there a resting-place short of the highest height of affection, but we
seldom stop in the steep, downward slope of hatred. Still, M. Goriot
was a lodger, and the widow's wounded self-love could not vent itself
in an explosion of wrath; like a monk harassed by the prior of his
convent, she was forced to stifle her sighs of disappointment, and to
gulp down her craving for revenge. Little minds find gratification for
their feelings, benevolent or otherwise, by a constant exercise of
petty ingenuity. The widow employed her woman's malice to devise a
system of covert persecution. She began by a course of retrenchment
--various luxuries which had found their way to the table appeared
there no more.

"No more gherkins, no more anchovies; they have made a fool of me!"
she said to Sylvie one morning, and they returned to the old bill of
fare.

The thrifty frugality necessary to those who mean to make their way in
the world had become an inveterate habit of life with M. Goriot. Soup,
boiled beef, and a dish of vegetables had been, and always would be,
the dinner he liked best, so Mme. Vauquer found it very difficult to
annoy a boarder whose tastes were so simple. He was proof against her
malice, and in desperation she spoke to him and of him slightingly
before the other lodgers, who began to amuse themselves at his
expense, and so gratified her desire for revenge.

Towards the end of the first year the widow's suspicions had reached
such a pitch that she began to wonder how it was that a retired
merchant with a secure income of seven or eight thousand livres, the
owner of such magnificent plate and jewelry handsome enough for a kept
mistress, should be living in her house. Why should he devote so small