e. Vauquer to give him
a room on the second floor, and to make a corresponding reduction in
her charges. Apparently, such strict economy was called for, that he did
without a fire all through the winter. Mme. Vauquer asked to be paid in
advance, an arrangement to which M. Goriot consented, and thenceforward
she spoke of him as "Father Goriot."

What had brought about this decline and fall? Conjecture was keen, but
investigation was difficult. Father Goriot was not communicative; in
the sham countess' phrase he was "a curmudgeon." Empty-headed people who
babble about their own affairs because they have nothing else to occupy
them, naturally conclude that if people say nothing of their doings it
is because their doings will not bear being talked about; so the highly
respectable merchant became a scoundrel, and the late beau was an old
rogue. Opinion fluctuated. Sometimes, according to Vautrin, who came
about this time to live in the Maison Vauquer, Father Goriot was a man
who went on 'Change and _dabbled_ (to use the sufficiently expressive
language of the Stock Exchange) in stocks and shares after he had ruined
himself by heavy speculation. Sometimes it was held that he was one of
those petty gamblers who nightly play for small stakes until they win a
few francs. A theory that he was a detective in the employ of the Home
Office found favor at one time, but Vautrin urged that "Goriot was not
sharp enough for one of that sort." There were yet other solutions;
Father Goriot was a skinflint, a shark of a money-lender, a man
who lived by selling lottery tickets. He was by turns all the most
mysterious brood of vice and shame and misery; yet, however vile his
life might be, the feeling of repulsion which he aroused in others was
not so strong that he must be banished from their society--he paid
his way. Besides, Goriot had his uses, every one vented his spleen or
sharpened his wit on him; he was pelted with jokes and belabored with
hard words. The general consensus of opinion was in favor of a theory
which seemed the most likely; this was Mme. Vauquer's view. According
to her, the man so well preserved at his time of life, as sound as her
eyesight, with whom a woman might be very happy, was a libertine who had
strange tastes. These are the facts upon which Mme. Vauquer's slanders
were based.

Early one morning, some few months after the departure of the unlucky
Countess who had managed to live for six months at the widow's ex