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Fwd: Pere Goriot again
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----- Forwarded message from a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp -----
Date: Sat, 6 Nov 2004 10:39:44 +0900
From: Akiko Nakata <a-nakata@courante.plala.or.jp>
Digressing back into *Le Pere Goriot.* One of his daughters is named
Anastasie. Dying Goriot complains about her cold contempt she has expressed
for him after she became Comtesse by marriage. Doesn't that remind us of
"What 'set,' good Lord? The lady's [Anastasia's] mother had been a country
veterinary's daughter"? I have no idea about "veterinary," though.
See the passage below.
Akiko
----------------
I might stay as long as I
cared to stay at their evening parties. In fact, they acknowledged me
their father; publicly they owned that they were my daughters. But I
was always a shrewd one, you see, and nothing was lost upon me.
Everything went straight to the mark and pierced my heart. I saw quite
well that it was all sham and pretence, but there is no help for such
things as these. I felt less at my ease at their dinner-table than I
did downstairs here. I had nothing to say for myself. So these grand
folks would ask in my son-in-law's ear, 'Who may that gentleman be?'--
'The father-in-law with the money bags; he is very rich.'--'The devil,
he is!' they would say, and look again at me with the respect due to
my money. Well, if I was in the way sometimes, I paid dearly for my
mistakes. And besides, who is perfect? (My head is one sore!) Dear
Monsieur Eugene, I am suffering so now, that a man might die of the
pain; but it is nothing to be compared with the pain I endured when
Anastasie made me feel, for the first time, that I had said something
stupid. She looked at me, and that glance of hers opened all my veins.
I used to want to know everything, to be learned; and one thing I did
learn thoroughly --I knew that I was not wanted here on earth.
*Le Pere Goriot* IV
----- End forwarded message -----