Honore de Balzac: Father Goriot

1. FATHER GORIOT (continued)

Eugene was roused from his musings by the voice of the stout Sylvie, who announced that the tailor had come, and Eugene therefore made his appearance before the man with the two money bags, and was not ill pleased that it should be so. When he had tried on his dress suit, he put on his new morning costume, which completely metamorphosed him.

"I am quite equal to M. de Trailles," he said to himself. "In short, I look like a gentleman."

"You asked me, sir, if I knew the houses where Mme. de Nucingen goes," Father Goriot's voice spoke from the doorway of Eugene's room."

"Yes."

"Very well then, she is going to the Marechale Carigliano's ball on Monday. If you can manage to be there, I shall hear from you whether my two girls enjoyed themselves, and how they were dressed, and all about it in fact."

"How did you find that out, my good Goriot?" said Eugene, putting a chair by the fire for his visitor.

"Her maid told me. I hear all about their doings from Therese and Constance," he added gleefully.

The old man looked like a lover who is still young enough to be made happy by the discovery of some little stratagem which brings him information of his lady-love without her knowledge.

"YOU will see them both!" he said, giving artless expression to a pang of jealousy.

"I do not know," answered Eugene. "I will go to Mme. de Beauseant and ask her for an introduction to the Marechale."

Eugene felt a thrill of pleasure at the thought of appearing before the Vicomtesse, dressed as henceforward he always meant to be. The "abysses of the human heart," in the moralists' phrase, are only insidious thoughts, involuntary promptings of personal interest. The instinct of enjoyment turns the scale; those rapid changes of purpose which have furnished the text for so much rhetoric are calculations prompted by the hope of pleasure. Rastignac beholding himself well dressed and impeccable as to gloves and boots, forgot his virtuous resolutions. Youth, moreover, when bent upon wrongdoing does not dare to behold himself in the mirror of consciousness; mature age has seen itself; and therein lies the whole difference between these two phases of life.