Père Goriot

For 30 years, Madame Vauquer has run a family boarding house, the Maison Vauquer, in the rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève. It is a respectable establishment. In 1819, when the story begins, a poor young woman is living there—the first to reside there in decades.

The narrator suggests that this story will be difficult to understand for anyone who is outside of Paris. The particular setting in Paris is a valley between Montmartre and Montrouge, a place characterized by worn plaster and such a hectic pace of life that lasting emotions are seldom produced here. The narrator further asserts that “all is true” in this story and that its elements can be recognized in the reader’s heart or social circle.

This neighborhood of Paris is obscure, dull, and characterized by poverty. The Maison Vauquer itself overlooks a little garden; in front stands a gate with a noisy bell attached. The building is three stories high, constructed of yellow-painted stone. Inside is a depressing-looking drawing room with worn china, artificial flowers, and a marble clock in poor taste. The room also gives off a stuffy, unpalatable “boarding house smell.” The dining room is even worse, with rickety furnishings, ugly prints, and a greasy tablecloth. “Squalor,” the narrator concludes, “may not yet have taken over, but there are patches of it.”

Every morning at about seven o’clock, Madame Vauquer appears in the dining room. She is middle-aged, plump, pale, and somehow a match for the boarding house. She looks like a representative of all women who have faced hard times in life. Her boarders, though, believe that she is a good-hearted woman.

Currently, there are seven resident boarders. On the first floor, in the two best apartments, live Madame Vauquer and her friend Madame Couture, another widow. Madame Couture acts as a mother figure to a young girl—the one referred to earlier—named Victorine Taillefer. Upstairs, there is an elderly boarder named Poiret and another, about age 40, who wears a wig, dyes his whiskers, and goes by Monsieur Vautrin. On the third floor live an elderly spinster named Mademoiselle Michonneau and, finally, a retired manufacturer of vermicelli (Italian pasta) who goes by Père Goriot.

Another room is taken by a young law student named Eugène de Rastignac. He has come to Paris from Angoulême, at great cost to his large family. Raised in relative poverty, he is used to hard work and hopes to begin a career that will meet his parents’ expectations of him. He is also eager to enter upon the Paris social scene.

In the attic apartments live Christophe, who does odd jobs, and Sylvie, the cook. In addition to the boarders, law or medical students frequently sign up just for meals. The regular seven boarders, however, are like Madame Vauquer’s children, and she gives them attention and respect in accordance with how much they pay. The boarders are generally dressed in threadbare, patched clothes, but they are solidly built and toughened by experience.

Mademoiselle Michonneau is a skeletal-looking elderly lady with a menacing expression and a shrill voice, though she might once have been pretty, and many wonder about her youth. Monsieur Poiret is a shriveled, shaky-legged old man with the appearance of having suffered. Most of Paris is oblivious to places like the Maison Vauquer and the sufferings of its inhabitants.

Two figures stand out from the crowd of boarders. Though Victorine Taillefer is fragile and melancholy, she still has a certain youthfulness, and if she were happy, she might be beautiful. Her story is sad: her father has disowned her, intending to leave his estate to Victorine’s brother instead. A widowed relative of Victorine’s dead mother, Madame Couture cares for Victorine as if she were her own daughter. Both are devout Catholics. Each year, Victorine goes to her father’s house to ask for mercy, but each time he shuts the door in her face.

Eugène de Rastignac is a fair-skinned, dark-haired Southerner of noble bearing. He dresses thriftily but not inelegantly. Vautrin is about 40 years old, well-muscled with broad shoulders. He has a hard, lined face, but a friendly manner and a good-humored attitude. Vautrin is handy and likes to be of use to people in the boarding house, even lending them money at times. He has a certain coldness about him, though. He disappears from the boarding house for most of the day, getting in after midnight using a key given to him by Madame Vauquer, who trusts him. Most people sense that there’s more to Vautrin than meets the eye, but they don’t ask too many questions. In fact, the boarders generally say little to one another and are fairly indifferent to one another’s sufferings, knowing that they’re powerless to relieve them. Madame Vauquer, presiding over her boarders, is by far the happiest of them all.

Among the boarders, there’s one who is the butt of everyone’s jokes: Père Goriot. The retired pasta-maker is about 69 years old. When he first moved into the boarding house several years ago, he occupied one of the bigger apartments and boasted a large wardrobe and a handsome collection of household silver. When Madame Vauquer learned Monsieur Goriot’s income, she began to have ideas about him. He’s handsome enough, so she began to daydream about selling the boarding house and becoming a respectable wife.

Madame Vauquer begins distributing fliers boasting about the Maison Vauquer’s charms, hoping to bring in more high-class clients. She gains Madame la Comtesse de l’Ambermesnil, a 36-year-old widow, and the two become friends. The Comtesse approves of Madame Vauquer’s intentions toward Goriot, and she helps her friend shop for a more attractive wardrobe. However, she secretly wants to steal Goriot for herself, and when he rebuffs her, the Comtesse stormily moves out, neglecting to pay six months’ rent.

After this incident, Madame Vauquer blames everybody but herself—especially Goriot. She decides that Goriot must already be involved with someone else, and her disappointment fuels her hatred of him. She has to treat her boarder with outward respect, so she comes up with petty ways of getting back at Goriot, like cutting luxuries out of his dinner menu. He’s already a frugal man by habit, so instead, Madame Vauquer starts making fun of him with the other boarders. She begins to wonder why a man with such nice clothes and silver boards in a modest house like hers.

At the end of his second year in the house, Goriot moves to a cheaper second-floor room and stops lighting a fire in the winter. At this point, Madame Vauquer stops calling him Monsieur and just starts calling him Père Goriot. Nobody knows why Goriot starts economizing, but they assume that he must simply be a rogue or a rascal. The other boarders speculate that he’s a gambler, a spy, or a miser.

The rumor that people accept as most likely, however, is Madame Vauquer’s claim that Goriot is a libertine. A few months after the episode with the Comtesse, Madame Vauquer sees an elegant young blond lady in a silk dress going into Goriot’s room. At dinner, when she asks about his visitor, Goriot proudly says that the woman was his daughter. A month later, the woman returns, and a few days later, a shapely brunette begins visiting him. Because of the variety of outfits worn by both women, Madame Vauquer and Sylvie, who are closely watching all this, fail to recognize that it’s just two different women, and they assume that Goriot has multiple mistresses.

By the third year, Goriot moves up to the still cheaper third floor, stops powdering his hair, and looks more troubled. His fine clothing and jewels begin to gradually disappear, and he becomes wrinkled and gaunt. The boarders sometimes tease him about the apparent disappearance of his female callers, but they don’t ask questions otherwise. By the end of November 1819, the boarders share the general opinion that Goriot has never had a wife or daughter; he is simply a debauched old man.

After Rastignac’s first year of schooling in Paris, he returns home for vacation, and he is struck for the first time by his family’s financial straits. He realizes that the family’s future comfort depends on him, and this inflames his ambition. But he also recognizes that success depends on social contacts, and that social advancement depends on one’s relationships with women. Rastignac’s aunt, Madame de Marcillac, gives him a letter of introduction to distant cousin Madame la Vicomtesse de Beauséant. The vicomtesse then invites Rastignac to a ball.

Rastignac arrives home from the ball long after midnight and ostensibly sits up studying, but he keeps thinking over his introduction to Parisian nobility. At the ball, a young woman named Comtesse Anastasie de Restaud caught his eye. To Rastignac, she is the ideal lady. While they danced, he managed to get invited to her house. Rastignac’s daydreams of future success distract him from his studies. He wanders into the hallway and notices a light beneath Père Goriot’s door. When he peeks through the keyhole, he sees Goriot twisting a silver dish and bowl into ingots. Tears run down Goriot’s face. Rastignac wonders if the old man is some sort of criminal, but he decides to keep quiet about what he’s seen.

The next morning, there’s such a dense fog darkening the city that Madame Vauquer oversleeps. When she comes downstairs, Vautrin has just come in, and he reports that he just saw Goriot selling his silver at the goldsmith’s. After that, he says, Goriot went into the moneylender Gobseck’s place. Apparently, he was paying off a debt.  Just then, Goriot himself enters, and he sends Christophe on a secretive errand to Madame de Restaud’s. It seems that Goriot was paying off her debt.

When Madame Couture and Victorine join the breakfast crowd, having just come from Mass, Victorine is shaking with fear over her impending visit to her father’s. Everyone sympathizes with the young girl. Vautrin offhandedly mentions that soon, he will intervene in Victorine’s affairs and make everything better. When Rastignac comes in and begins talking about last night’s ball, Victorine glances shyly at him. When Rastignac mentions having met Anastasie de Restaud, Goriot looks up in surprise, and everyone else notices his interest. They gossip about it after Goriot leaves the table. His curiosity peaked, Rastignac resolves to visit Madame Restaud tomorrow.

That evening, Victorine is red-eyed with grief—her father, Madame Couture explains, once again resisted Victorine’s heartfelt pleas for mercy. Listening to the story, Goriot wonders if Taillefer and his son are “monsters.” Over dinner, he sadly watches Victorine’s face.

The next afternoon Rastignac dresses elegantly and heads off to visit Madame de Restaud. When he gets to her house, he notices the servants’ scornful looks because he didn’t arrive in a carriage. He also sees an extravagant carriage sitting in the courtyard, led by a fine horse. As Rastignac is led into Madame de Restaud’s salon, he hears Père Goriot’s voice and watches him leave. Another young man, Maxime, is also waiting to be admitted to the salon.

When Madame de Restaud greets both men, Maxime gives her a look that clearly conveys his desire for Rastignac to leave. Rastignac immediately feels hatred toward his rival and wants to defeat him. But But before their conversation gets underway, another man interrupts—it’s Comte Monsieur de Restaud. When Madame de Restaud introduces Rastignac as a relative of the vicomtesse, Maxime looks at him with new respect. While Maxime and Madame de Restaud chat in private, Rastignac flatters Monsieur de Restaud, hoping to stay long enough to learn more about Madame and her relationship to Père Goriot. He finds her mysteriously compelling and hopes to gain power over her.

When Madame de Restaud rejoins Rastignac and Monsieur de Restaud, Rastignac brings up his neighbor, Père Goriot. When he says “Père,” the Monsieur de Restaud is shocked: “you might have said Monsieur,” he corrects Rastignac. Madame looks embarrassed and changes the subject. As his hostess begins playing the piano, Rastignac ponders the contrasting effects of the names “Madame de Beauséant” and “Père Goriot.” He feels humiliated. After he leaves the room, Monsieur de Restaud instructs his servant that anytime Rastignac shows up, he's to be told that nobody is home.

Emerging outside in the rain, Rastignac knows that he’s given offense, but he doesn’t know how bad the damage is. His coat and hat are also getting wet, and he realizes that he’ll need an entirely new wardrobe in order to move within aristocratic society. When a cabby stops for him, Rastignac decides to visit his cousin the vicomtesse for advice. When he isn’t sure of the Hôtel de Beauséant’s address, he feels like even the cabby is laughing at him.

At his cousin’s, Rastignac sees an elaborate nobleman’s carriage, much fancier than the cab and even Maxime’s carriage. Though Rastignac doesn’t know much about his cousin, the vicomtesse has been having an affair with a Portuguese nobleman named the Marquis d’Ajuda-Pinto. Her husband, the vicomte, knows about it and, unlike Monsieur de Restaud with his wife and Maxime, he doesn’t get involved. Despite his happy relationship with the vicomtesse, the Marquis has decided to marry a woman named Mademoiselle de Rochefide. The vicomtesse is the only person in Paris high society who doesn’t know this. Rastignac arrives just before the Marquis intends to break the news to the vicomtesse, to the Marquis’s relief.

As Rastignac watches the vicomtesse’s and the marquis’s goodbye, he feels envious of the luxury surrounding the couple, and dizzied by the wealth he must amass in order to compete in this society. Though the Vicomtesse feels ominous about the Marquis’s departure, she finally turns her attention to Rastignac. Rastignac explains that he needs his cousin to be a “fairy godmother” and to help him understand Paris life. Just then, the servant announces a new visitor, Madame la Duchesse de Langeais, and when Rastignac makes a gesture of impatience, the vicomtesse warns him he must learn not to express his feelings so openly.

The Duchesse de Langeais, with wounding abruptness, tells the vicomtesse that tomorrow, the wedding banns between d’Ajuda-Pinto and Mademoiselle de Rochefide are going to be published. The vicomtesse turns pale but laughs off this news as a rumor. She turns her attention back to Rastignac, giving him a warm look contrasting with the cold appraisal of the duchesse. Rastignac describes his experience with Madame de Restaud, her husband, and her lover. The vicomtesse explains that Madame de Restaud really is Goriot’s daughter—that Goriot is crazy about both his daughters, even though they barely acknowledge him. His second daughter, Delphine de Nucingen, is married to a German baron.

The vicomtesse explains that Père Goriot is a good father who gave five or six thousand francs to ensure that his daughters could marry well and be happy, while keeping back only a trivial amount for himself to live on. In doing so, he believed that he would ensure two comfortable homes in which to retire, but within two years, both of his sons-in-law had banished him from their homes. This story fills the idealistic Rastignac’s eyes with tears.

The duchesse recalls that during the Revolution, Goriot had made a fortune selling wheat at a premium. His only passion was his daughters. At first, after marrying both girls off, his sons-in-law didn’t mind him. But after the Bourbon Restoration, Goriot’s Revolutionary background became an embarrassment to both. The daughters initially tried to please both their father and their husbands, inviting Goriot to visit while they were home alone. But, the duchesse observes, “genuine feelings are neither blind nor stupid,” so Goriot surely knew that his daughters were ashamed. He decided to sacrifice himself by staying away.

After the duchesse leaves, the vicomtesse muses that there is always a friend who’s ready to stick a dagger in you when you’ve suffered a misfortune. Then, she tells Rastignac that she will help him. She tells him that the more calculating he is, the more he’ll succeed. People are just “post horses” to be used and abandoned at each stage on the way to success. Rastignac must find a rich young woman who will take an interest in him. Nevertheless, he must not reveal any genuine emotions to her; if he does, he’ll be lost.

The vicomtesse explains that the two sisters are also locked in a rivalry. Because her husband is in the French nobility, Madame de Restaud has been presented at Court and enjoys social acceptance, while Madame de Nucingen, married to a German, does not, though she is very rich. De Nucingen is therefore terribly jealous of her sister, and she would do anything to be admitted to the vicomtesse’s salon. Her present lover, de Marsay, has not helped her to reach that goal. If Rastignac introduces Madame de Nucingen to the vicomtesse, Rastignac will be adored. The vicomtesse advises Rastignac to “love her afterwards if you can, otherwise just use her.” Père Goriot will introduce Rastignac to Delphine, and Rastignac will quickly find himself sought-after and successful.

When Rastignac gets home, he is struck by the contrast between the two wealthy homes he has just visited and the shabbiness of the boarding house. His ambition intensifies, and he resolves to become both a skilled lawyer and a fashionable man. The narrator observes that Rastignac is “still very much a child.” At dinner, when Rastignac speaks up in Père Goriot’s defense, the other boarders’ usual mockery of the old man is silenced.

After dinner, Rastignac writes a passionate letter to his mother. He explains that he’s in a position to become wealthy quickly. He must therefore obtain a large loan from her, though he cannot tell her why. Rastignac promises that he is neither gambling nor in debt, but that he must find the means to make his way in Paris’s high society. He urges his mother, for the sake of the family’s future comfort, to sell some of her jewelry if need be.

Rastignac also writes letters to his sisters, asking them to send their meager savings, and to do it secretly. As he appeals to their sense of honor, he knows that they’ll willingly sacrifice for him. Rastignac feels a twinge of shame as he finishes these letters, knowing that the girls will innocently delight in doing this for him.

In the following days, Rastignac returns to Madame de Restaud’s house several times, but she never lets him in. By now, he is neglecting his law studies, only showing up for long enough to answer the roll-call at each lecture. He figures he can learn law at the last minute, just before his exams.

Before attempting to befriend Delphine de Nucingen, Rastignac gathers more information about her father. Before the Revolution, Jean-Joachim Goriot was simply an enterprising pasta-maker. When the Revolution occurred, Goriot became president of his section in order to gain protection for his business. During the subsequent grain shortage, he accumulated a small fortune—he was very good at his trade. In everything else, Goriot was a fairly dull, uncultured man. He adored his wife, who left him a widower after seven years. At that point, he transferred his affections to his two daughters.

As his daughters grew up, Goriot’s only desire was to make them happy. He paid for the best education and treated the girls like nobility. He gave them whatever they asked for, only asking for affection in return. Goriot also let each of them choose her husband, receiving half his fortune as a dowry. Because Anastasie wanted to enter the aristocracy, she chose Monsieur de Restaud. Because Delphine loved money, she chose the Baron de Nucingen, a German banker. Goriot’s daughters and his new sons-in-law were appalled when Goriot continued practicing his trade. By the time he finally retired and settled at Madame Vauquer’s, his daughters were no longer seeing him.