画一条牛，戴着帽子和披肩；旁边有一株树，树旁坐着一个女人。
[21]买奖券时每次买同样的号码而增加本钱，叫作追同号奖券。
[22]本书中所说的晚餐，约在下午四点左右。公寓每日只开两餐。
[23]面角为生理学名词。侧面从耳孔至齿槽（鼻孔与口唇交接处）之水平线，正面从眼窝上部（即额角最突出处）至齿槽之垂直线，二线相遇所成之角，称为面角。人类之面角大，近于直角；兽类之面角小，近于锐角。面角的顶尖乃指眼窝上部。甲状腺肿大之生理现象往往为眼睛暴突，精神现象为感觉迟钝、智力衰退。
[24]加斯葛底番为博物学上分类的名词。
[25]柏拉杜为舞厅名字，坐落最高法院对面，一八五五年时拆毁。
[26]当时第一流贵族的住宅区。
[27]当时舞会习惯，凡男子要求妇女同舞，必先预约，由女子在扇子上登记，依次轮值。
[28]森林为近郊布洛涅森林的简称，巴黎上流社会游乐胜地。
[29]当时新贵的住宅区，海尔特街即在此区域内。
[30]当时中饭比现在吃得早，大概在十一点左右（见皮尔南著：《一八三○年代法国的日常生活》），但伏盖公寓的习惯，中饭比一般更早。
[31]所谓小钱是法国的一种旧铜币，价值等于一个铜子（Sou）的四分之一。
[32]迦尔（1758—1828），德国医生，首创骨相学。