Eugene de Rastignac, the eldest son of a poor baron of Angouleme, was a characteristic son of the South.  His complexion was clear, hair black, eyes blue.  His figure, manner, and habitual poses proved that he was a scion of a noble family, and that his early education had been based on aristocratic traditions.  The connecting link between these two individuals and the other boarders was Vautrin—­the man of forty, with the dyed whiskers.  He was one of that sort of men who are familiarly described as “jolly good fellows.”  His face, furrowed with premature wrinkles, showed signs of hardness which belied his insinuating address.  He was invariably obliging, with a breezy cheerfulness, though at times there was a steely expression in the eyes which inspired his fellow-boarders with a sense of fear.  He knew or guessed the affairs of everybody in the house, but no one could divine his real business or his most inmost thoughts.

II.—­The Beginnings of the Tragedy

Such a household ought to offer, and did present in miniature, the elements of a complete society.  Among the inmates there was, as in the world at large, one poor discouraged creature—­a butt on whom mocking pleasantries were rained.  This patient sufferer was the old vermicelli maker, Goriot.  Six years before, he had come to live at the Maison Vauquer, having, so he said, retired from business.  He dressed handsomely, wore a gold watch, with thick gold chain and seals, flourished a gold snuff-box, and, when Madame Vauquer insinuated that he was a gallant, he smiled with the complacency of vanity tickled.  Among the china and silver articles with which he decorated his sitting-room were a dish and porringer, on the cover of which were figures representing two doves billing and cooing.

“That,” said Goriot, “is the present which my wife made to me on the first anniversary of our wedding-day.  Poor dear, she bought it with the little savings she hoarded before our marriage.  Look you, madame, I would rather scratch the ground with my nails for a living than part with that porringer.  God be praised, however, I shall be able to drink my coffee out of this dish every morning during the rest of my days.  I cannot complain.  I have on the shelf, as the saying is, plenty of baked bread for a long time to come.”

At the close of his first year Goriot began to practise little economies; at the end of the second he removed his rooms to the second floor, and did without a fire all the winter.  This although, as Madame Vauquer’s prying eyes had seen, Goriot’s name appeared in the list of state funds for a sum representing an income of from eight to ten thousand francs.  Henceforth she denounced him to the other paying-guests as an unprincipled old libertine, who lavished his enormous income from the funds on unknown youthful charmers.  The boarders agreed; and when two young ladies in the most fashionable and costly attire visited him in succession in a semi-stealthy manner, their suspicions, as they believed, were confirmed.  On one occasion, Sylvie followed Old Goriot and his beautiful visitor to a side street, and saw that there was a splendid carriage waiting and that she got into it.  When challenged upon the point, the old man meekly declared that they were his daughters, though he never disclosed that their occasional visits were paid only to wheedle money from him.