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Updated: May 14, 2025
'Bravo, said I to myself, 'here is the sort of fellow for me. You wanted money. Where was it all to come from? And, then, what will you do? Shall you begin to work? Work, or what you understand by work at this moment, means, for a man of Poiret's calibre, an old age in Mamma Vauquer's lodging-house.
The speaker took his mask off; for a moment Rastignac hesitated, recognizing nothing of the hideous being he had known formerly at Madame Vauquer's. "The devil has enabled you to change in every particular, excepting your eyes, which it is impossible to forget," said he. The iron hand gripped his arm to enjoin eternal secrecy.
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.
"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.
"You young cockerel, hatched in Mother Vauquer's coop you, whose heart failed you to clutch old Taillefer's millions when the hardest part of the business was done let me tell you, for your personal safety, that if you do not treat Lucien like the brother you love, you are in our power, while we are not in yours. Silence and submission! or I shall join your game and upset the skittles.
"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. Eugene is cut out for that kind of thing." Mlle. Taillefer stole a timid glance at the young student.
Goriot, on the spot, is one of Maman Vauquer's boarders, and the mere fact is enough, by now, to differentiate him, to single him out among miserable old men. Whatever he does he carries with him the daily experience of the dingy house and the clattering meals and the frowzy company, with Maman Vauquer, hard and hungry and harassed Mrs.
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.
The old man's hat was lying on a broken-down bureau. An armchair stuffed with straw and a couple of chairs completed the list of ramshackle furniture. From the tester of the bed, tied to the ceiling by a piece of rag, hung a strip of some cheap material in large red and black checks. No poor drudge in a garret could be worse lodged than Father Goriot in Mme. Vauquer's lodging-house.
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.
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