The False Allure of Wealth Theme Analysis

The sight of his family in such constant distress, which they had generously kept from him, the comparison he was forced to make between his sisters, who had seemed so lovely when he was a child, and the Parisian women who were the living fulfilment of his earlier dreams of beauty, the precarious future of this large family which depended on him, the penny-pinching care with which he saw them save every scrap and crumb, and drink the dregs from the wine press, in a word numerous circumstances which it would be pointless to relate, vastly increased his desire for success and made him crave distinction.

‘Their father […] is said to have given each of them five or six hundred thousand francs to ensure their happiness by marrying them well, and only kept back eight or ten thousand livres a year for himself. He thought that his daughters would remain his daughters and that in their homes he had created two places where he would be able to live, two houses where he would be adored and spoilt. Within two years his sons-in-law had banished him from their society as if he were the most wretched of wretches…’

The moment money slips into a student's pocket, […] [h]is aspirations are as boundless as his ability to achieve them. He desires everything and anything, he is gay, generous and expansive. In short the bird which only yesterday had no wings has now spread them in full flight. The penniless student snaps up a crumb of pleasure like a dog snatching a bone amid countless perils […] the young man who for a fleeting moment has a few gold coins to jingle in his pocket savours his pleasures, counts them one by one, revels in them, sails through the air, has forgotten the meaning of the word 'poverty’. Paris is all his.

‘You stand at the crossroads of your life, young man, you must choose. You have already made one choice; you went to see your Beauséant cousin and had a taste of luxury. You went to visit Madame de Restaud, Père Goriot's daughter, and had a taste of how Parisian women live. That day you came back with a word marked on your forehead, and one I could read easily enough: Succeed! succeed at any price. Bravo! I said, there's a lad after my own heart.’

What moralists call the depths of the human heart are merely the disappointments, the involuntary reactions of self-interest. These ups and downs so often bemoaned, these sudden reversals, are quite calculated for the enhancement of our pleasures. Seeing himself well dressed, with smart gloves, smart boots, Rastignac forgot his virtuous resolution. Young people do not dare look into the mirror of their consciences when they are being tempted to do wrong, while those of riper years have already seen themselves reflected there; therein lies the difference between these two periods of human life.

‘My word,’ he said with seeming indifference, ‘what good would it do me to live in greater comfort? I really can’t explain that sort of thing; I can’t put two words together properly. That's what it's all about,’ he added, striking his heart. ‘My life, my own life, is all in my two daughters. If they enjoy themselves, if they are happy and finely dressed, if they have carpets to walk on, what does it matter what clothes I wear or what sort of bedroom I have? I don't feel cold if they are warm. I never feel sad if they are laughing. My only sorrows are theirs.’

In the course of the next few days Rastignac led an extremely dissipated life. He dined almost every day with Madame de Nucingen, and went everywhere as her escort. He would come home at three or four in the morning, rise at midday to get ready to go out, and then go for a turn in the Bois when it was fine. He wasted time like this, heedless of the cost, and absorbed all the lessons and allurements of luxury […] He played for high stakes, losing or winning a lot of money, and finally grew used to the extravagant life of the young man in Paris.

By enjoying the material advantages of wealth, as he had so long enjoyed the moral advantages of noble birth, he had sloughed off his skin as a provincial, and smoothly moved into a position from which he could look forward to a fine future. So, as he waited for Delphine, seated comfortably in this charming boudoir, which he was beginning to regard as almost his own, he saw himself so far removed from the Rastignac who had come to Paris the year before, that, looking closely at that person through some trick of mental vision, he asked himself if at that moment there was any resemblance between his two selves.

He saw society as an ocean of mire into which one had only to dip a toe to be buried in it up to the neck. 'The only crimes committed there are petty ones!' he said to himself. 'Vautrin was a bigger man than that.' […] In his thoughts he returned to the bosom of his family. He remembered the pure emotions of that tranquil life, he recalled days spent among those who held him dear. By following the natural laws of hearth and home, those dear creatures found complete, unbroken, untroubled happiness. Despite such worthy thoughts, he did not feel bold enough to go to Delphine and confess the faith of pure souls by bidding her follow Virtue in the name of Love.

Rastignac left at about five o'clock, after seeing Madame de Beauséant into her travelling-coach and receiving her tearful farewell […] It was cold and damp as Eugène walked back to the Maison Vauquer. His education was almost complete.

‘I shan't be able to save poor Père Goriot,’ Bianchon said to him as Rastignac came into his neighbour's room.

‘My friend,’ said Eugène, after a look at the sleeping old man, ‘stay on the path that leads to the modest goal you have been content to set yourself. As for me, I am in hell, and must stay there.’

‘They are busy, they are sleeping, they won't come. I knew it. You have to be dying to learn what children are. Ah! my friend, don't get married, don't have children! You give them life, they give you death. You bring them into the world, they drive you out of it. No, they won't come! For ten years I have known how it would be. I sometimes said so to myself, but I didn't dare to believe it.’