Will you take it? I will leave directions that it is to be sent to you in the Rue d'Artois.--Mme. de Nucingen looked very charming this evening. Eugene, you must love her. Perhaps we may never see each other again, my friend; but be sure of this, that I shall pray for you who have been kind to me.--Now, let us go downstairs. People shall not think that I am weeping. I have all time and eternity before me, and where I am going I shall be alone, and no one will ask me the reason of my tears. One last look round first."
She stood for a moment. Then she covered her eyes with her hands for an instant, dashed away the tears, bathed her face with cold water, and took the student's arm.
"Let us go!" she said.
This suffering, endured with such noble fortitude, shook Eugene with a more violent emotion than he had felt before. They went back to the ballroom, and Mme. de Beauseant went through the rooms on Eugene's arm--the last delicately gracious act of a gracious woman. In another moment he saw the sisters, Mme. de Restaud and Mme. de Nucingen. The Countess shone in all the glory of her magnificent diamonds; every stone must have scorched like fire, she was never to wear them again. Strong as love and pride might be in her, she found it difficult to meet her husband's eyes. The sight of her was scarcely calculated to lighten Rastignac's sad thougths; through the blaze of those diamonds he seemed to see the wretched pallet-bed on which Father Goriot was lying. The Vicomtesse misread his melancholy; she withdrew her hand from his arm.
"Come," she said, "I must not deprive you of a pleasure."
Eugene was soon claimed by Delphine. She was delighted by the impression that she had made, and eager to lay at her lover's feet the homage she had received in this new world in which she hoped to live and move henceforth.
"What do you think of Nasie?" she asked him.
"She has discounted everything, even her own father's death," said Rastignac.
Towards four o'clock in the morning the rooms began to empty. A little later the music ceased, and the Duchesse de Langeais and Rastignac were left in the great ballroom. The Vicomtesse, who thought to find the student there alone, came back there at last.
She had taken leave of M. de Beauseant, who had gone off to bed, saying again as he went, "It is a great pity, my dear, to shut yourself up at your age! Pray stay among us."
Mme. de Beauseant saw the Duchesse, and, in spite of herself, an exclamation broke from her.
"I saw how it was, Clara," said Mme. de Langeais. "You are going from among us, and you will never come back. But you must not go until you have heard me, until we have understood each other."
She took her friend's arm, and they went together into the next room. There the Duchess looked at her with tears in her eyes; she held her friend in close embrace and kissed her cheek.
"I could not let you go without a word, dearest; the remorse would have been too hard to bear. You can count upon me as surely as upon yourself. You have shown yourself great this evening; I feel that I am worthy of our friendship, and I mean to prove myself worthy of it. I have not always been kind; I was in the wrong; forgive me, dearest; I wish I could unsay anything that may have hurt you; I take back those words. One common sorrow has brought us together again, for I do not know which of us is the more miserable. M. de Montriveau was not here to-night; do you understand what that means?--None of those who saw you to-night, Clara, will ever forget you. I mean to make one last effort. If I fail, I shall go into a convent. Clara, where are you going?"
"Into Normandy, to Courcelles. I shall love and pray there until the day when God shall take me from this world.--M. de Rastignac!" called the Vicomtesse, in a tremulous voice, remembering that the young man was waiting there.
The student knelt to kiss his cousin's hand.
"Good-bye, Antoinette!" said Mme. de Beauseant. "May you be happy."--She turned to the student. "You are young," she said;
"you have some beliefs still left. I have been privileged, like some dying people, to find sincere and reverent feeling in those about me as I take my leave of this world."
It was nearly five o'clock that morning when Rastignac came away.
He had put Mme. de Beauseant into her traveling carriage, and received her last farewells, spoken amid fast-falling tears; for no greatness is so great that it can rise above the laws of human affection, or live beyond the jurisdiction of pain, as certain demagogues would have the people believe. Eugene returned on foot to the Maison Vauquer through the cold and darkness. His education was nearly complete.
"There is no hope for poor Father Goriot," said Bianchon, as Rastignac came into the room. Eugene looked for a while at the sleeping man, then he turned to his friend. "Dear fellow, you are content with the modest career you have marked out for yourself; keep to it. I am in hell, and I must stay there. Believe everything that you hear said of the world, nothing is too impossibly bad. No Juvenal could paint the horrors hidden away under the covering of gems and gold."
At two o'clock in the afternoon Bianchon came to wake Rastignac, and begged him to take charge of Goriot, who had grown worse as the day wore on. The medical student was obliged to go out.
"Poor old man, he has not two days to live, maybe not many hours," he said; "but we must do our utmost, all the same, to fight the disease. It will be a very troublesome case, and we shall want money. We can nurse him between us, of course, but, for my own part, I have not a penny. I have turned out his pockets, and rummaged through his drawers--result, nix. I asked him about it while his mind was clear, and he told me he had not a farthing of his own. What have you?"
"I have twenty francs left," said Rastignac; "but I will take them to the roulette table, I shall be sure to win."
"And if you lose?"
"Then I shall go to his sons-in-law and his daughters and ask them for money."