fourth year of his residence in the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve he was
no longer like his former self. The hale vermicelli manufacturer,
sixty-two years of age, who had looked scarce forty, the stout,
comfortable, prosperous tradesman, with an almost bucolic air, and
such a brisk demeanor that it did you good to look at him; the man
with something boyish in his smile, had suddenly sunk into his dotage,
and had become a feeble, vacillating septuagenarian.

The keen, bright blue eyes had grown dull, and faded to a steel-gray
color; the red inflamed rims looked as though they had shed tears of
blood. He excited feelings of repulsion in some, and of pity in
others. The young medical students who came to the house noticed the
drooping of his lower lip and the conformation of the facial angle;
and, after teasing him for some time to no purpose, they declared that
cretinism was setting in.

One evening after dinner Mme. Vauquer said half banteringly to him,
"So those daughters of yours don't come to see you any more, eh?"
meaning to imply her doubts as to his paternity; but Father Goriot
shrank as if his hostess had touched him with a sword-point.

"They come sometimes," he said in a tremulous voice.

"Aha! you still see them sometimes?" cried the students. "Bravo,
Father Goriot!"

The old man scarcely seemed to hear the witticisms at his expense that
followed on the words; he had relapsed into the dreamy state of mind
that these superficial observers took for senile torpor, due to his
lack of intelligence. If they had only known, they might have been