day when God shall take me from this world.--M. de Rastignac!" called
the Vicomtesse, in a tremulous voice, remembering that the young man
was waiting there.

The student knelt to kiss his cousin's hand.

"Good-bye, Antoinette!" said Mme. de Beauseant. "May you be happy."
--She turned to the student. "You are young," she said; "you have some
beliefs still left. I have been privileged, like some dying people, to
find sincere and reverent feeling in those about me as I take my leave
of this world."

It was nearly five o'clock that morning when Rastignac came away. He
had put Mme. de Beauseant into her traveling carriage, and received
her last farewells, spoken amid fast-falling tears; for no greatness
is so great that it can rise above the laws of human affection, or
live beyond the jurisdiction of pain, as certain demagogues would have
the people believe. Eugene returned on foot to the Maison Vauquer
through the cold and darkness. His education was nearly complete.

"There is no hope for poor Father Goriot," said Bianchon, as Rastignac
came into the room. Eugene looked for a while at the sleeping man,
then he turned to his friend. "Dear fellow, you are content with the
modest career you have marked out for yourself; keep to it. I am in
hell, and I must stay there. Believe everything that you hear said of
the world, nothing is too impossibly bad. No Juvenal could paint the
horrors hidden away under the covering of gems and gold."

At two o'clock in the afternoon Bianchon came to wake Rastignac, and
begged him to take charge of Goriot, who had grown worse as the day