Honore de Balzac: Father Goriot

1. FATHER GORIOT (continued)

The words came from him like a sob, a hoarse sound like the death rattle of a dying man; it seemed indeed like the agony of death when the father's love was powerless. There was a pause, and neither of the sisters spoke. It must have been selfishness indeed that could hear unmoved that cry of anguish that, like a pebble thrown over a precipice, revealed the depths of his despair.

"I found the money, father, by selling what was not mine to sell," and the Countess burst into tears.

Delphine was touched; she laid her head on her sister's shoulder, and cried too.

"Then it is all true," she said.

Anastasie bowed her head, Mme. de Nucingen flung her arms about her, kissed her tenderly, and held her sister to her heart.

"I shall always love you and never judge you, Nasie," she said.

"My angels," murmured Goriot faintly. "Oh, why should it be trouble that draws you together?"

This warm and palpitating affection seemed to give the Countess courage.

"To save Maxime's life," she said, "to save all my own happiness, I went to the money-lender you know of, a man of iron forged in hell- fire; nothing can melt him; I took all the family diamonds that M. de Restaud is so proud of--his and mine too--and sold them to that M. Gobseck. Sold them! Do you understand? I saved Maxime, but I am lost. Restaud found it all out."

"How? Who told him? I will kill him," cried Goriot.

"Yesterday he sent to tell me to come to his room. I went. . . . 'Anastasie,' he said in a voice--oh! such a voice; that was enough, it told me everything--'where are your diamonds?'--'In my room----'-- 'No,' he said, looking straight at me, 'there they are on that chest of drawers----' and he lifted his handkerchief and showed me the casket. 'Do you know where they came from?' he said. I fell at his feet. . . . I cried; I besought him to tell me the death he wished to see me die."