said, for the
miserable furniture, that is to say, for some yellow cotton curtains, a
few chairs of stained wood covered with Utrecht velvet, several wretched
colored prints in frames, and wall papers that a little suburban tavern
would have disdained. Possibly it was the careless generosity with which
Father Goriot allowed himself to be overreached at this period of his
life (they called him Monsieur Goriot very respectfully then) that gave
Mme. Vauquer the meanest opinion of his business abilities; she looked
on him as an imbecile where money was concerned.

Goriot had brought with him a considerable wardrobe, the gorgeous
outfit of a retired tradesman who denies himself nothing. Mme. Vauquer's
astonished eyes beheld no less than eighteen cambric-fronted shirts, the
splendor of their fineness being enhanced by a pair of pins each bearing
a large diamond, and connected by a short chain, an ornament which
adorned the vermicelli-maker's shirt front. He usually wore a coat of
corn-flower blue; his rotund and portly person was still further set
off by a clean white waistcoat, and a gold chain and seals which dangled
over that broad expanse. When his hostess accused him of being "a bit
of a beau," he smiled with the vanity of a citizen whose foible is
gratified. His cupboards (_ormoires_, as he called them in the popular
dialect) were filled with a quantity of plate that he brought with him.
The widow's eyes gleamed as she obligingly helped him to unpack the
soup ladles, table-spoons, forks, cruet-stands, tureens, dishes,
and breakfast services--all of silver, which were duly arranged upon
shelves, besides a few more or less handsome pieces of plate, all
weighing no inconsiderable number of ounces; he could not bring himself
to part with these gifts that reminded him of past domestic festivals.

"This was my wife's present to me on the first anniversary of our
wedding day," he said to Mme. Vauquer, as he put away a little silver
posset dish, with two turtle-doves billing on the cover. "Poor dear! she
spent on it all the money she had saved before we were married. Do
you know, I would sooner scratch the earth with my nails for a living,
madame, than part with that. But I shall be able to take my coffee out
of it every morning for the rest of my days, thank the Lord! I am not to
be pitied. There's not much fear of my starving for some time to come."

Finally, Mme. Vauquer's magpie's eye had discovered and read certain
entri