Old Goriot

Book may have numerous typos, missing text, images, or index. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. 1913. Excerpt: ... too much for me! Please do not speak of me unless it is to say how good my daughters are to me. They are always wanting to heap presents upon me, but I will not have it. "Just keep your money," I tell them. "What should I do with it? I want nothing." And what am I, sir, after all f An old carcase, whose soul is always where my daughters are. When you have seen Mme. de Nucingen, tell me which you like the most, ' said the old man after a moment's pause, while Eugene put the last touches to his toilette. The student was about to go out to walk in the Garden of the Tuileries until the hour when he could venture to appear in Mme. de Beauseant's drawing-room. That walk was a turning-point in Eugene's career. Several women noticed him; he looked so handsome, so young, and so well dressed. This almost admiring attention gave a new turn to his thoughts. He forgot his sisters and the aunt who had robbed herself for him; he no longer remembered his own virtuous scruples. He had seen hovering above his head the fiend so easy to mistake for an angel, the Devil with rainbow wings, who scatters rubies, and aims his golden shafts at palace fronts, who invests women with purple, and thrones with a glory that dazzles the eyes of fools till they forget the simple origins of royal dominion; he had heard the rustle of that Vanity whose tinsel seems to us to be the symbol of power. However cynical Vautrin's words had been, they had made an impression on his mind, as the sordid features of the old crone who whispers, 'A lover, and gold in torrents, ' remain engraven on a young girl's memory. Eugene lounged about the walks till it was nearly five o'clock, then he went to Mme. de Beauseant, and received one of the terrible blows against which young hearts are defenceless. Hitherto the Vicomtesse had received...