gen. Delphine was in
bed.

"Poor dear Eugene, I am ill," she said. "I caught cold after the ball,
and I am afraid of pneumonia. I am waiting for the doctor to come."

"If you were at death's door," Eugene broke in, "you must be carried
somehow to your father. He is calling for you. If you could hear the
faintest of those cries, you would not feel ill any longer."

"Eugene, I dare say my father is not quite so ill as you say; but I
cannot bear to do anything that you do not approve, so I will do just
as you wish. As for _him_, he would die of grief I know if I went out to
see him and brought on a dangerous illness. Well, I will go as soon as
I have seen the doctor.--Ah!" she cried out, "you are not wearing your
watch, how is that?"

Eugene reddened.

"Eugene, Eugene! if you have sold it already or lost it.... Oh! it would
be very wrong of you!"

The student bent over Delphine and said in her ear, "Do you want to
know? Very well, then, you shall know. Your father has nothing left to
pay for the shroud that they will lay him in this evening. Your watch
has been pawned, for I had nothing either."

Delphine sprang out of bed, ran to her desk, and took out her purse. She
gave it to Eugene, and rang the bell, crying:

"I will go, I will go at once, Eugene. Leave me, I will dress. Why,
I should be an unnatural daughter! Go back; I will be there before
you.--Therese," she called to the waiting-woman, "ask M. de Nucingen to
come upstairs at once and speak to me."

Eugene was almost happy when he reached the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve;
he was so glad to bring the news to the dying man that one of his
daughters was coming. He fumbled in Delphine's purse for money, so as to
dismiss the cab at once; and discovered that the young, beautiful, and
wealthy woman of fashion had only seventy francs in her private purse.
He climbed the stairs and found Bianchon supporting Goriot, while the
house surgeon from the hospital was applying moxas to the patient's
back--under the direction of the physician, it was the last expedient of
science, and it was tried in vain.

"Can you feel them?" asked the physician. But Goriot had caught sight of
Rastignac, and answered, "They are coming, are they not?"

"There is hope yet," said the surgeon; "he can speak."

"Yes," said Eugene, "Delphine is coming."

"Oh! that is nothing!" said Bianchon; "he has been talking about his
daughters all the time. He calls for them as a man impaled calls for