me a mania. All the
affection balked by death seemed to turn to his daughters, and he found
full satisfaction for his heart in loving them. More or less brilliant
proposals were made to him from time to time; wealthy merchants or
farmers with daughters vied with each other in offering inducements
to him to marry again; but he determined to remain a widower. His
father-in-law, the only man for whom he felt a decided friendship, gave
out that Goriot had made a vow to be faithful to his wife's memory. The
frequenters of the Corn Exchange, who could not comprehend this sublime
piece of folly, joked about it among themselves, and found a ridiculous
nickname for him. One of them ventured (after a glass over a bargain)
to call him by it, and a blow from the vermicelli maker's fist sent him
headlong into a gutter in the Rue Oblin. He could think of nothing else
when his children were concerned; his love for them made him fidgety
and anxious; and this was so well known, that one day a competitor, who
wished to get rid of him to secure the field to himself, told Goriot
that Delphine had just been knocked down by a cab. The vermicelli maker
turned ghastly pale, left the Exchange at once, and did not return for
several days afterwards; he was ill in consequence of the shock and the
subsequent relief on discovering that it was a false alarm. This time,
however, the offender did not escape with a bruised shoulder; at a
critical moment in the man's affairs, Goriot drove him into bankruptcy,
and forced him to disappear from the Corn Exchange.

As might have been expected, the two girls were spoiled. With an income
of sixty thousand francs, Goriot scarcely spent twelve hundred on
himself, and found all his happiness in satisfying the whims of the two
girls. The best masters were engaged, that Anastasie and Delphine
might be endowed with all the accomplishments which distinguish a good
education. They had a chaperon--luckily for them, she was a woman
who had good sense and good taste;--they learned to ride; they had a
carriage for their use; they lived as the mistress of a rich old lord
might live; they had only to express a wish, their father would hasten
to give them their most extravagant desires, and asked nothing of them
in return but a kiss. Goriot had raised the two girls to the level of
the angels; and, quite naturally, he himself was left beneath them. Poor
man! he loved them even for the pain that they gave him.

When the girl