. cried her father.
"It was all got up for your benefit! I have had to do with Germans in
the way of business, honest and straightforward they are pretty sure
to be, but when with their simplicity and frankness they are sharpers
and humbugs as well, they are the worst rogues of all. Your husband is
taking advantage of you. As soon as pressure is brought to bear on him
he shams dead; he means to be more the master under your name than in
his own. He will take advantage of the position to secure himself
against the risks of business. He is as sharp as he is treacherous; he
is a bad lot! No, no; I am not going to leave my girls behind me
without a penny when I go to Pere-Lachaise. I know something about
business still. He has sunk his money in speculation, he says; very
well then, there is something to show for it--bills, receipts, papers
of some sort. Let him produce them, and come to an arrangement with
you. We will choose the most promising of his speculations, take them
over at our own risk, and have the securities transferred into your
name; they shall represent the separate estate of Delphine Goriot,
wife of the Baron de Nucingen. Does that fellow really take us for
idiots? Does he imagine that I could stand the idea of your being
without fortune, without bread, for forty-eight hours? I would not
stand it a day--no, not a night, not a couple of hours! If there had
been any foundation for the idea, I should never get over it.
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