. . . Ah! you were so happy when you were little and still with me. . . ."
"We have never been happy since," said Delphine. "Where are the old days when we slid down the sacks in the great granary?"
"That is not all, father," said Anastasie in Goriot's ear. The old man gave a startled shudder. "The diamonds only sold for a hundred thousand francs. Maxime is hard pressed. There are twelve thousand francs still to pay. He has given me his word that he will be steady and give up play in future. His love is all that I have left in the world. I have paid such a fearful price for it that I should die if I lose him now. I have sacrificed my fortune, my honor, my peace of mind, and my children for him. Oh! do something, so that at the least Maxime may be at large and live undisgraced in the world, where he will assuredly make a career for himself. Something more than my happiness is at stake; the children have nothing, and if he is sent to Sainte-Pelagie all his prospects will be ruined."
"I haven't the money, Nasie. I have NOTHING--nothing left. This is the end of everything. Yes, the world is crumbling into ruin, I am sure. Fly! Save yourselves! Ah!--I have still my silver buckles left, and half-a-dozen silver spoons and forks, the first I ever had in my life. But I have nothing else except my life annuity, twelve hundred francs . . ."
"Then what has become of your money in the funds?"
"I sold out, and only kept a trifle for my wants. I wanted twelve thousand francs to furnish some rooms for Delphine."
"In your own house?" asked Mme. de Restaud, looking at her sister.
"What does it matter where they were?" asked Goriot. "The money is spent now."
"I see how it is," said the Countess. "Rooms for M. de Rastignac.
Poor Delphine, take warning by me!"
"M. de Rastignac is incapable of ruining the woman he loves, dear."
"Thanks! Delphine. I thought you would have been kinder to me in my troubles, but you never did love me."
"Yes, yes, she loves you, Nasie," cried Goriot; "she was saying so only just now. We were talking about you, and she insisted that you were beautiful, and that she herself was only pretty!"
"Pretty!" said the Countess. "She is as hard as a marble statue."
"And if I am?" cried Delphine, flushing up, "how have you treated me? You would not recognize me; you closed the doors of every house against me; you have never let an opportunity of mortifying me slip by. And when did I come, as you were always doing, to drain our poor father, a thousand francs at a time, till he is left as you see him now? That is all your doing, sister! I myself have seen my father as often as I could. I have not turned him out of the house, and then come and fawned upon him when I wanted money. I did not so much as know that he had spent those twelve thousand francs on me. I am economical, as you know; and when papa has made me presents, it has never been because I came and begged for them."
"You were better off than I. M. de Marsay was rich, as you have reason to know. You always were as slippery as gold. Good-bye; I have neither sister nor----"
"Oh! hush, hush, Nasie!" cried her father.
"Nobody else would repeat what everybody has ceased to believe.
You are an unnatural sister!" cried Delphine.
"Oh, children, children! hush! hush! or I will kill myself before your eyes."
"There, Nasie, I forgive you," said Mme. de Nucingen; "you are very unhappy. But I am kinder than you are. How could you say THAT just when I was ready to do anything in the world to help you, even to be reconciled with my husband, which for my own sake I---- Oh! it is just like you; you have behaved cruelly to me all through these nine years."
"Children, children, kiss each other!" cried the father. "You are angels, both of you."
"No. Let me alone," cried the Countess shaking off the hand that her father had laid on her arm. "She is more merciless than my husband. Any one might think she was a model of all the virtues herself!"
"I would rather have people think that I owed money to M. de Marsay than own that M. de Trailles had cost me more than two hundred thousand francs," retorted Mme. de Nucingen.
"DELPHINE!" cried the Countess, stepping towards her sister.
"I shall tell you the truth about yourself if you begin to slander me," said the Baroness coldly.
"Delphine! you are a ----"
Father Goriot sprang between them, grasped the Countess' hand, and laid his own over her mouth.
"Good heavens, father! What have you been handling this morning?" said Anastasie.
"Ah! well, yes, I ought not to have touched you," said the poor father, wiping his hands on his trousers, "but I have been packing up my things; I did not know that you were coming to see me."
He was glad that he had drawn down her wrath upon himself.
"Ah!" he sighed, as he sat down, "you children have broken my heart between you. This is killing me. My head feels as if it were on fire. Be good to each other and love each other! This will be the death of me! Delphine! Nasie! come, be sensible; you are both in the wrong. Come, Dedel," he added, looking through his tears at the Baroness, "she must have twelve thousand francs, you see; let us see if we can find them for her. Oh, my girls, do not look at each other like that!" and he sank on his knees beside Delphine. "Ask her to forgive you--just to please me," he said in her ear. "She is more miserable than you are. Come now, Dedel."
"Poor Nasie!" said Delphine, alarmed at the wild extravagant grief in her father's face, "I was in the wrong, kiss me----"
"Ah! that is like balm to my heart," cried Father Goriot. "But how are we to find twelve thousand francs? I might offer myself as a substitute in the army----"
"Oh! father dear!" they both cried, flinging their arms about him. "No, no!"
"God reward you for the thought. We are not worth it, are we, Nasie?" asked Delphine.
"And besides, father dear, it would only be a drop in the bucket," observed the Countess.