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"Mon Dieu! it is just as that good M. Vautrin says, and he is full of piety, you see," Mme. Couture remarked. "I am very glad to find that he is not an unbeliever like the rest of them that talk of the Almighty with less respect than they do of the Devil. Well, as he was saying, who can know the ways by which it may please Providence to lead us?"
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.
On the fifth of July following, the liberated Iroquois reappeared at Three Rivers, bringing with him two men of renown, ambassadors of the Mohawk nation. There was a fourth man of the party, and, as they approached, the Frenchmen on the shore recognized, to their great delight, Guillaume Couture, the young man captured three years before with Father Jogues, and long since given up as dead.
Peace had been made between the French and the Mohawks, and Couture still lived among the latter, for the express purpose of holding them steadfast to their promises. But, for some reason, the French apprehended an outbreak of hostilities, and it was resolved to send envoys to the Indian country.
It was to hold the Mohawks to their faith that Couture had bravely gone back to winter among them; but an agent of more acknowledged weight was needed, and Father Isaac Jogues was chosen. No white man, Couture excepted, knew their language and their character so well.
In the course of three evenings Madame Schontz read Fabien like a book and said to herself, "If Couture does not suit me, I am certain of saddling that one. My future can go on two legs now." This queer fellow whom everybody laughed at was really the chosen one, chosen, however, with an intention which made such preference insulting.
"Well, mademoiselle," Vautrin said, turning to Victorine, "you are eating nothing. So papa was refractory, was he?" "A monster!" said Mme. Couture. "Mademoiselle might make application for aliment pending her suit; she is not eating anything. Eh! eh! just see how Father Goriot is staring at Mlle. Victorine."
Of his French companions, one, Goupil, was dead; while Couture had urged Jogues to flight, saying that he would then follow his example, but that, so long as the Father remained a prisoner, he, Couture, would share his fate. Before morning, Jogues had made his decision. God, he thought, would be better pleased should he embrace the opportunity given him.
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, Father Goriot! Confound it, your foot covers the whole front of the stove."
You had better not leave that clever creature time for reflection. As for me, I am already putting the irons in the fire." And Maxime left Couture at the summit of happiness, saying to La Palferine, "Shall I drive you home, my boy?" By eleven o'clock Aurelie was alone with Couture, Fabien, and Rochefide. Arthur was asleep on a sofa.
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