_To these_, _from the inn_, _L. U. E._, DUMONT, CHARLES, the CURATE, the NOTARY jigging: from the inn, _R. U. E._, FIDDLERS playing and dancing; and through door L. C., GORIOT, ERNESTINE, PEASANTS, dancing likewise. Air: ‘Haste to the Wedding.’ As the parties meet, the music ceases DUMONT. Welcome, neighbours! welcome friends! Ernestine, here is my Charles, no longer mine. A thousand welcomes. O the gay day! O the auspicious wedding! (CHARLES, ERNESTINE, DUMONT, GORIOT, CURATE, _and_ NOTARY _sit to the wedding feast_; PEASANTS, FIDDLERS, _and_ MAIDS, _grouped at back_, _drinking from the barrel_.) O, I must have all happy around me. GORIOT. Then help the soup. DUMONT. Give me leave: I must have all happy. Shall these poor gentlemen upon a day like this drink ordinary wine? Not so: I shall drink it. (_To_ MACAIRE, _who is just about to fill his glass_) Don’t touch it, sir! Aline, give me that gentleman’s bottle and take him mine: with old Dumont’s compliments. MACAIRE. What? BERTRAND. Change the bottle? MACAIRE (_aside_). Bitten! BERTRAND (_aside_). Sold again. DUMONT. Yes, all shall be happy. GORIOT. I tell ’ee, help the soup! DUMONT (_begins to help soup_. _Then_, _dropping ladle_.) One word: a matter of detail: Charles is not my son. (_All exclaim_.) O no, he is not my son. Perhaps I should have mentioned it before. CHARLES. I am not your son, sir? DUMONT. O no, far from it. GORIOT. Then who the devil’s son be he? DUMONT. O, I don’t know. It’s an odd tale, a romantic tale: it may amuse you. It was twenty years ago, when I kept the _Golden Head_ at Lyons: Charles was left upon my doorstep in a covered basket, with sufficient money to support the child till he should come of age. There was no mark upon the linen, nor any clue but one: an unsigned letter from the father of the child, which he strictly charged me to preserve. It was to prove his identity: he, of course, would know the contents, and he only; so I keep it safe in the third compartment of my cash-box, with the ten thousand francs I’ve saved for his dowry. Here is the key; it’s a patent key. To-day the poor boy is twenty-one, to-morrow to be married. I did perhaps hope the father would appear: there was a Marquis coming; he wrote me for a room; I gave him the best, Number Thirteen, which you have all heard of: I did hope it might be he, for a Marquis, you know, is always genteel. But no, you see. As for me, I take you all to witness I’m as innocent of him as the babe unborn. MACAIRE. Ahem! I think you said the linen bore an M? DUMONT. Pardon me: the markings were cut off. MACAIRE. True. The basket white, I think? DUMONT. Brown, brown. MACAIRE. Ah! brown—a whitey-brown. GORIOT. I tell ’ee what, Dumont, this is all very well; but in that case, I’ll be danged if he gets my daater. (_General consternation_.) DUMONT. O Goriot, let’s have happy faces!