Honoré de Balzac
translation: Ellen Marriage

FATHER GORIOT
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The next day was destined to be one of the most extraordinary in the annals of the Maison Vauquer. Hitherto the most startling occurrence in its tranquil existence had been the portentous, meteor-like apparition of the sham Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil. But the catastrophes of this great day were to cast all previous events into the shade, and supply an inexhaustible topic of conversation for Mme. Vauquer and her boarders so long as she lived.

In the first place, Goriot and Eugene de Rastignac both slept till close upon eleven o’clock. Mme. Vauquer, who came home about midnight from the Gaite, lay a-bed till half-past ten. Christophe, after a prolonged slumber (he had finished Vautrin’s first bottle of wine), was behindhand with his work, but Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau uttered no complaint, though breakfast was delayed. As for Victorine and Mme. Couture, they also lay late. Vautrin went out before eight o’clock, and only came back just as breakfast was ready. Nobody protested, therefore, when Sylvie and Christophe went up at a quarter past eleven, knocked at all the doors, and announced that breakfast was waiting. While Sylvie and the man were upstairs, Mlle. Michonneau, who came down first, poured the contents of the phial into the silver cup belonging to Vautrin—it was standing with the others in the bain-marie that kept the cream hot for the morning coffee. The spinster had reckoned on this custom of the house to do her stroke of business. The seven lodgers were at last collected together, not without some difficulty. Just as Eugene came downstairs, stretching himself and yawning, a commissionaire handed him a letter from Mme. de Nucingen. It ran thus:—

“I feel neither false vanity nor anger where you are concerned, my friend. Till two o’clock this morning I waited for you. Oh, that waiting for one whom you love! No one that had passed through that torture could inflict it on another. I know now that you have never loved before. What can have happened? Anxiety has taken hold of me. I would have come myself to find out what had happened, if I had not feared to betray the secrets of my heart. How can I walk out or drive out at this time of day? Would it not be ruin? I have felt to the full how wretched it is to be a woman. Send a word to reassure me, and explain how it is that you have not come after what my father told you. I shall be angry, but I will forgive you. One word, for pity’s sake. You will come to me soon, will you not? If you are busy, a line will be enough. Say, ‘I will hasten to you,’ or else, ‘I am ill.’ But if you were ill my father would have come to tell me so. What can have happened?...”

“Yes, indeed, what has happened?” exclaimed Eugene, and, hurrying down to the dining-room, he crumpled up the letter without reading any more. “What time is it?”

“Half-past eleven,” said Vautrin, dropping a lump of sugar into his coffee.

The escaped convict cast a glance at Eugene, a (...)

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