Pere Goriot Read online

  Table of Contents

  From the Pages ofPère Goriot

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Honoré de Balzac

  The World of Honoré de Balzac and Père Goriot

  Introduction

  Père Goriot

  Balzac’s Second Preface to Père Goriot

  CHAPTER 1 - A Middle-Class Lodging-House

  CHAPTER 2 - Entry on the Social Scene

  CHAPTER 3 - Trompe-la-Mort

  CHAPTER 4 - The Father’s Death

  Endnotes

  Appendix

  Inspired by Père Goriot and La Comedie humaine

  Comments & Questions

  For Further Reading

  TIMELESS WORKS. NEW SCHOLARSHIP. EXTRAORDINARY VALUE.

  From the Pages of

  Père Goriot

  Step by step the daylight decreases, and the cicerone’s droning voice grows hollower as the traveler descends into the Catacombs. The comparison holds good! Who shall say which is more ghastly, the sight of the bleached skulls or of dried-up human hearts?

  (page 11)

  This laughing-stock was the retired vermicelli-merchant, Father Goriot, upon whose face a painter, like the historian, would have concentrated all the light in his picture.

  (page 25)

  “If ever you explore a Parisian woman’s heart, you will find the money-lender first, and the lover afterwards.”

  (page 51)

  “Our heart is a treasury; if you pour out all its wealth at once, you are bankrupt. We show no more mercy to the affection that reveals its utmost extent than we do to another kind of prodigal who has not a penny left. Their father had given them all he had. For twenty years he had given his whole heart to them; then, one day, he gave them all his fortune too. The lemon was squeezed; the girls left the rest in the gutter.”

  (pages 83-84)

  “In Paris success is everything.”

  (page 86)

  Goriot had raised the two girls to the level of the angels; and, quite naturally, he himself was left beneath them. Poor man! he loved them even for the pain that they gave him.

  (page 96)

  “Don’t stick to your opinions any more than to your words. If any one asks you for them, let him have them—at a price. A man who prides himself on going in a straight line through life is an idiot who believes in infallibility. There are no such things as principles; there are only events, and there are no laws but those of expediency: a man of talent accepts events and the circumstances in which he finds himself, and turns everything to his own ends.”

  (page 120)

  “Now and then in life, you see, you must play for heavy stakes, and it is no use wasting your luck on low play.”

  (page 144)

  “Oh! so we have still a few dubious tatters of the swaddling clothes of virtue about us!”

  (page 182)

  The pain expressed in his face seemed greater than it is given to humanity to know. The agony of this Christ of paternity can only be compared with the masterpieces of those princes of the palette who have left for us the record of their visions of an agony suffered for a whole world by the Saviour of men.

  (page 222)

  The words came from him like a sob, a hoarse sound like the death rattle of a dying man; it seemed indeed like the agony of death when the father’s love was powerless.

  (page 242)

  Madame de Beauséant stood at the door of the first salon to receive the guests who were styled her friends. She was dressed in white, and wore no ornament in the plaits of hair braided about her head; her face was calm; there was no sign there of pride, nor of pain, nor of joy that she did not feel. No one could read her soul; she stood there like some Niobe carved in marble. For a few intimate friends there was a tinge of satire in her smile; but no scrutiny saw any change in her, nor had she looked otherwise in the days of the glory of her happiness. The most callous of her guests admired her as young Rome applauded some gladiator who could die smiling. It seemed as if society had adorned itself for a last audience of one of its sovereigns.

  (page 262)

  “My cup of misery is full.”

  (page 287)

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  Le Père Goriot was originally published in the Revue de Paris in 1834 and in book form in 1835. Ellen Marriage’s English translation first appeared in 1901.

  Published in 2005 by Barnes & Noble Classics with new Introduction, Notes, Biography,

  Chronology, Inspired By, Comments & Questions, and For Further Reading.

  Introduction, Notes, and For Further Reading

  Copyright @ 2005 by Peter Connor.

  Note on Honoré de Balzac, The World of Honoré de Balzac and Père Goriot,

  Inspired by Père Goriot and La Comédie humaine, Comments & Questions, and translation of “Balzac’s Second Preface to Père Goriot”

  Copyright © 2005 by Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  In our section Comments & Questions, the selections by Charles Baudelaire and Victor Hugo are from Critical Essays on Honoré de Balzac, by Martin Kanes, G.K Hall,

  © 1990 by G.K Hall. Reprinted by permission of The Gale Group.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

  Barnes & Noble Classics and the Barnes & Noble Classics colophon are trademarks of Barnes & Noble, Inc.

  Père Goriot

  ISBN 1-59308-285-1

  eISBN : 97-8-141-14336-7

  LC Control Number 2005920757

  Produced and published in conjunction with:

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  Michael J. Fine, President and Publisher

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  FIRST PRINTING

  Honoré de Balzac

  Honoré de Balzac had a complex and dynamic life—as a writer, raconteur, rogue, dandy, business failure, and workaholic. The novels of La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) made him a literary giant of his day (and ours), and the most comprehensive chronicler of post-Napoleonic Paris. Balzac was born in Tours, France, on May 20, 1799, to a bourgeois family that had little interest or involvement in their son’s childhood. Placed in boarding school when he was very young, Balzac studied little and read voraciously, and suffered a depressive breakdown. After leaving school, he worked for several years as a law clerk in Paris but abandoned the legal profession to pursue his dream of writing.

  The tireless author rented a musty attic flat and spent days and nights composing sensationalist novels. When they did not make money, he tried his hand at business, with equally disheartening results. He was buoyed emotionally by a liaison with a woman twice his age, Madame de Berny, but impending bankruptcy led him to attempt writing once more. The resulting novels, Les Chouans and the controversial satire Physiologie du Mariage, brought him success at last, and open invitations to the literary salons of Paris.

  Now with some means at his disposal, Balzac lived as a dandy and, despite his unremarkable appearance, charmed and seduced many women. Fueling himself with potent coffee, he slept little; over his lifetime he created more than ninety novels and between 2,000 and 3,000 characters, in addition to numerous journal articles. Despite his literary success, Balzac made a series of bad investments. Debt was the bane of his life; for a time it even put him in hiding from cred
itors.

  In 1841 Balzac grouped his novels of post-Napoleonic Paris and its rising middle class under the umbrella title La Comédie humaine. Père Goriot, Les Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions), Cousine Bette, Cousin Pons, and Eugénie Grandet are some of his masterpieces. Balzac’s realistic style and sociological detailing of industrial-era France went on to influence some of the country’s great authors, such as Émile Zola and Gustave Flaubert.

  After a lifetime avoiding marriage, Balzac wed his longtime paramour, Eveline Rzewuska, Countess Hanska, in the spring of 1850. When he died on August 21 of that year, Victor Hugo honored his passing with a memorial speech. Honoré de Balzac is buried at Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.

  The World of Honoré de Balzac and Père Goriot

  1799 Honoré de Balzac is born in Tours on May 20. His civil- servant father, Bernard-François Balzac (originally, Balssa) has moved the bourgeois family from Paris to Tours because of his Royalist sympathies during the French Revolution. Honoré’s mother, Anne-Charlotte- Laure Sallambier, is some thirty years her husband’s junior. Honoré is put in the care of a nurse till age four. Napoleon enters Paris.

  1801 The Louvre is opened to the public.

  1802 Victor Hugo is born.

  1804 Napoleon proclaims himself emperor of the French; the years that follow will be an era of intense upheaval, including the rise and decline of Napoleon’s empire, which will culminate in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve is born.

  1807 After spending time at grade school in Tours, Honoré is sent to boarding school in Vendôme, where he will re main until 1813. He almost never sees his family while at school, and loneliness causes him to have a spiritual crisis. Not a stellar student, Honoré nevertheless has a voracious appetite for literature. Works by E. T. A. Hoff mann (1776-1822) will be an enduring influence on the future author.

  1814 The Balzac family returns to Paris. Napoleon steps down and is banished to Elba.

  1815 Napoleon escapes Elba and enters Paris, beginning his “100 Days” retaking of France. He is then defeated at Waterloo. Louis XVIII comes to power, restoring France’s monarchy. Napoleon is exiled to Santa Helena, off the African coast.

  1816 Balzac studies law at the Sorbonne and works as a law clerk for Guyonnet de Merville, upon whom his charac ter Derville is based in his later novels.

  1819 Balzac receives his law degree but decides to try to earn a living by writing. He moves to a tawdry attic apartment on the rue Lesdiguières, in the Bastille area.

  1820 He returns to live with his family, who now reside in a small town, Villeparisis, outside Paris. He writes a tragic drama in verse, Cromwell.

  1821 Desperate for money, Balzac writes sensational novels under various pseudonyms and will do so throughout the 1820s; the books fail, forcing him to seek other work. Around this time he meets Laure-Antoinette Hin ner, Madame de Berny, a wealthy woman twice his age who offers encouragement and financial aid, as well as inspiration for several of his female characters.

  1825 Balzac turns to business, becoming an editor of French classics, a publisher, and a printer, but with scant suc cess. His failed efforts and mounting debt over the next few years place him on the verge of financial ruin.

  1828 Desperate to save himself from bankruptcy, Balzac once again takes up writing.

  1829 He succeeds with the publication of a historical novel, Les Chouans (originally published as Le Dernier Chouan), and the satirical, provocative Physiologie du Manage. He thoroughly enjoys his newfound place in Parisian liter ary circles, seducing women and living lavishly. Bernard- François Balzac dies.

  1830 A workaholic with little need for sleep, Balzac drinks large amounts of coffee and spends entire days and nights at the writing desk in his apartment on the rue Cassini. In addition to fiction, he publishes many arti cles in journals. He adds the aristocratic de to his name.

  1831 La Peau de chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin, sometimes trans lated as The Magic Skin) is published to great success. Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) is published.

  1832 The semi autobiographical novel Louis Lambert, relating Balzac’s experiences as a student at the College de Vendôme, is published. Balzac writes articles for the Royalist paper Le Rénovateur. He receives a letter from a Polish noblewoman, Eveline Rzewuska, Countess Han ska, and the two begin to correspond.

  1833 A rendezvous with Mme. Hanska begins a primarily epis tolary affair that lasts until Balzac’s death. Balzac begins an affair with a married woman, Marie Daminois. George Sand’s Lelia appears.

  1834 La Recherche de l‘absolu (The Quest for the Absolute) is pub lished. A daughter, Marie-Caroline du Fresnay, is born to Balzac and Daminois.

  1835 Père Goriot is published. Despite his literary success, Balzac lives beyond his means and is pursued by debt collectors.

  1836 Balzac acquires a periodical, Chronique de Paris, which soon fails. While traveling in Italy he hears that Madame de Berny has died.

  1837 Although bowed by debt, Balzac builds a home outside Sèvres and names it Les Jardies. The first installment of one of his masterpieces, Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions), appears. Around this time, Balzac embarks on a scheme to make money from Sardinian silver mines, which fails miserably.

  1840 Balzac founds the Revue Parisienne, which he uses as a forum to critique various contemporaries.

  1841 111 health compromises Balzac’s vigorous way of life and causes him to spend more time at his home near Sèvres. The author decides to group his voluminous portrayal of post-Napoleonic Paris—comprising more than ninety novels and an astonishing 2,000 to 3,000 characters—under the umbrella title La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) . His works are early examples of the Re alist style that will influence countless later novelists.

  1842 Balzac publishes his famous avant-propos (“foreword”) to La Comédie humaine. Taking Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s the ories about the animal world and applying them to hu manity, Balzac asserts that human beings are shaped by their environments. His publisher, Hetzel, also prints works by Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, and George Sand.

  1843 The final installment of Illusions perdues is published.

  1844 Alexandre Dumas’s Count of Monte Cristo is published.

  1848 Balzac’s masterpieces La Cousine Bette and Le Cousin Pons are published. Revolutions occur throughout Europe.

  1849 Eugène Delacroix paints the ceiling of the Louvre’s Salon d’Apollon.

  1850 Countess Hanska and Balzac marry in Ukraine in early spring. His health deteriorates, and Balzac dies on Au gust 18. Buried at Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, he is honored with a funeral speech by Victor Hugo.

  Introduction

  Subject of Père Goriot—A good man—middle-class

  lodging house—600 fr. income—having spent every

  penny for his daughters who each has 50,000 fr.

  income—dying like a dog.

  —BALZAC

  Père Goriot is one of Balzac’s best-known novels, and is widely regarded as a classic of world literature. It is often read in schools and universities, perhaps because one of the main characters in the book, the young Eugène de Rastignac, is a student (although he spends little time studying), and parts of the novel take place in and around the Latin Quarter, which houses the great French institutions of learning. A strong appeal of the book is its wonderfully vivid description of this part of the city, and indeed of all of Paris—its splendor, its squalor, its social divisions, its characters, its institutions, its life. Anyone acquainted with the architecture and topography of Paris will recognize familiar and evocative place names—the Jardin des Plantes, the Opera, the rue Saint-Jacques, Montmartre, the Place Sorbonne, Père-Lachaise cemetery—and can follow Eugene step by step on his long walks between the Chaussée d’Antin and the Faubourg Saint-Germain. So Parisian is the setting of this work that its author wondered: “Will any one without the walls of Paris understand it?” (p. 9).

  Père Goriot is also the perfe
ct novel to start with if one has read none of the roughly ninety novels and stories that make up La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy), the title Balzac gave to his collected oeuvre. It is probably with Père Goriot that Balzac consciously set about perfecting the technique of recurring characters that marks his signal contribution to literary

  history; in it, he introduces a number of people who reappear in later novels, and brings back a few who have been introduced already in earlier ones. Indeed, Rastignac stands out as an exemplary figure in this new way of envisioning the novel. Avid readers of Balzac at the time had encountered him already in La Peau de chagrin ( The Wild Ass’s Skin, 1831), a novel published before Père Goriot (1835) but in which Rastignac appears as a mature man, older than the young student living at the Maison Vauquer in Père Goriot. Pere Goriot gives us the story of Rastignac’s beginnings in society; a prequel to The Wild Ass’s Skin, it provides the backstory (as they say in Hollywood), just as other novels in La Comédie humaine will inform us about Rastignac’s adventures later in life. Explaining his system of composition in the preface to Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions, 1843), Balzac writes: “When one of these characters finds himself, like M. de Rastignac in Père Goriot, arrested in mid-career, you should seek him out again in Profil de Marquise (Profile of a Marquesa), in The Interdiction [L’Interdiction] , in The Firm of Nucingen [La Maison Nucingen], and finally in The Wild Ass’s Skin, acting in each epoch according to the rank he has then reached.”