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Soon the noise began to subside, one by one the boarders went. At last, when their numbers had so dwindled that the party consisted of Mme. Vauquer, Mme. Couture, Mlle. Victorine, Vautrin, and Father Goriot, Rastignac watched as though in a dream how Mme. Vauquer busied herself by collecting the bottles, and drained the remainder of the wine out of each to fill others.
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.
Now, mamma," he went on, as he turned to Madame Vauquer and put his arm round her waist, "put on your bonnet, your best flowered silk, and the countess' scarf, while I go out and call a cab all my own self." And he started out, singing as he went: "Oh! sun! divine sun! Ripening the pumpkins every one." "My goodness! Well, I'm sure! Mme.
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.
And so, in Père Goriot, all the potent life of the Maison Vauquer is deliberately collected and hoarded up to the point where it is enough, when it is let loose, to carry the story forward with a strong sweep. By the time the story itself is reached the Maison Vauquer is a fully created impression, prepared to the last stroke for the drama to come.
Are you going to be like the rest of them?" he asked. "Madame, I shall never marry Mlle. Victorine," said Eugene, turning to Mme. Vauquer with an expression of terror and loathing that surprised the onlookers at this scene. Father Goriot caught the student's hand and grasped it warmly. He could have kissed it. "Oh, ho!" said Vautrin, "the Italians have a good proverb Col tempo."
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.
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 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.
"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. "Poor child!" said Mme. Vauquer. "Never mind, my pet, your wretch of a father is going just the way to bring trouble upon himself."
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."
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