Bianchon and the house surgeon stretched the dying man out again on his loathsome bed.
“But the sheets ought to be changed,” added the physician. “Even if there is no hope left, something is due to human nature. I shall come back again, Bianchon,” he said, turning to the medical student. “If he complains again, rub some laudanum over the diaphragm.”
He went, and the house surgeon went with him.
“Come, Eugene, pluck up heart, my boy,” said Bianchon, as soon as they were alone; “we must set about changing his sheets, and put him into a clean shirt. Go and tell Sylvie to bring some sheets and come and help us to make the bed.”
Eugene went downstairs, and found Mme. Vauquer engaged in setting the table; Sylvie was helping her. Eugene had scarcely opened his mouth before the widow walked up to him with the acidulous sweet smile of a cautious shopkeeper who is anxious neither to lose money nor to offend a customer.
“My dear Monsieur Eugene,” she said, when he had spoken, “you know quite as well as I do that Father Goriot has not a brass farthing left. If you give out clean linen for a man who is just going to turn up his eyes, you are not likely to see your sheets again, for one is sure to be wanted to wrap him in. Now, you owe me a hundred and forty-four francs as it is, add forty francs for the pair of sheets, and then there are several little things, besides the candle that Sylvie will give you; altogether it will all mount up to at least two hundred francs, which is more than a poor widow like me can afford to lose. Lord! now, Monsieur Eugene, look at it fairly. I have lost quite enough in these five days since this run of ill-luck set in for me. I would rather than ten crowns that the old gentlemen had moved out as you said. It sets the other lodgers against the house. It would not take much to make me send him to the workhouse. In short, just put yourself in my place. I have to think of my establishment first, for I have my own living to make.”
Eugene hurried up to Goriot’s room.
“Bianchon,” he cried, “the money for the watch?”
“There it is on the table, or the three hundred and sixty odd francs that are left of it. I paid up all the old scores out of it before they let me have the things. The pawn ticket lies there under the money.”
Rastignac hurried downstairs.