o not abate by to-morrow evening, it will be all over with
him, poor old fellow! Do you know what has happened to bring this on?
There must have been some violent shock, and his mind has given way."

"Yes, there was," said Rastignac, remembering how the two daughters had
struck blow on blow at their father's heart.

"But Delphine at any rate loves her father," he said to himself.

That evening at the opera Rastignac chose his words carefully, lest he
should give Mme. de Nucingen needless alarm.

"Do not be anxious about him," she said, however, as soon as Eugene
began, "our father has really a strong constitution, but this morning
we gave him a shock. Our whole fortunes were in peril, so the thing was
serious, you see. I could not live if your affection did not make me
insensible to troubles that I should once have thought too hard to bear.
At this moment I have but one fear left, but one misery to dread--to
lose the love that has made me feel glad to live. Everything else is as
nothing to me compared with our love; I care for nothing else, for you
are all the world to me. If I feel glad to be rich, it is for your sake.
To my shame be it said, I think of my lover before my father. Do you ask
why? I cannot tell you, but all my life is in you. My father gave me a
heart, but you have taught it to beat. The whole world may condemn me;
what does it matter if I stand acquitted in your eyes, for you have
no right to think ill of me for the faults which a tyrannous love has
forced me to commit for you! Do you think me an unnatural daughter? Oh!
no, no one could help loving such a dear kind father as ours. But how
could I hide the inevitable consequences of our miserable marriages from
him? Why did he allow us to marry when we did? Was it not his duty to
think for us and foresee for us? To-day I know he suffers as much as we
do, but how can it be helped? And as for comforting him, we could not
comfort him in the least. Our resignation would give him more pain and
hurt him far more than complaints and upbraidings. There are times in
life when everything turns to bitterness."

Eugene was silent, the artless and sincere outpouring made an impression
on him.

Parisian women are often false, intoxicated with vanity, selfish and
self-absorbed, frivolous and shallow; yet of all women, when they love,
they sacrifice their personal feelings to their passion; they rise but
so much the higher for all the pettiness overcome in their na