Part 39 (1/2)
”What does he go on living for?” said Sylvie.
”To suffer,” answered Rastignac.
Bianchon made a sign to his friend to follow his example, knelt down and pressed his arms under the sick man, and Rastignac on the other side did the same, so that Sylvie, standing in readiness, might draw the sheet from beneath and replace it with the one that she had brought. Those tears, no doubt, had misled Goriot; for he gathered up all his remaining strength in a last effort, stretched out his hands, groped for the students' heads, and as his fingers caught convulsively at their hair, they heard a faint whisper:
”Ah! my angels!”
Two words, two inarticulate murmurs, shaped into words by the soul which fled forth with them as they left his lips.
”Poor dear!” cried Sylvie, melted by that exclamation; the expression of the great love raised for the last time to a sublime height by that most ghastly and involuntary of lies.
The father's last breath must have been a sigh of joy, and in that sigh his whole life was summed up; he was cheated even at the last. They laid Father Goriot upon his wretched bed with reverent hands. Thenceforward there was no expression on his face, only the painful traces of the struggle between life and death that was going on in the machine; for that kind of cerebral consciousness that distinguishes between pleasure and pain in a human being was extinguished; it was only a question of time--and the mechanism itself would be destroyed.
”He will lie like this for several hours, and die so quietly at last, that we shall not know when he goes; there will be no rattle in the throat. The brain must be completely suffused.”
As he spoke there was a footstep on the staircase, and a young woman hastened up, panting for breath.
”She has come too late,” said Rastignac.
But it was not Delphine; it was Therese, her waiting-woman, who stood in the doorway.
”Monsieur Eugene,” she said, ”monsieur and madame have had a terrible scene about some money that Madame (poor thing!) wanted for her father.
She fainted, and the doctor came, and she had to be bled, calling out all the while, 'My father is dying; I want to see papa!' It was heartbreaking to hear her----”
”That will do, Therese. If she came now, it would be trouble thrown away. M. Goriot cannot recognize any one now.”
”Poor, dear gentleman, is he as bad at that?” said Therese.
”You don't want me now, I must go and look after my dinner; it is half-past four,” remarked Sylvie. The next instant she all but collided with Mme. de Restaud on the landing outside.
There was something awful and appalling in the sudden apparition of the Countess. She saw the bed of death by the dim light of the single candle, and her tears flowed at the sight of her father's pa.s.sive features, from which the life had almost ebbed. Bianchon with thoughtful tact left the room.
”I could not escape soon enough,” she said to Rastignac.
The student bowed sadly in reply. Mme. de Restaud took her father's hand and kissed it.
”Forgive me, father! You used to say that my voice would call you back from the grave; ah! come back for one moment to bless your penitent daughter. Do you hear me? Oh! this is fearful! No one on earth will ever bless me henceforth; every one hates me; no one loves me but you in all the world. My own children will hate me. Take me with you, father; I will love you, I will take care of you. He does not hear me ... I am mad...”
She fell on her knees, and gazed wildly at the human wreck before her.
”My cup of misery is full,” she said, turning her eyes upon Eugene.
”M. de Trailles has fled, leaving enormous debts behind him, and I have found out that he was deceiving me. My husband will never forgive me, and I have left my fortune in his hands. I have lost all my illusions.
Alas! I have forsaken the one heart that loved me (she pointed to her father as she spoke), and for whom? I have held his kindness cheap, and slighted his affection; many and many a time I have given him pain, ungrateful wretch that I am!”
”He knew it,” said Rastignac.
Just then Goriot's eyelids unclosed; it was only a muscular contraction, but the Countess' sudden start of reviving hope was no less dreadful than the dying eyes.
”Is it possible that he can hear me?” cried the Countess. ”No,” she answered herself, and sat down beside the bed. As Mme. de Restaud seemed to wish to sit by her father, Eugene went down to take a little food.
The boarders were already a.s.sembled.