Père Goriot: Chapter 2 Summary & Analysis

Rastignac receives letters from his mother and eldest sister. His mother has sent the biggest sum she can and begs him to make good use of it, because she can give no more in secrecy. Rastignac’s letter has filled his mother with dread, and she warns her son that “crooked paths do not lead to greatness.” His aunt Marcillac, she adds, has even sacrificed keepsakes in order to send more money. She closes by reminding Rastignac that he must succeed; they have sacrificed too much for him to do otherwise.

After reading this letter, Rastignac cries. His mother’s words make him think of Père Goriot flattening out his silver in order to pay off a debt for his daughter, and he feels remorseful. The letter from his sister Laure reports how she and Agathe, their other sister, joyfully emptied their savings for his sake. Rastignac takes the money and immediately hires a tailor. The prospect of new clothes temporarily erases all his doubts; his confidence and ambition are renewed.

Vautrin has been closely watching Rastignac lately, though Rastignac isn’t sure why. One morning, he impulsively follows Vautrin out of breakfast and into the boarding house garden, determined to learn what’s on his mind. At first sounding hostile, Vautrin soon takes on a paternal air toward the younger man, and in spite of his irritation, Rastignac is intrigued. Vautrin begins by telling Rastignac about himself: he says that he simply does what he likes and is good to those who are good to him. But he’s hostile to those who mistreat him, and he has no qualms about killing when he has to; he is experienced at dueling and has survived a bullet-wound.

There are only two choices in life, Vautrin says: obedience and revolt. Vautrin does not obey anyone. Vautrin turns to considering Rastignac’s situation. He seems to know all about Rastignac’s family and their meager financial situation, as well as Rastignac’s ambitions. That’s why Rastignac is studying law, he knows, despite the fact that it’s dull and time-consuming. Rastignac’s best case scenario, Vautrin goes on, will be to get a thankless position in some provincial court of law by age 30. By 40, he’ll have enough money to marry a working-class girl with a small dowry. If he’s willing to court political favors and compromise his conscience a little, he might ascend faster and gain more impressive positions.

Vautrin tells Rastignac that he stands at the crossroads of his life. Having gotten a taste of luxury, he now has the word “Succeed!” branded on his forehead. Trying to get there through effort and struggle will take a long time. Unless he can get there through exceptional brilliance, he must get there through corruption, the “weapon of the mediocre majority.” He says corruption is everywhere in Parisian society, and that it’s “the only morality nowadays.”

Vautrin says that he’s about to offer Rastignac something that nobody would refuse. He has a dream of moving to the United States, living a kingly life on a Southern plantation with hundreds of slaves. If Vautrin can get Rastignac a huge dowry, Rastignac will then give him a 20-percent commission. He will find some clever way of defrauding his naïve, loving wife out of this commission. Out of any 60 society weddings, Vautrin assures Rastignac, 47 are based on such transactions.

Vautrin tells Rastignac that such a gullible, devoted girl is right in front of him: Victorine. If her father, Taillefer, were to lose his son, Vautrin is sure that he would acknowledge Victorine and give her the son’s dowry. Victorine will then marry Rastignac. This can be easily achieved when Vautrin calls in a favor from a friend, who will happily pick a quarrel with Victorine’s brother and kill him in a duel. In a word of closing advice, he encourages Rastignac never to stick to his opinions. Instead, he should adjust his opinions to circumstances around him.

Before Rastignac starts ranting at him, Vautrin warns, he should consider that he, too, will someday flirt with a woman in order to get money. After all, how will Rastignac succeed in society if he doesn’t put a price on his love? Besides that, Rastignac’s future seductions, and even his law career, will be filled with ethical absurdities and injustices. There’s little difference between those things and the Taillefer plan, except for the blood that will be shed. There is no fixed moral point in the world.

Rastignac doesn’t take Vautrin’s offer on the spot. However, he wonders whether Vautrin has taught him the truth about virtue. He ponders his situation and decides that he wants to take the slower path of integrity, allowing himself to maintain a clear conscience. Later, as Rastignac is trying on his newly tailored clothes, Père Goriot comes into his room and tells him about an upcoming ball where both of his daughters will be present. Rastignac decides to visit the Vicomtesse de Beauséant to see if he can secure an introduction to the ball’s hostess. Dressed up in his impressive new clothes, Rastignac forgets the virtuous resolution  he’s just made.

In the past few days, Rastignac and Goriot have become good friends. Goriot is drawn to Rastignac’s youth and sympathetic spirit; Rastignac, though not confiding his intentions in Goriot, hopes to gather more information from the man about his daughters. Goriot claims that he actually prefers having to see his daughters in secret. He asks their maids when his daughters are going out and waits for their carriages to pass by. He loves just seeing their smiles and hearing others’ admiring comments as the women pass by. This is his way of being happy, and he’s satisfied with it. He describes himself as a dead man whose soul rests with his daughters.

As Rastignac strolls around town before his visit to the vicomtesse, he notices the admiring glances of other women, and that’s the final nail in the coffin of his virtuous intentions. However, his good mood is shattered when he arrives at his cousin’s, and she briskly refuses to see him, claiming that she’s too busy. It reminds Rastignac painfully that they occupy different stations in life. However, he overlooks this slight, and the vicomtesse softens, inviting him to dinner later.

When Rastignac returns to the Hôtel de Beauséant, he has never seen such an opulent table before. Comparing its elegance to the boarding house, he finds it hard to return to the mindset of sacrifice he’d embraced earlier that day. Over dinner, the vicomtesse invites him to accompany her to the theater that evening, since her husband, the vicomte, is unable to accompany her (she suspects that he’s meeting his mistress). Rastignac soon finds himself swept along to the theater at the vicomtesse’s side, the talk of onlookers. The vicomtesse points out Delphine de Nucingen, and Rastignac can’t take his eyes off of her. He asks his cousin to arrange an introduction to the duchesse who is throwing the upcoming ball. She agrees and also encourages Rastignac to approach Delphine today, because she’s in turmoil over her lover, de Marsay.

Monsieur d’Ajuda comes to their box, and in gratitude for Rastignac quietly surrendering his seat, the vicomtesse asks d’Ajuda to introduce Rastignac to Delphine de Nucingen. Madame de Nucingen offers Rastignac the seat that her husband, the Baron de Nucingen, just vacated. Rastignac reveals that he is Goriot’s housemate and that he unintentionally insulted Delphine’s sister Anastasie and was barred from her house. Madame de Nucingen is charmed by Rastignac. She admits that she has been unhappy in her marriage, especially because of Monsieur de Nucingen’s insistence that she not visit her father. Rastignac gives a flowery speech expressing his admiration and devotion to her, even though he’s only seen her for the first time today. He remains at her side, making seductive remarks and getting encouraging smiles in return, until Madame de Nucingen’s husband returns to take her home.

As Rastignac heads home, having secured the opportunity to call on Madame de Nucingen before the upcoming ball, he feels delighted with what he perceives as success. He doesn’t know that Madame is totally distracted, waiting for a letter from her lover, de Marsay. His head is filled with plans. He even imagines teaching Madame de Nucingen to manipulate her husband, in order to help Rastignac make his fortune. By the time he arrives at the boarding house, he has convinced himself that he is quite enamored of Madame de Nucingen.

Back home, Rastignac sits in Père Goriot’s squalid bedroom and gives the delighted old man a report about his daughter. Rastignac is dismayed by the shabbiness of the room, especially after the luxury he’s seen today. Goriot, he tells Rastignac, doesn’t believe that either of his daughters loves him more than the other; he’s convinced that their mutual jealousy is just another proof of their affection for him.

Rastignac asks Goriot how, with his daughters living in such comfort, he is able to live in comparative poverty. Goriot says that comfort wouldn’t mean anything to him—if his daughters are happy, he is happy. Furthermore, becoming a father taught Goriot about God’s love for the world. Rastignac, observing how Goriot’s love transforms his whole appearance, goes to bed disheartened. Though he pretended otherwise, Rastignac knows that Delphine didn’t even send a message to her father.

At breakfast the next day, everyone is surprised to see Goriot’s newfound intimacy with Rastignac. As he is wandering around the city later that day—he can’t stand to remain in the boarding house for long—Rastignac runs into his medical student friend, Bianchon. He confides something of his dilemma to Bianchon; Bianchon thinks that Rastignac is trying to find a shortcut to getting started in life. Bianchon, for his part, is happy to make a modest living as a provincial doctor. He believes that happiness ultimately lies within a person, not in the size of his influence or his income.

At home, Rastignac receives a note from Madame de Nucingen, inviting him to dinner and the opera. He suspects that she is using him to try to get back at her lover, de Marsay, though it is more likely that she is trying to get access to Madame de Beauséant through him. In any case, he accepts the invitation out of curiosity. All the boarders applaud and tease Rastignac when he emerges in his fine clothes, ready for the evening.

Rastignac finds Madame de Nucingen in a depressed mood. During a carriage ride, he finally gets her to admit her troubles to him: she needs money. She stops the carriage near the Palais-Royal and asks Rastignac to stake 100 francs on a game of roulette. Rastignac has never gambled, but he is thrilled—because Madame has put  herself in this compromising situation, he thinks, she will never be able to deny him anything. Rastignac goes into a nearby gaming-house and asks for advice. To the onlookers’ astonishment, he wins several rounds of roulette—he returns to Madame de Nucingen with 7,000 francs. She embraces him with tears of relief. She confesses to Rastignac that the Baron de Nucingen doesn’t give her any money to spend freely; she is entirely dependent on a stingy allowance, and having spent the dowry Goriot gave her, she is too proud and ashamed to beg either her husband or father for more. It’s implied that Madame de Nucingen’s lover, de Marsay, used to give her money as well, but that he no longer does due to their falling-out.

Madame de Nucingen explains that half the women in Paris live this way: even if they live outwardly luxurious lives, they are secretly consumed by worry over money. Some cheat their husbands or even allow their children to go hungry in order to scrounge for a new dress. Rastignac comforts her as she weeps, promising he thinks no less of her because of this information. Madame de Nucingen says that she intends to live simply from now on, and she makes Rastignac promise never to go gambling again—she would be grieved if he became corrupt because of her. She invites Rastignac to dine with her whenever there’s a production at the Italiens theater.

As Rastignac returns home after the concert, he reflects that the more he’s exposed to Parisian life, the more ambitious he becomes. When he tells Goriot about the evening, Goriot is jealous and dismayed that Delphine didn’t come to him for money instead. Goriot’s passionate emotions prompt Rastignac to want to be an honest man.

The next day, Madame de Beauséant gives Rastignac an introduction to the duchesse who’s throwing the ball, allowing him to attend. Rastignac also sees Madame de Nucingen in her finery. During the ball, Rastignac notices that his relationship to Madame de Beauséant, as well as his acknowledged “conquest” of Madame de Nucingen, have raised his social standing and now draw others’ envious glances. He receives invitations to other houses, and he begins to feel conceited.

The next day, Vautrin smiles in a sinister way when he hears Rastignac describe his success at the ball. He reminds Rastignac of the tremendous expense that’s required to maintain a high-society lifestyle. Rastignac, therefore, must either resign himself to drudgery as a lawyer or pursue a different path. Vautrin winks in Victorine’s direction, reminding Rastignac of his arguments and the “seeds of corruption” he’d planted.

Rastignac begins dining daily with Madame de Nucingen and escorting her wherever she goes. He spends excessive amounts of money, gambles, and wastes his time on luxury—he has grown accustomed to living extravagantly. Rastignac sends back repayment and gifts to his mother and sisters. However, he never seems to have enough money for daily necessities. He can’t pay his rent to Madame Vauquer, yet he always has enough to indulge his vanity on credit. Rastignac realizes that to continue on this path to success, he has to renounce all his youthful idealism.

Late one evening in the dining room, Rastignac lingers pensively, long after most of the other boarders have gone back to their rooms. At this point, no matter if Madame de Nucingen’s feelings toward him are genuine or not, Rastignac is infatuated; his heart is involved now. If Rastignac had once believed that he was manipulating Madame de Nucingen, it’s now clear that she’s in charge. For her part, Madame de Nucingen is still feeling wounded by de Marsay and toys with Rastignac for that reason.

On this particular evening, a frustrated Rastignac, not realizing that Vautrin is lingering nearby and watching everything, thinks about the plan they’d discussed and throws a tender glance at Victorine, who’s sitting in front of the fire. When she asks if Rastignac is troubled, Rastignac says that young men like him are always worried about being truly loved. In response, Victorine gives him an unambiguous look. Vautrin interrupts the conversation at this moment.

After the women leave the room, Vautrin coolly tells Rastignac that he knew the younger man would come around to his plan. But he tells Rastignac that he wants him to make that decision out of reason, not desperation—if he needs money, Vautrin will give him some. Rastignac does need the money and trembles at the temptation, but he refuses at first, finally agreeing to accept the banknotes as a loan. Vautrin goes on to say that he’s planning to move to America soon, where he’ll make his fortune and bequeath it to Rastignac. He tells Rastignac that he lives on a higher plane than everybody else; he looks at his actions only as means to an end. Rastignac continues to tell himself that he’ll never marry Victorine. He finds Vautrin repugnant, and yet Vautrin’s cynicism and his position in society are attractive to Rastignac.