I go
to Pere-Lachaise. I know something about business still. He has sunk
his money in speculation, he says; very well then, there is something to
show for it--bills, receipts, papers of some sort. Let him produce them,
and come to an arrangement with you. We will choose the most promising
of his speculations, take them over at our own risk, and have the
securities transferred into your name; they shall represent the separate
estate of Delphine Goriot, wife of the Baron de Nucingen. Does that
fellow really take us for idiots? Does he imagine that I could stand
the idea of your being without fortune, without bread, for forty-eight
hours? I would not stand it a day--no, not a night, not a couple of
hours! If there had been any foundation for the idea, I should never get
over it. What! I have worked hard for forty years, carried sacks on
my back, and sweated and pinched and saved all my life for you, my
darlings, for you who made the toil and every burden borne for you seem
light; and now, my fortune, my whole life, is to vanish in smoke! I
should die raving mad if I believed a word of it. By all that's holiest
in heaven and earth, we will have this cleared up at once; go through
the books, have the whole business looked thoroughly into! I will not
sleep, nor rest, nor eat until I have satisfied myself that all your
fortune is in existence. Your money is settled upon you, God be thanked!
and, luckily, your attorney, Maitre Derville, is an honest man. Good
Lord! you shall have your snug little million, your fifty thousand
francs a year, as long as you live, or I will raise a racket in Paris, I
will so! If the Tribunals put upon us, I will appeal to the Chambers.
If I knew that you were well and comfortably off as far as money is
concerned, that thought would keep me easy in spite of bad health and
troubles. Money? why, it is life! Money does everything. That great dolt
of an Alsatian shall sing to another tune! Look here, Delphine, don't
give way, don't make a concession of half a quarter of a farthing to
that fathead, who has ground you down and made you miserable. If he
can't do without you, we will give him a good cudgeling, and keep him
in order. Great heavens! my brain is on fire; it is as if there were
something redhot inside my head. My Delphine lying on straw! You! my
Fifine! Good gracious! Where are my gloves? Come, let us go at once;
I mean to see everything with my own eyes--books, cash, and
correspondence, the wh