Father Goriot : Complete

Mme. Vauquer (nee de Conflans) is an elderly person, who for the past forty years has kept alodging-house in the Rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve, in the district that lies between the Latin Quarterand the Faubourg Saint-Marcel.

Her house (known in the neighborhood as the Maison Vauquer)receives men and women, old and young, and no word has ever been breathed against herrespectable establishment; but, at the same time, it must be said that as a matter of fact no youngwoman has been under her roof for thirty years, and that if a young man stays there for any lengthof time it is a sure sign that his allowance must be of the slenderest.

In 1819, however, the timewhen this drama opens, there was an almost penniless young girl among Mme.

Vauquer's boarders.That word drama has been somewhat discredited of late; it has been overworked and twisted tostrange uses in these days of dolorous literature; but it must do service again here, not because thisstory is dramatic in the restricted sense of the word, but because some tears may perhaps be shedintra et extra muros before it is over.Will any one without the walls of Paris understand it?

It is open to doubt. The only audience whocould appreciate the results of close observation, the careful reproduction of minute detail and localcolor, are dwellers between the heights of Montrouge and Montmartre, in a vale of crumbling stuccowatered by streams of black mud, a vale of sorrows which are real and joys too often hollow; butthis audience is so accustomed to terrible sensations, that only some unimaginable and well-neighimpossible woe could produce any lasting impression there.

Now and again there are tragedies soawful and so grand by reason of the complication of virtues and vices that bring them about, thategotism and selfishness are forced to pause and are moved to pity; but the impression that theyreceive is like a luscious fruit, soon consumed.