United States or Guyana ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
I recognized the Countess, whose levee Gobseck had described for me, one of old Goriot's two daughters. "The Countess did not see me at first; I stayed where I was in the window bay, with my face against the pane; but I saw her give Maxime a suspicious glance as she came into the money-lender's damp, dark room. So beautiful she was, that in spite of her faults I felt sorry for her.
"Nothing; he was bent on his own undoing. He is a simpleton, stupid enough to ruin himself by running after " "There he is!" cried Sylvie. "Christophe," cried Father 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."
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.
If my daughters would lay their hands there, I think I should get better. ... Mon Dieu! who will recover their money for them when I am gone?... I will manufacture vermicelli out in Odessa; I will go to Odessa for their sakes." "Here is something to drink," said Eugene, supporting the dying man on his left arm, while he held a cup of tisane to Goriot's lips.
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 Father Goriot's door.
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.
It was the first time that Eugene had been in Father Goriot's room, and he could not control his feeling of amazement at the contrast between the den in which the father lived and the costume of the daughter whom he had just beheld. The window was curtainless, the walls were damp, in places the varnished wall-paper had come away and gave glimpses of the grimy yellow plaster beneath.
Having a tempter about him of Vautrin's calibre, strong, undauntable, as humorous as Dickens' Jingle, but infinitely more unscrupulous and dangerous, Rastignac is gained over, in spite of his first repulsion. The nursing and burying of Pere Goriot are his last acts of charity accorded to the claims of his higher nature, and even these are sullied by his relations with one of Goriot's daughters.
"It is the little locket and the chain made of hair that he wants; we took it off a while ago when we put the blisters on him. Poor fellow! he must have it again. There it lies on the chimney-piece." Eugene went to the chimney-piece and found the little plait of faded golden hair Mme. Goriot's hair, no doubt.
There was no fire in the grate, so he was about to tear it into little pieces, when he heard a voice speaking in Goriot's room, and the speaker was Delphine!
Word Of The Day