n on the occasion of
her first visit.

At that time Goriot was paying twelve hundred francs a year to his
landlady, and Mme. Vauquer saw nothing out of the common in the fact
that a rich man had four or five mistresses; nay, she thought it very
knowing of him to pass them off as his daughters. She was not at all
inclined to draw a hard-and-fast line, or to take umbrage at his sending
for them to the Maison Vauquer; yet, inasmuch as these visits explained
her boarder's indifference to her, she went so far (at the end of the
second year) as to speak of him as an "ugly old wretch." When at length
her boarder declined to nine hundred francs a year, she asked him very
insolently what he took her house to be, after meeting one of these
ladies on the stairs. Father Goriot answered that the lady was his
eldest daughter.

"So you have two or three dozen daughters, have you?" said Mme. Vauquer
sharply.

"I have only two," her boarder answered meekly, like a ruined man who is
broken in to all the cruel usage of misfortune.

Towards the end of the third year Father Goriot reduced his expenses
still further; he went up to the third story, and now paid forty-five
francs a month. He did without snuff, told his hairdresser that he no
longer required his services, and gave up wearing powder. When Goriot
appeared for the first time in this condition, an exclamation of
astonishment broke from his hostess at the color of his hair--a dingy
olive gray. He had grown sadder day by day under the influence of some
hidden trouble; among all the faces round the table, his was the
most woe-begone. There was no longer any doubt. Goriot was an elderly
libertine, whose eyes had only been preserved by the skill of the
physician from the malign influence of the remedies necessitated by the
state of his health. The disgusting color of his hair was a result of
his excesses and of the drugs which he had taken that he might continue
his career. The poor old man's mental and physical condition afforded
some grounds for the absurd rubbish talked about him. When his outfit
was worn out, he replaced the fine linen by calico at fourteen _sous_
the ell. His diamonds, his gold snuff-box, watch-chain and trinkets,
disappeared one by one. He had left off wearing the corn-flower blue
coat, and was sumptuously arrayed, summer as well as winter, in a coarse
chestnut-brown coat, a plush waistcoat, and doeskin breeches. He grew
thinner and thinner; his legs were