old man goriot

Chapter 10 Civilian Apartments (9)
"I knew you had guests here..." said the Duchess, turning to look at Eugene.

"This is my cousin, M. Eugene de Rastignac," said the Vicomtesse. "Do you have any news about General Montriveau? Yesterday Selixi told me that we will never see him again. Has he been to the mansion today?"

The Duchess, who was passionately in love with M. de Montriveau, was said to have been dumped by him recently; now that she heard this question, it was like a sharp arrow piercing her heart, and she blushed and replied: "Yesterday he was at the Elysee Palace."

"That's on duty," said Madame de Beauseant.

"Clara, you must know," said the Duchess, casting mean glances, "Mr. de Ajuda-Mr. Pinto and Ms. Roshfield's wedding announcement will be released tomorrow."

The blow was too severe; the Viscountess could not help turning pale, and replied with a smile: "It's those fools' gossip again. Why did Mr. de Arjuda give Roshfield a very prominent surname in Portugal for nothing?" What about the Roshfield family? It was only yesterday that the Roshfield family was knighted."

"But it is said that Belt will have a total of 20 francs annuity."

"Mr. De Ajuda has more money, so he doesn't care about these things."

"But Miss de Rochfield is very charming, my dear."

"Yo!"

"Anyway, he's having dinner there today, and the conditions have been negotiated. I'm really surprised that your news is so bad."

"What have you done, monsieur?" asked Madame de Beauseant. "The poor boy has just come into the world, my dear Antoinette, so he doesn't understand a bit of what we say. You have to take care of him, and we can talk about that tomorrow. You see, maybe Everything will be known tomorrow, and by then, you will definitely be able to blow the wind."

The Duchess looked at Eugene with that haughty look which sweeps a man from head to toe, and crushes him into nothingness.

"Madame, I stabbed Madame de Resto in the heart accidentally. My fault was unintentional," said the student; and he found that the two ladies spoke with superficial affection, but there was nothing in them. The knife is aggressive. "For the kind of person who insults you, you will still receive them, and you may be afraid of him; a person who has offended others, but you don't know how much you have offended, will be regarded as a fool, as a fool who can't take advantage of anything. Look down on him."

Madame de Beauseant gave the student the tender look which noble people do, expressing gratitude and dignity.Just now the Duchess looked at Eugene with the eyesight of an auction house appraiser, which hurt his heart. Now Madame de Beauseant's gaze is no different from an analgesic ointment for his wound.

"You think," continued Eugene, "that I had just won the favor of the Comte de Resto, because," at this point, turning to the Duchess modestly and slyly, "to tell you the truth, Madame, I'm just a poor college student, lonely, poor..."

"Don't say that, Monsieur de Rastignac. Nobody wants to hear that, and we women don't."

"Oh!" Eugene said, "I'm only 22 years old, and I should know how to endure the troubles encountered at this age. Besides, I am confessing at this moment; I can't kneel in a more beautiful confessional room: we are in a penitential room. The sin was committed in another place."

When the duchess heard this blasphemous speech, her face immediately sank. She was very disgusted with this kind of poor taste, so she said to the viscountess: "This gentleman is here..."

Madame de Beauseant thought that her cousin and the Duchess were very funny, so she laughed honestly.

"My dear, it is he who has come to find a governess to teach him good taste."

"Duchess," continued Eugene, "isn't it natural that we should be fascinated by something and want to know a little about it?" ("Damn," he thought, "I'm sure I It's talking to them in the barber's language.")
"But I think Madame de Resto herself was a pupil of M. de Trail," said the Duchess.

"I didn't know anything just now, ma'am," said the student, "so I intruded between the two of them. I managed to get on with my husband, and it seemed that my wife was nothing to me at first, until I took the liberty of talking to them. Speaking of a man I know, it is the man I saw going out by the secret staircase and kissing the countess at the end of the passage."

"Who is it?" the two ladies asked in unison.

"An old man, like me, a poor student, who lives on the edge of Saint-Marceau on forty francs a month; a poor wretch that everyone makes fun of; we call him old Goriot."

"Why, what a child you are," exclaimed the Vicomtesse, "Mrs. de Restoration is Miss Goriot."

"The noodle maker's daughter," interjected the Duchess, "a little woman, who came to court on the same day as a baker's daughter. Don't you remember, Clara? The King laughed and said something in Latin about Flour quip. What do you say about these people? These people..."

"Ejusdem farinae," said Eugene.

"That's right," said the Duchess.

"Oh! So it's her father." The college student said, making a disgusted gesture.

"That's right! This guy has two daughters, and these two daughters almost don't recognize him anymore, and he still spoils them like crazy."

"The little one," said the Vicomtesse, looking at Madame de Langeais, "isn't she married to a banker? Her husband has a German surname, Baron de Nucingen. The youngest daughter is named Danfina, fair-haired." , there's a side box at the Opera, and also at the Burlesque, where you always laugh out loud to attract attention, don't you?"

The Duchess smiled and said: "Hey, dear, I really admire you. Why do you pay so much attention to these people? It would take a fool like Restor to roll in flour with Miss Anastasia. Humph! He can't do business! The wife will be ruined sooner or later in the hands of M. de Trail."

"They don't recognize their father." Eugene chewed on this sentence.

"Ah! yes, their father, their own father, a father," went on the Vicomtesse, "a good father, who, it is said, gave each of his daughters five or six million francs, so that they could be married and live as they wished." but he only left an annuity of 60 to [-] francs for himself, thinking that his daughters were always daughters, and he had two homes with them, where he would be respected and cared for. As a result, after two years , the two sons-in-law kicked him out of their circle, treating him as a complete bastard..."

Eugene's eyes welled with tears; he had not so long rediscovered the sanctity of fraternity, he was still steeped in the enchanting convictions of romance, and it was only his first day on the battlefields of civilization in Paris.True feelings can always infect each other, and for a while, all three of them looked at each other in blank dismay, speechless.

"Oh, my God!" said Mrs. Langeais, "yes, it looks very abominable, but we see it every day. Is there no reason for it? Tell me, my dear, have you ever wondered what is A son-in-law? A son-in-law is a man whom you and I raise a daughter in vain; we regard our daughter as our sweetheart, with whom we are inextricably linked. Before she was seventeen, she was the happy angel of the family; Lamartine seems to have said, She is a pure and white soul, and later became the plague god of the family. After the son-in-law took her away from us, he began to use her love as a sharp axe, trying to cut off all the feelings of our angel's heart about his mother's family alive. Yesterday, our daughter was our everything, and we were our daughter's everything; overnight, she became our enemy. Didn't we see that this kind of tragedy happens every day? Here, it is the daughter-in-law who sacrificed everything for her son. The father-in-law is bossy. There, it is the son-in-law who kicks the mother-in-law out. I often hear people ask what kind of tragedies are happening in today's society; well, let alone the fact that we get married is a stupid thing, the tragedies caused by the son-in-law alone are appalling enough ...I fully understand what happened to the old noodle maker. I seem to remember, this Forio..."

"It is Goriot, madam."

"Yes, this Morioll was director of his community during the Revolution; he knew all about the famous famine[25]; Ten times as much. He hoarded flour, as much as he wanted. My grandma's steward sold him a lot. Like all such people, this Goriot probably shared his fat with the Public Safety Committee. I remember the steward still Tell grandma that she can live in Granvilliers in peace, because her wheat is an excellent certificate of citizenship. After all, this Loriot who sold the wheat to the executioner has only one It is said that he loves his two daughters very much. He sent the eldest daughter to the house of de Resto, and put the second child on the Baron de Nucingen, a great banker under the royalist party. You know, in the imperial era, the two sons-in-law felt that it was not too annoying to have an old revolutionary party of 20 in the family; since Napoleon was in power, they could make do with it. But after the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty, de Ray Mr. Stowe, especially the banker, felt that the old man was in the way. In the past, the two daughters may have loved their father and wanted to treat him and his husband like cabbages and goats. entertained Goriot; at the same time made up all kinds of affectionate excuses. 'Papa, I will come later, there will be no one else, we are better like this!' and so on. Me, my dear, I think that people have true feelings He has eyes and a brain, so that poor guy who became popular in [-], his heart is bleeding. He can see that the two daughters are ashamed of him. They love their husbands, and they have influenced their son-in-law. There must be someone Sacrifice is impossible. He sacrificed himself because he was a father, and he withdrew to exile himself. Seeing his daughter happy, he knew he was doing the right thing. In fact, this small crime is really the complicity of father and daughter We see this kind of thing everywhere. Doesn't this old Doriot become a flaw in his daughter's living room? He feels uncomfortable and bored there. What happens to this father is the beauty and beauty. It happens with the man she loves the most: if her love tires him, he goes away, and does all sorts of bad things to avoid her. All feelings are like that. Our heart is a treasury, you Empty it all at once and you've got nothing. Feelings that show themselves like a penniless man can't be forgiven by us. This father gave it all. For [-] years he gave it all His blood gave him his love; and in one day he handed over his property. When the lemon was squeezed dry, the daughter threw the peel on the street corner."

"Society is ugly," said the Vicomtesse, still downcast, toying with the warp and weft of her shawl, for what had been said to Madame de Langeais when she was telling the story hit her sorely.

"Ugly! No," went on the Duchess. "Society is what it is, and that's all. I say this to show that I am not deceived by society. I think as you do," she said, She squeezed the Viscountess' hand. "Society is a quagmire. We must stand on a high place." She stood up, kissed Mrs. de Beauseant's forehead, and said to her: "You are so beautiful now, my dear. You look very good, I I've never seen it before." Then she looked at the cousin, nodded slightly and went out.

"Great old man Goriot!" said Eugene, remembering seeing him wrench the silver in the middle of the night.

Madame de Beauseant did not hear, she was lost in thought.There was a long silence, and the poor college student stood there embarrassedly, neither daring to leave, staying, or opening his mouth.

"Society is ugly and immoral," said the Viscountess at last. "Whenever we're in trouble, there's always a friend to tell us about it, to stir our hearts with a knife, and to show us the handle. Sarcasm, jeering, it's all coming. Humph! I'm defending myself." She lifted her head upwards in her ladylike air, and lightning flashed from her defiant eyes. "Why!" said she, catching Eugene at first sight, "here you are!"

"It's still there." He said pitifully.

"Hey, Monsieur de Rastignac, you can fight society with fire. If you want to get ahead, I will help you. You may measure how deeply women are depraved and men are vanity. The book of society, Although I have read it well, I still don't understand some chapters before. Now I understand it all. The more ruthlessly calculating you are, the higher you will be. If you beat people mercilessly, they will be afraid of you. You only Can treat men and women like stage horses, wear them down one by one, and leave them alone at every stop; and you can reach the pinnacle of desire. You see, if no woman cares about you, you're here Worthless. You need a woman who is young, rich and elegant. If you have any real feelings, you must hide them like a treasure; don't let anyone guess, or you will be finished; you not only do Not to be butchered, but to be butchered. And if ever love ever comes to you, keep it a secret! Never confess your heart until you know to whom you have opened your heart. You have not yet that love; but In order to keep your future love, you must first learn to beware of the world. Let me tell you, Miguel... (She got the wrong name unknowingly.) A daughter abandons her father, longing for his death, and there are even more terrible things; that is, two The sisters were competing with each other. Restaut was of noble birth, and his wife had been admitted to court; She is so sad; jealousy bites her heart, she is far worse than her sister; her sister is no longer her sister; these two women don't recognize me, I don't recognize you, just like denying your own father. Therefore, De Madame Nucingen could lick up the mud from the Rue Saint-Lazare to the Rue de Grenelle in order to come into my drawing-room. She thought that de Marcet would help her to do this, and she was willing to do it. His slave, to haunt him. De Marcel does not think of her very much. If you can introduce her to me, you are her darling, and she will fall in love with you. From now on you Love her if you can, or make use of her. I can see her once or twice when there are big parties crowded; but never in the morning. I greet her, and that's enough. Saying old man Goriot's name, you shut the door of the Countess's house. Yes, my dear, you will come to Madame Restor's house twenty times, and she will be away twenty times. You are barred from the door. Well. Well, let old man Goriot introduce you to Madame Daphne de Nucingen. At that time, the beautiful Madame de Nucingen will be your brand. You must be her. All women are going to be crazy about you. Her rivals, her friends, her best friends, all want to take you away from her. Some women just like a man other women pick, just Some poor burgesses put on our hats and expect our manners. You will succeed; that is everything in Paris, and that is the key to power. If women think you have talent, Men will believe in your skills, as long as you don't show yourself. Then you can do whatever you want , everywhere is unimpeded.Then you will understand that society is nothing but a hodgepodge of fools and liars.Don't be a fool, and don't be a liar.I lend you my surname as an Ariadne thread to enter this labyrinth[26].Don't tarnish my surname," she said, twisting her neck, and looked at the college student like a queen, "give it back to me cleanly.OK, you go.We women also have our battles to fight. "

(End of this chapter)