Father Goriot | Page 8

the
thicket when winter is at hand. She said that she had nursed an old
gentleman, ill of catarrh of the bladder, and left to die by his children,
who thought that he had nothing left. His bequest to her, a life annuity
of a thousand francs, was periodically disputed by his heirs, who
mingled slander with their persecutions. In spite of the ravages of
conflicting passions, her face retained some traces of its former fairness
and fineness of tissue, some vestiges of the physical charms of her

youth still survived.
M. Poiret was a sort of automaton. He might be seen any day sailing
like a gray shadow along the walks of the Jardin des Plantes, on his
head a shabby cap, a cane with an old yellow ivory handle in the tips of
his thin fingers; the outspread skirts of his threadbare overcoat failed to
conceal his meagre figure; his breeches hung loosely on his shrunken
limbs; the thin, blue-stockinged legs trembled like those of a drunken
man; there was a notable breach of continuity between the dingy white
waistcoat and crumpled shirt frills and the cravat twisted about a throat
like a turkey gobbler's; altogether, his appearance set people wondering
whether this outlandish ghost belonged to the audacious race of the
sons of Japhet who flutter about on the Boulevard Italien. What
devouring kind of toil could have so shriveled him? What devouring
passions had darkened that bulbous countenance, which would have
seemed outrageous as a caricature? What had he been? Well, perhaps
he had been part of the machinery of justice, a clerk in the office to
which the executioner sends in his accounts,--so much for providing
black veils for parricides, so much for sawdust, so much for pulleys and
cord for the knife. Or he might have been a receiver at the door of a
public slaughter-house, or a sub-inspector of nuisances. Indeed, the
man appeared to have been one of the beasts of burden in our great
social mill; one of those Parisian Ratons whom their Bertrands do not
even know by sight; a pivot in the obscure machinery that disposes of
misery and things unclean; one of those men, in short, at sight of whom
we are prompted to remark that, "After all, we cannot do without
them."
Stately Paris ignores the existence of these faces bleached by moral or
physical suffering; but, then, Paris is in truth an ocean that no line can
plumb. You may survey its surface and describe it; but no matter how
numerous and painstaking the toilers in this sea, there will always be
lonely and unexplored regions in its depths, caverns unknown, flowers
and pearls and monsters of the deep overlooked or forgotten by the
divers of literature. The Maison Vauquer is one of these curious
monstrosities.

Two, however, of Mme. Vauquer's boarders formed a striking contrast
to the rest. There was a sickly pallor, such as is often seen in anaemic
girls, in Mlle. Victorine Taillefer's face; and her unvarying expression
of sadness, like her embarrassed manner and pinched look, was in
keeping with the general wretchedness of the establishment in the Rue
Nueve-Saint-Genevieve, which forms a background to this picture; but
her face was young, there was youthfulness in her voice and elasticity
in her movements. This young misfortune was not unlike a shrub,
newly planted in an uncongenial soil, where its leaves have already
begun to wither. The outlines of her figure, revealed by her dress of the
simplest and cheapest materials, were also youthful. There was the
same kind of charm about her too slender form, her faintly colored face
and light-brown hair, that modern poets find in mediaeval statuettes;
and a sweet expression, a look of Christian resignation in the dark gray
eyes. She was pretty by force of contrast; if she had been happy, she
would have been charming. Happiness is the poetry of woman, as the
toilette is her tinsel. If the delightful excitement of a ball had made the
pale face glow with color; if the delights of a luxurious life had brought
the color to the wan cheeks that were slightly hollowed already; if love
had put light into the sad eyes, then Victorine might have ranked
among the fairest; but she lacked the two things which create woman a
second time--pretty dresses and love-letters.
A book might have been made of her story. Her father was persuaded
that he had sufficient reason for declining to acknowledge her, and
allowed her a bare six hundred francs a year; he had further taken
measures to disinherit his daughter, and had converted all his real estate
into personalty, that he might leave it undivided to his son. Victorine's
mother had died broken-hearted in Mme. Couture's house; and the
latter, who was a