Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — ZCerfberr, Anatole
General
Repertory of The Comedie Humaine, Complete, A — Z
Cerfberr, Anatole
Balzac, Honoré de, 1799-1850. Comédie humaine
GORIOT,* (Jean-Joachim), born about 1750; started as a porter in the
grain market. During the first Revolution, although he had received no
education, but having a trader's instinct, he began the manufacture of
vermicelli and made a fortune out of it. Thrift and fortune favored
him under the Terror. He passed for a bold citizen and fierce patriot.
Prosperity enabled him to marry from choice the only daughter of a
wealthy farmer of Brie, who died young and adored. Upon their two
children, Anastasie and Delphine, he lavished all the tenderness of
which their mother had been the recipient, spoiling them with fine
things. Goriot's griefs date from the day he set each up in
housekeeping in magnificent fashion on Chaussee-d'Antin. Far from
being grateful for his pecuniary sacrifices, his sons-in-law, Restaud
and Nucingen, and his daughters themselves, were ashamed of his
bourgeois exterior. In 1813 he had retired saddened and impoverished
to the Vauquer boarding-house on rue Nueve-Sainte-Genevieve. The
quarrels of his daughters and the greedy demands for money increased
and in 1819 followed him thither. Almost all the guests of the house
and especially Mme. Vauquer herself--whose ambitious designs upon him
had come to naught--united in persecuting Goriot, now well-nigh
poverty-stricken. He found an agreeable respite when he acted as a
go-between for the illicit love affair of Mme. de Nucingen and
Rastignac, his fellow-lodger. The financial distress of Mme. de Restaud,
Trailles' victim, gave Goriot the finishing blow. He was compelled to
give up the final and most precious bit of his silver plate, and beg
the assistance of Gobseck the usurer. He was crushed. A serious attack
of apoplexy carried him off. He died on rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve.
Rastignac watched over him, and Bianchon, then an interne, attended
him. Only two men, Christophe, Mme. Vauquer's servant, and Rastignac,
followed the remains to Saint-Etienne du Mont and to Pere-Lachaise.
The empty carriages of his daughters followed as far as the cemetery.
[Father Goriot.]
* Two Parisian theatres and five authors have depicted Goriot's life
on the stage; March 6, 1835, at the Vaudeville, Ancelot and Paul
Dupont; the same year, the month following, at the Varietes,
Theaulon, Alexis de Comberousse and Jaime Pere. Also the _Boeuf
Gras_ of a carnival in a succeeding year bore the name of Goriot.
GORITZA (Princesse), a charming Hungarian, celebrated for her beauty,
towards the end of Louis XV.'s reign, and to whom the youthful
Chevalier de Valois became so attached that he came near fighting on
her account with M. de Lauzun; nor could he ever speak of her without
emotion. From 1816 to 1830, the Alencon aristocracy were given
glimpses of the princess's portrait, which adorned the chevalier's
gold snuff-box. [Jealousies of a Country Town.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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