Father Goriot

H >> Honore de Balzac >> Father Goriot


"Monsieur and Madame can see no visitors. They have just lost their
father, and are in deep grief over their loss."

Eugene's Parisian experience told him that it was idle to press the
point. Something clutched strangely at his heart when he saw that it
was impossible to reach Delphine.

"Sell some of your ornaments," he wrote hastily in the porter's room,
"so that your father may be decently laid in his last resting-place."

He sealed the note, and begged the porter to give it to Therese for
her mistress; but the man took it to the Baron de Nucingen, who flung
the note into the fire. Eugene, having finished his errands, returned
to the lodging-house about three o'clock. In spite of himself, the
tears came into his eyes. The coffin, in its scanty covering of black
cloth, was standing there on the pavement before the gate, on two
chairs. A withered sprig of hyssop was soaking in the holy water bowl
of silver-plated copper; there was not a soul in the street, not a
passer-by had stopped to sprinkle the coffin; there was not even an
attempt at a black drapery over the wicket. It was a pauper who lay
there; no one made a pretence of mourning for him; he had neither
friends nor kindred--there was no one to follow him to the grave.

Bianchon's duties compelled him to be at the hospital, but he had left
a few lines for Eugene, telling his friend about the arrangements he
had made for the burial service. The house student's note told
Rastignac that a mass was beyond their means, that the ordinary office
for the dead was cheaper, and must suffice, and that he had sent word
to the undertaker by Christophe. Eugene had scarcely finished reading
Bianchon's scrawl, when he looked up and saw the little circular gold
locket that contained the hair of Goriot's two daughters in Mme.
Vauquer's hands.

"How dared you take it?" he asked.

"Good Lord! is that to be buried along with him?" retorted Sylvie. "It
is gold."

"Of course it shall!" Eugene answered indignantly; "he shall at any
rate take one thing that may represent his daughters into the grave
with him."

When the hearse came, Eugene had the coffin carried into the house
again, unscrewed the lid, and reverently laid on the old man's breast
the token that recalled the days when Delphine and Anastasie were
innocent little maidens, before they began "to think for themselves,"
as he had moaned out in his agony.

Rastignac and Christophe and the two undertaker's men were the only
followers of the funeral. The Church of Saint-Etienne du Mont was only
a little distance from the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve. When the coffin
had been deposited in a low, dark, little chapel, the law student
looked round in vain for Goriot's two daughters or their husbands.
Christophe was his only fellow-mourner; Christophe, who appeared to
think it was his duty to attend the funeral of the man who had put him
in the way of such handsome tips. As they waited there in the chapel
for the two priests, the chorister, and the beadle, Rastignac grasped
Christophe's hand. He could not utter a word just then.

"Yes, Monsieur Eugene," said Christophe, "he was a good and worthy
man, who never said one word louder than another; he never did any one
any harm, and gave nobody any trouble."

The two priests, the chorister, and the beadle came, and said and did
as much as could be expected for seventy francs in an age when
religion cannot afford to say prayers for nothing.

The ecclesiatics chanted a psalm, the _Libera nos_ and the _De
profundis_. The whole service lasted about twenty minutes. There was
but one mourning coach, which the priest and chorister agreed to share
with Eugene and Christophe.

"There is no one else to follow us," remarked the priest, "so we
may as well go quickly, and so save time; it is half-past five."

But just as the coffin was put in the hearse, two empty carriages,
with the armorial bearings of the Comte de Restaud and the Baron de
Nucingen, arrived and followed in the procession to Pere-Lachaise. At
six o'clock Goriot's coffin was lowered into the grave, his daughters'
servants standing round the while. The ecclesiastic recited the short
prayer that the students could afford to pay for, and then both priest
and lackeys disappeared at once. The two grave diggers flung in
several spadefuls of earth, and then stopped and asked Rastignac for
their fee. Eugene felt in vain in his pocket, and was obliged to
borrow five francs of Christophe. This thing, so trifling in itself,
gave Rastignac a terrible pang of distress. It was growing dusk, the
damp twilight fretted his nerves; he gazed down into the grave and the
tears he shed were drawn from him by the sacred emotion, a
single-hearted sorrow. When such tears fall on earth, their radiance
reaches heaven. And with that tear that fell on Father Goriot's grave,
Eugene Rastignac's youth ended. He folded his arms and gazed at the
clouded sky; and Christophe, after a glance at him, turned and went
--Rastignac was left alone.

He went a few paces further, to the highest point of the cemetery, and
looked out over Paris and the windings of the Seine; the lamps were
beginning to shine on either side of the river. His eyes turned almost
eagerly to the space between the column of the Place Vendome and the
cupola of the Invalides; there lay the shining world that he had
wished to reach. He glanced over that humming hive, seeming to draw a
foretaste of its honey, and said magniloquently:

"Henceforth there is war between us."

And by way of throwing down the glove to Society, Rastignac went to
dine with Mme. de Nucingen.




ADDENDUM

The following personages appear in other stories of the Human Comedy.

Ajuda-Pinto, Marquis Miguel d'
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Secrets of a Princess
Beatrix

Beauseant, Marquis
An Episode under the Terror

Beauseant, Vicomte de
The Deserted Woman

Beauseant, Vicomtesse de
The Deserted Woman
Albert Savarus

Bianchon, Horace
The Atheist's Mass
Cesar Birotteau
The Commission in Lunacy
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
A Bachelor's Establishment
The Secrets of a Princess
The Government Clerks
Pierrette
A Study of Woman
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Honorine
The Seamy Side of History
The Magic Skin
A Second Home
A Prince of Bohemia
Letters of Two Brides
The Muse of the Department
The Imaginary Mistress
The Middle Classes
Cousin Betty
The Country Parson
In addition, M. Bianchon narrated the following:
Another Study of Woman
La Grande Breteche

Bibi-Lupin (chief of secret police, called himself Gondureau)
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Carigliano, Marechal, Duc de
Sarrasine

Collin, Jacques
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Member for Arcis

Derville
Gobseck
A Start in Life
The Gondreville Mystery
Colonel Chabert
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Franchessini, Colonel
The Member for Arcis

Galathionne, Princess
A Daughter of Eve

Gobseck, Jean-Esther Van
Gobseck
Cesar Birotteau
The Government Clerks
The Unconscious Humorists

Jacques (M. de Beauseant's butler)
The Deserted Woman

Langeais, Duchesse Antoinette de
The Thirteen

Marsay, Henri de
The Thirteen
The Unconscious Humorists
Another Study of Woman
The Lily of the Valley
Jealousies of a Country Town
Ursule Mirouet
A Marriage Settlement
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Letters of Two Brides
The Ball at Sceaux
Modest Mignon
The Secrets of a Princess
The Gondreville Mystery
A Daughter of Eve

Maurice (de Restaud's valet)
Gobseck

Montriveau, General Marquis Armand de
The Thirteen
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Another Study of Woman
Pierrette
The Member for Arcis

Nucingen, Baron Frederic de
The Firm of Nucingen
Pierrette
Cesar Birotteau
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Another Study of Woman
The Secrets of a Princess
A Man of Business
Cousin Betty
The Muse of the Department
The Unconscious Humorists

Nucingen, Baronne Delphine de
The Thirteen
Eugenie Grandet
Cesar Birotteau
Melmoth Reconciled
Lost Illusions
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
The Commission in Lunacy
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
Modeste Mignon
The Firm of Nucingen
Another Study of Woman
A Daughter of Eve
The Member for Arcis

Poiret
The Government Clerks
A Start in Life
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Middle Classes

Poiret, Madame (nee Christine-Michelle Michonneau)
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Middle Classes

Rastignac, Baron and Baronne de (Eugene's parents)
Lost Illusions

Rastignac, Eugene de
A Distinguished Provincial at Paris
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life
The Ball at Sceaux
The Interdiction
A Study of Woman
Another Study of Woman
The Magic Skin
The Secrets of a Princess
A Daughter of Eve
The Gondreville Mystery
The Firm of Nucingen
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
The Unconscious Humorists

Rastignac, Laure-Rose and Agathe de
Lost Illusions
The Member for Arcis

Rastignac, Monseigneur Gabriel de
The Country Parson
A Daughter of Eve

Restaud, Comte de
Gobseck

Restaud, Comtesse Anastasie de
Gobseck

Selerier
Scenes from a Courtesan's Life

Taillefer, Jean-Frederic
The Firm of Nucingen
The Magic Skin
The Red Inn

Taillefer, Victorine
The Red Inn

Therese
A Daughter of Eve

Tissot, Pierre-Francois
A Prince of Bohemia

Trailles, Comte Maxime de
Cesar Birotteau
Gobseck
Ursule Mirouet
A Man of Business
The Member for Arcis
The Secrets of a Princess
Cousin Betty
The Member for Arcis
Beatrix
The Unconscious Humorists