l of fire had been bought only by
the money got from pawning Eugene's watch. Christophe, the man servant,
was sent by Rastignac to tell the daughters of their father's condition.

"Tell them that I am not very well," said Old Goriot; "that I should
like to see them, to kiss them before I die."

By and by, when the messenger had gone, the old man said: "I don't want
to die. To die, my good Eugene, is--not to see them there, where I am
going. How lonely I shall be! Hell, to a father, is to be without his
children. Tell me, if I go to heaven, can I come back in spirit and
hover near them? You saw them at the ball; they did not know that I was
ill, did they?"

On the return of the messenger, Old Goriot was told that both his
daughters refused to come and see him. Delphine was too tired and
sleepy; Anastasie was discussing with her husband the future disposition
of her marriage portion. Then alternately Goriot blamed his daughters
and pardoned their unfilial and selfish behaviour.

"My daughters were my vice--my mistresses. Oh, they will come! Come, my
darlings! A kiss, a last kiss, the viaticum of your father! I am justly
punished; my children were good, and I have spoiled them; on my head be
their sins. I alone am guilty; but guilty through love." Eugene tried to
soothe the old man by saying that he would go himself to fetch his
daughters; but Goriot kept muttering in his semi-delirium. "Here, Nasie!
here Delphine, come to your father who has been so good to you, and who
is dying! Are they coming? No? Am I to die like a dog? This is my
reward; forsaken, abandoned! They are wicked; they are criminal. I hate
them. I will rise from my coffin to curse them. Oh, this is horrible!
Ah, it is my sons-in-law who keep them away from me!"

"My good Old Goriot," said Eugene, "be calm."

"Not to see them--it is the agony of death!"

"You shall see them."

"Ah! my angels!"

And with these feeble words, Old Goriot sank back on the pillow and
breathed his last.

Anastasie did come to the death-chamber, but too late. "I could not
escape soon enough," she said to Rastignac. The student smiled sadly,
and Madame de Restaud took her father's hand and kissed it, saying,
"Forgive me, my father."

Goriot had a pauper's funeral. The aristocratic sons-in-law refused to
pay the expenses of the burial. These were scraped together with
difficulty by Eugene de Rastignac, the law student, and Bianchon, the
medical student, who had nursed h