Chapter 118

_To these_, _from the inn_, _L. U. E._, DUMONT, CHARLES, the CURATE, the NOTARY jigging: from the inn, _R. U. E._, FIDDLERS playing and dancing; and through door L. C., GORIOT, ERNESTINE, PEASANTS, dancing likewise. Air: ‘Haste to the Wedding.’ As the parties meet, the music ceases

DUMONT. Welcome, neighbours! welcome friends! Ernestine, here is my Charles, no longer mine. A thousand welcomes. O the gay day! O the auspicious wedding! (CHARLES, ERNESTINE, DUMONT, GORIOT, CURATE, _and_ NOTARY _sit to the wedding feast_; PEASANTS, FIDDLERS, _and_ MAIDS, _grouped at back_, _drinking from the barrel_.) O, I must have all happy around me.

GORIOT. Then help the soup.

DUMONT. Give me leave: I must have all happy. Shall these poor gentlemen upon a day like this drink ordinary wine? Not so: I shall drink it. (_To_ MACAIRE, _who is just about to fill his glass_) Don’t touch it, sir! Aline, give me that gentleman’s bottle and take him mine: with old Dumont’s compliments.

MACAIRE. What?

BERTRAND. Change the bottle?

MACAIRE (_aside_). Bitten!

BERTRAND (_aside_). Sold again.

DUMONT. Yes, all shall be happy.

GORIOT. I tell ’ee, help the soup!

DUMONT (_begins to help soup_. _Then_, _dropping ladle_.) One word: a matter of detail: Charles is not my son. (_All exclaim_.) O no, he is not my son. Perhaps I should have mentioned it before.

CHARLES. I am not your son, sir?

DUMONT. O no, far from it.

GORIOT. Then who the devil’s son be he?

DUMONT. O, I don’t know. It’s an odd tale, a romantic tale: it may amuse you. It was twenty years ago, when I kept the _Golden Head_ at Lyons: Charles was left upon my doorstep in a covered basket, with sufficient money to support the child till he should come of age. There was no mark upon the linen, nor any clue but one: an unsigned letter from the father of the child, which he strictly charged me to preserve. It was to prove his identity: he, of course, would know the contents, and he only; so I keep it safe in the third compartment of my cash-box, with the ten thousand francs I’ve saved for his dowry. Here is the key; it’s a patent key. To-day the poor boy is twenty-one, to-morrow to be married. I did perhaps hope the father would appear: there was a Marquis coming; he wrote me for a room; I gave him the best, Number Thirteen, which you have all heard of: I did hope it might be he, for a Marquis, you know, is always genteel. But no, you see. As for me, I take you all to witness I’m as innocent of him as the babe unborn.

MACAIRE. Ahem! I think you said the linen bore an M?

DUMONT. Pardon me: the markings were cut off.

MACAIRE. True. The basket white, I think?

DUMONT. Brown, brown.

MACAIRE. Ah! brown—a whitey-brown.

GORIOT. I tell ’ee what, Dumont, this is all very well; but in that case, I’ll be danged if he gets my daater. (_General consternation_.)

DUMONT. O Goriot, let’s have happy faces!

GORIOT. Happy faces be danged! I want to marry my daater; I want your son. But who be this? I don’t know, and you don’t know, and he don’t know. He may be anybody; by Jarge, he may be nobody! (_Exclamations_.)

CURATE. The situation is crepuscular.

ERNESTINE. Father, and Mr. Dumont (and you too, Charles), I wish to say one word. You gave us leave to fall in love; we fell in love; and as for me, my father, I will either marry Charles, or die a maid.

CHARLES. And you, sir, would you rob me in one day of both a father and a wife?

DUMONT (_weeping_). Happy faces, happy faces!

GORIOT. I know nothing about robbery; but she cannot marry without my consent, and that she cannot get.

(_All speak together_ . . .

DUMONT. O dear, O dear!

ALINE. What spoil the wedding?

ERNESTINE. O father!

CHARLES. Sir, sir, you would not—

. . . )

GORIOT (_exasperated_). I wun’t, and what’s more I shan’t.

NOTARY. I donno if I make myself clear?

DUMONT. Goriot, do let’s have happy faces!

GORIOT. Fudge! Fudge!! Fudge!!!

CURATE. Possibly on application to this conscientious jurist, light may be obtained.

ALL. The Notary; yes, yes; the Notary!

DUMONT. Now, how about this marriage?

NOTARY. Marriage is a contract, to which there are two constracting parties, John Doe and Richard Roe. I donno if I make myself clear?

ALINE. Poor lamb!

CURATE. Silence, my friend; you will expose yourself to misconstruction.

MACAIRE (_taking the stage_). As an entire stranger in this painful scene, will you permit a gentleman and a traveller to interject one word? There sits the young man, full, I am sure, of pleasing qualities; here the young maiden, by her own confession bashfully consenting to the match; there sits that dear old gentleman, a lover of bright faces like myself, his own now dimmed with sorrow; and here—(may I be allowed to add?)—here sits this noble Roman, a father like myself, and like myself the slave of duty. Last you have me—Baron Henri-Frédéric de Latour de Main de la Tonnerre de Brest, the man of the world and the man of delicacy. I find you all—permit me the expression—gravelled. A marriage and an obstacle. Now, what is marriage? The union of two souls, and, what is possibly more romantic, the fusion of two dowries. What is an obstacle? the devil. And this obstacle? to me, as a man of family, the obstacle seems grave; but to me, as a man and a brother, what is it but a word? O my friend (_to_ GORIOT), you whom I single out as the victim of the same noble failings with myself—of pride of birth, of pride of honesty—O my friend, reflect. Go now apart with your dishevelled daughter, your tearful son-in-law, and let their plaints constrain you. Believe me, when you come to die, you will recall with pride this amiable weakness.

GORIOT. I shan’t, and what’s more I wun’t. (CHARLES _and_ ERNESTINE _lead him up stage_, _protesting_. _All rise_, _except_ NOTARY.)

DUMONT (_front R._, _shaking hands with_ MACAIRE). Sir, you have a noble nature. (MACAIRE _picks his pocket_.) Dear me, dear me, and you are rich.

MACAIRE. I own, sir, I deceived you: I feared some wounding offer, and my pride replied. But to be quite frank with you, you behold me here, the Baron Henri-Frédéric de Latour de Main de la Tonnerre de Brest, and between my simple manhood and the infinite these rags are all.

DUMONT. Dear me, and with this noble pride, my gratitude is useless. For I, too, have delicacy: I understand you could not stoop to take a gift.

MACAIRE. A gift? a small one? never!

DUMONT. And I will never wound you by the offer.

MACAIRE (_aside_). Bitten.

BERTRAND (_aside_). Sold again.

GORIOT (_taking the stage_). But, look’ee here, he can’t marry.

(_All speak together_ . . .

MACAIRE. Hey?

DUMONT. Ah!

ALINE. Hey day!

CURATE. Wherefore?

ERNESTINE. Oh!

CHARLES. Ah!

. . . )

GORIOT. Not without his veyther’s consent! And he hasn’t got it; and what’s more, he can’t get it: and what’s more, he hasn’t got a veyther to get it from. It’s the law of France.

ALINE. Then the law of France ought to be ashamed of itself.

ERNESTINE. O, couldn’t we ask the Notary again?

CURATE. Indubitably you may ask him.

(_All speak together_ . . .

MACAIRE. Can’t they marry?

DUMONT. Can’t he marry?

ALINE. Can’t she marry?

ERNESTINE. Can’t we marry?

CHARLES. Can’t I marry?

GORIOT. Bain’t I right?

. . . )

NOTARY. Constracting parties.

CURATE. Possibly to-morrow at an early hour he may be more perspicuous.

GORIOT. Ay, before he’ve time to get at it.

NOTARY. Unoffending jurisconsult overtaken by sorrow. Possibly by applying justice of peace might afford relief.

(_All speak together_ . . .

MACAIRE. Bravo!

DUMONT. Excellent!

CHARLES. Let’s go at once!

ALINE. The very thing!

. . . )

ERNESTINE. Yes, this minute!

GORIOT. I’ll go. I don’t mind getting advice, but I wun’t take it.

MACAIRE. My friends, one word: I perceive by your downcast looks that you have not recognised the true nature of your responsibility as citizens of time. What is care? impiety. Joy? the whole duty of man. Here is an opportunity of duty it were sinful to forego. With a word, I could lighten your hearts; but I prefer to quicken your heels, and send you forth on your ingenuous errand with happy faces and smiling thoughts, the physicians of your own recovery. Fiddlers, to your catgut! Up, Bertrand, and show them how one foots it in society; forward, girls, and choose me every one the lad she loves; Dumont, benign old man, lead forth our blushing Curate; and you, O bride, embrace the uniform of your beloved, and help us dance in your wedding-day. (_Dance_, _in the course of which_ MACAIRE _picks_ DUMONT’S _pocket of his keys_, _selects the key of the cash-box_, _and returns the others to his pocket_. _In the end_, _all dance out_: _the wedding-party_, _headed by_ FIDDLERS, _L. C._; _the_ MAIDS _and_ ALINE _into the inn_, _R. U. E._ _Manet_ BERTRAND _and_ MACAIRE.)