|
The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Father Goriot by Honore de Balzac: Genevieve, in the Maison Vauquer--an exceedingly respectable
boarding-house in every way, I grant you, but an establishment
that, none the less, falls short of being fashionable? The house
is comfortable, it is lordly in its abundance; it is proud to be
the temporary abode of a Rastignac; but, after all, it is in the
Rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, and luxury would be out of place
here, where we only aim at the purely patriarchalorama. If you
mean to cut a figure in Paris, my young friend," Vautrin
continued, with half-paternal jocularity, "you must have three
horses, a tilbury for the mornings, and a closed carriage for the
evening; you should spend altogether about nine thousand francs
Father Goriot |
