The two daughters of Goriot


    CONTENTS
    A) THE SHARED AREAS OF THE TWO GIRLS’ LIVES & CHARACTERS

    1. Both daughters came to be equally spoilt
      1. Goriot transferred the great love he had felt for his wife to his little daughters
      2. His extreme protectiveness of his daughters
      3. His extravagant spending on them
      4. The excellent education that he paid for
      5. The rich marriages and the massive dowries
    2. Goriot had put both of his daughters on a social level where he had no place.
    3. Both daughters took from Goriot the money he needed for his old age
    4. As adults, the two sisters were notorious for their mutual jealousy
    5. Both sisters shared the same overriding ambition in life.

B) THE WAY THE PERSONALITIES AND THE LIFE STORIES OF ANASTASIE AND DELPHINE DIFFER

  1. Their contrasting physical appearance
  2. Their marital relationships
  3. The lovers chosen by the two sisters

C) THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF RESPONSIBLILITY OF THE TWO DAUGHTERS FOR THE SAD END OF GORIOT

  1. Delphine’s role in the impoverishment of Goriot
  2. Anastasie’s role in the impoverishment of Goriot
    1. Her debts paid by Goriot’s gold and silver plate
    2. Goriot’s involvement in paying off her lover’s debts
    3. Goriot’s frantic efforts to buy her a dress for Mme de Beauséant’s ball

D) OTHER FEATURES OF THE CHARACTER DIFFERENCES OF THE TWO SISTERS

  1. Anastasie more calculating
  2. Anastasie guiltier in the strife between them
  3. Anastasie more quick-tempered
  4. Anastasie’s act of hypocrisy
  5. The total mess that Anastasie makes of her life
  6. Some better features of Delphine’s character
  7. Goriot’s greater confidence in Delphine
  8. Delphine’s story has a happier outcome

E) ARE ANASTASIE AND DELPHINE UNNATURAL DAUGHTERS?

  1. Delphine’s shows neglect of her father (Like Anastasie’s, described above C)
  2. The quarrel of the two girls brought on his fatal stroke
  3. The heartlessness both girls show on the night of Mme de Beauséant’s ball
  4. The absence of the sisters from the funeral
  5. The pathos of Goriot’s vain, final wait for his daughters:
    1. He sends Christophe to bring them his daughters to him
    2. Goriot describes them as having hearts of stone, with no love for him
    3. When he calls for them in vain, he curses them
    4. Goriot is again consoled by self-deception about their love
    5. At the end Goriot withdraws his curse

F) ANASTASIE AND DELPHINE ARE NOT UNNATURAL DAUGHTERS

  1. They genuinely love their father
  2. When Goriot’s death becomes a reality to them, the daughters are completely distraught

G) THEIR CONDUCT IS NOT A DENIAL OF HUMAN LOVE BUT A DEMONSTRATION OF ITS INADEQUACY (Each point is illustrated from the novel)

  1. Children often desert their parents after marriage
  2. Married children build independent lives and have their own preoccupations
  3. When a couple have set up home, it is a common experience for them to find parents intrusive. 
  4. One of the most powerful forces that distract human beings from other obligations is sexual love. 
  5. Every favour that parents give a child forms a responsibility for which they can be blamed.
  6. Children assume that parents will continue for ever the habit of sacrifice and are indestructible
  7. Parents conspire with their own exploitation

E) CONCLUSION

MY FULL TEXT
THE TWO DAUGHTERS OF GORIOT

A) THE SHARED AREAS OF THE TWO GIRLS’ LIVES AND OF THEIR CHARACTERS AND CONDUCT

1) Both daughters came to be equally spoilt. 
a)  Goriot transferred the great love he had felt for his wife to his little daughters
Goriot married a rich farmer’s daughter, sensitive, attractive, frail physically, but strong in character, for whom he felt an unbounded, all-absorbing love. Their seven years of marital bliss was ended by her death and Goriot was left with two little daughters of about three and five years old. In this circumstance, all the force of his affection, cheated by death, was turned upon the two girls and his paternal feelings developed beyond the point of reason. Page 103
Dans cette situation, le sentiment de la paternité se développa chez Goriot jusqu'à la déraison. Il reporta ses affections trompées par la mort sur ses deux filles,

It was the memory of these tender years which was foremost in his mind as his life ebbed away.  In those days they lived in the rue de la Jussienne and to Goriot this was paradise.  He tells Rastignac page 287:
Je crois les voir en ce moment telles qu'elles  étaient rue de la Jussienne. Elles descendaient le matin. Bonjour, papa, disaient-elles. Je les prenais sur mes genoux, je leur faisais mille agaceries, des niches. Elles me caressaient gentiment. Nous déjeunions tous les matins ensemble ………

b) His extreme protectiveness of his daughters
Other people were well aware of Goriot’s obsessive preoccupation with his daughters.  A business rival unadvisedly exploited this, by inventing the story that Delphine had been knocked down by a cab, to make Goriot leave the auction room.  Goriot’s distress was terrible as was his subsequent revenge on the deceitful competitor.

c) His extravagant spending on them
As a very rich man with few personal expenses, he was able to indulge his daughters’ every fancy and this was his greatest joy - They went horse riding and had their own carriage.

d) The excellent education that he paid for
He paid for the very best tutors so that the girls were endowed with the talents of the best educated children.  For their lady companion he chose a woman with wit and good taste.  Anastasie and Delphine lived with Goriot the lifestyle of the mistresses of a rich old nobleman – Page 104
… elles vivaient comme auraient vécu les maîtresses d'un vieux seigneur riche

e) The rich marriages and the massive dowries
When they came of an age to marry, their upbringing made them a suitable match for the highest nobility in the land. As a supreme act of generosity, Goriot gave each daughter was half of his fortune as a dowry.  The Duchesse de Langeais put a figure on these dowries of five to six hundred thousand francs.  On his deathbed Goriot says that he gave each daughter nearly eight hundred thousand francs.

2) Goriot had put both of his daughters on a social level where he had no place.
To Goriot his daughters were angels and he enjoyed even the wrong things they did. Page 104
Goriot mettait ses filles au rang des anges, et nécessairement au-dessus de lui, le pauvre homme! il aimait jusqu'au mal qu'elles lui faisaient

After they were married into rich families, his daughters thought it was beneath their dignity to have a father engaged in his trade and although his work was his life and his livelihood, they persuaded him to retire.  Goriot tells us that they also tried in vain to teach him the refined manners of society.  At the end he tells how he was aware that in company, he made them blush. He adds bitterly that he was responsible for this by educating them well -Page 291; 
Voila ce que c’est que de bien élever ses enfants

Later, his daughters’ husbands socially disowned him, ordering their wives not to give him a home in their houses and not to entertain him publicly.  In despair, Goriot retired to the squalid boarding house of Mme Vauquer.

Mme de Langeais explains why Goriot’s sons in law had taken this action.  She says that the two marriages had taken place during the rule of Bonaparte, when it was not an embarrassment to have a former revolutionary as a father-in-law. But after the restoration of the monarchy Goriot, who had been prominent in his Paris revolutionary section, was an embarrassment to his daughters and their husbands. First they started to see him in only in private.  Recognising their problems, he had sacrificed himself and he had stopped his visits.

Although it is impossible to excuse in any way the treatment that Goriot received from his daughters and their husbands it has to be acknowledged that estrangement of children from parents by the superior education they give them is a commonplace phenomenon universally, as is friction in relationships with in-laws.  When Rastignac goes to the home of Anastasie to bring her to her father’s deathbed, the Comte de Restaud puts the blame on his father-in-law for the troubles in his family-Page 297:
Il  a compromis son caractère avec madame de Restaud, il a fait le malheur de ma vie, je vois en lui l'ennemi de mon repos. 
Even Rastignac, the good friend of Goriot, finds his excessive attention to Delphine difficult and postpones moving Goriot in.  When the three of them had spent an evening together at the new apartment, Goriot’s extreme behaviour embarrassed Delphine:   -Page 240:
….enfin il faisait des folies comme en aurait fait l'amant le plus jeune et le plus tendre.
 Voyez-vous? dit De1phine    Eugene, quand mon père est avec nous, il faut être tout à lui Ce sera pourtant bien gênant quelquefois

3) Both daughters took from Goriot the money he needed for his old age

The greatest crime of the daughters was to continue to make financial demands on Goriot in his retirement to pay for their extravagances. As a result his living conditions became progressively more squalid; ultimately, he did not have enough for his basic needs and died totally penniless. 

Bianchon’s suggested inscription on the grave headstone said it all - Page 306:
« Ci-gît monsieur Goriot, père de la comtesse de Restaud et de la baronne de Nucingen, enterré aux frais de deux étudiants. »

4) As adults, the two sisters were notorious for their mutual jealousy
Mme de Beauséant says that even worse than Anastasie's and Delphine's betrayal of their father is their jealousy of each other. Anastasie is received in high society but Delphine is not. She will stoop to anything to achieve this.

Rastignac uses Delphine’s animosity towards her sister in his first approach to her at the theatre.  He says untruly that Delphine is admired for her true concern for Goriot, unlike her sister.  Delphine is ready to accept this reproachful view of her sister from a stranger and seeks to justify her own neglect of her father, claiming that it was in order to obey her husband’s ruling that she stopped seeing him.

Anastasie is jealous of what her father gives to Delphine.  When the meet in Goriot’s room, Anastasie is furious to discover he has paid for an apartment for Delphine's lover, Rastignac.  The sisters have a full scale row, indifferent to the distress they are causing to their ailing father.  In reply Delphine rakes up her long-term grievance against her sister, accusing her of blocking her way into society.  As the sisters’ quarrel rages on, Goriot's head is enflamed. He falls to his knees and in tears he begs them to make peace. Delphine sees his wild expression and they embrace

5) Both sisters shared the same overriding ambition in life.
In Balzac’s characters we often see the progressive self-destruction of a person devoured by the overwhelming spiritual force of an idée fixe. The excessive conduct of both Anastasie and of Delphine stems from their overriding ambition to shine at the highest level of Paris society.

B) THE WAY THE PERSONALITIES AND THE LIFE STORIES OF ANASTASIE AND DELPHINE DIFFER

The previous comments describe important ways in which the two sisters were similar – sharing the same upbringing – both exploiting their father- both sharing the same ambitions.  However they are different personalities and their lives lead them along different paths.  In order to highlight these differences, it is perhaps useful, to deal with different features, presenting each of the two young ladies in turn.

1) Their contrasting physical appearance

Anastasie

Anastasie is very imposing: She is a tall brunette, much admired for her shapely figure. Page 45

La comtesse Anastasie de Restaud grande et bien faite, passait pour avoir l'une des plus jolies tailles de Paris. Figurez-vous de grands yeux noirs, une main magnifique, un pied bien découpé, du feu dans les mouvements, une femme que le marquis de Ronque­rolles nommait un cheval de pur sang. 
At the ball of Mme de Beauséant she was in great demand from all the young men.  Rastignac tells us – Page 57:
les jeunes gens n'avaient d'yeux que pour elle, j'étais le douzième inscrit sur sa liste……

Delphine
Delphine is a slim blonde. She too is beautiful and when Rastignac first sees her at the theatre, he stares at her so much that Mme de Beauséant has to reproach him. We feel however that hers is a quieter beauty without the dramatic effect of her sister’s striking beauty and perhaps sexuality
The differences in the circumstances of the marriages of the two daughters.

2) Their marital relationships

Delphine’s husband
Delphine’s husband, the Baron de Nucingen, had been ennobled only in recent years, under the rule of Napoleon.  He was seen as a banker primarily and his social status did not give his wife access to the highest aristocratic social events where her glamorous elder sister was a leading star.

Delphine’s priority had been to marry for money (But once married she sought a social position equal to that of her sister) Page 104
Delphine aimait l'argent: elle épousa Nucingen, banquier d'origine allemande qui de­vint baron du Saint-Empire.

Anastasie’s husband
Anastasie’s husband was the Comte de Restaud.  The Restaud family was one of the oldest French aristocratic lineages. Anastasie’s priority had been to marry for social advancement, taking a name that gave her access to the very highest levels of society – Page 104
Courtisée pour sa beauté par le comte de Restaud, Anastasie avait des penchants aristocratiques qui la por­tèrent à quitter la maison paternelle pour s'élancer dans les hautes sphères sociales.

3) The lovers chosen by the two sisters

The lover of Delphine

Delphine took her lover after the hopes that she had had of unlimited wealth in her marriage to the banker Nucingen had been disappointed.  He had pressurised her into putting her large dowry into a long-term investment.  Instead he gave her money for her expenditure item by item, leaving her short, especially in view of the extravagance to which she had been accustomed.   As a mercenary character, he expected his wife to earn his generosity by the physical affection she offered him.  Delphine refused these terms and did not share his bed. As a result, the only money he gave her was a small allowance, which was less than he gave each month to his mistress, a young actress at the Opéra. Page 165.  
In Delphine’s eyes her marriage was non-existent and she had found love with the rich and charming Comte Henri de Marsay. Delphine had freely accepted his generosity, trusting in the permanence of their love.   Unfortunately he had eventually turned his attentions to another woman.  - In spite of this, Delphine pays tribute to his noble character - .  As a matter of pride Delphine paid back all the money lent to her by her unfaithful lover. (Later books of the Comédie Humaine show De Marsay to be promiscuous, with a succession of colourful liaisons.)

The break-up with De Marsay came shortly before her first meeting with Rastignac.  Her previous sad experience made Delphine wary of giving herself too impetuously to Eugène.  However, their love blossomed and she found with him a true love.  Delphine tells him that her love for him is so deep that it comes before her love for her father.  .-page 267:            
Il n’est plus aujourd'hui qu'une seule crainte, un seul malheur pour moi, c'est de perdre l'amour qui m'a fait sentir le plaisir de vivre. En dehors de ce sentiment tout m'est indifférent, je n'aime plus rien au monde. Vous êtes tout pour moi.  Si je sens le bonheur d'être riche, c'est pour mieux vous plaire. Je suis, à ma honte, plus aimante que je ne suis fille.

Anastasie’s lover
We are not given any indication that any failing on the part of her very eminent husband that caused Anastasie to take a lover.  It would seem that her deep involvement in a long-standing affair is above all an example of her tendency for extremely irresponsible conduct.  Not only did she choose a lover, but she chose the greatest rogue in French society.  Anastasie’s lover was the Comte Maxime de Trailles.  Although he came from an aristocratic family dating back to King Francis the first, his family had no means of income and he lived solely on his wits.  Her total self-abandonment to this roué, is shown by her confession, at the end of the novel, which is forced out of her by her husband that only her eldest child is a Restaud.

Although she shows herself, in other situations to be a strong minded and sometimes ruthless young lady, Anastasie is totally controlled by the manipulative De Marsay.  Delphine tells Rastignac that Anastasie is the subject of scandalous gossip in society as she has sold the diamonds of her husband's family to pay her lover's debts. 247.  Anastasie later confirms this to her sister and Goriot saying that she needed to pay his 100,000 francs debt because otherwise de Trailles threatened to blow his brains out.
Anastasie had raised 88,000 francs from the sale of the diamonds, but de Trailles still demanded the rest and she came to Goriot for 12,000 francs to save the man she loves him from debtor’s prison, for her sake and also for the sake of their children. Page 256.  Goriot is penniless but Rastignac steps in and makes out Vautrin’s blank bill of exchange for this amount to repay Goriot for the apartment he had provided him.  Goriot hands this cheque to Anastasie and thus the demands of de Trailles are met.

We see the base treachery of de Trailles, when he deserts his mistress and the children she has borne him, immediately after she has cleared his debts.  Anastasie is left full of regrets about her false illusions of the love of de Trailles that have  brought her such distress Page 304
 

C) THE DIFFERENT LEVELS OF RESPONSIBLILITY OF THE TWO DAUGHTERS FOR THE SAD END OF GORIOT

1) Delphine’s role in the impoverishment of Goriot
According to Mme de Langeais, page 89, both sisters had shown identical ingratitude to a father who had given them huge dowries on their marriage into the nobility.  She said that both sisters had disowned him socially.

For her part, Delphine lays the blame for this on her husband’s shoulders.  At her first meeting with Rastignac at the theatre, she is ready to accept criticism of her elder sister in this respect but claims that in her case, it was in order to obey her husband’s ruling that she stopped seeing her father. She lets Rastignac know that her marriage is unhappy and that this bullying conduct on her husband’s part was representative of his treatment of her-. Page 144:
Je  pleurais. Ces violences, venues après les brutalités du mariage, ont été l'une des raisons qui troublèrent le plus mon ménage.

Delphine does accept however that both she and her sister have been guilty of taking Goriot’s money while he has been living in retirement.  When Rastignac returns from the gambling house, Delphine explains that she had no choice but to send Rastignac on this errand, even though it humiliated her in his eyes.  She could not borrow from her father as she and her sister had already taken all his money: -Page 165:
Anastasie et moi nous l’avons égorgé;  mon pauvre père se serait vendu s'il pouvait valoir six mille francs. J'aurais été le désespérer en vain.

Delphine admits taking money from her father after her marriage, when her husband refused to finance her satisfactorily.  She tells Eugène page 164
…..je mangeais l’argent de mes économies et celui que me donnait mon pauvre père…
However she then piled up so much debt that she was forced to tell her husband.  He was furious to discover her extravagance.  Delphine calls them her young woman’s debts - jewels and things that caught her fancy and she relates these habits to the way her father had never refused them anything Page 165  
Quand il a fallu lui déclarer mes dettes de jeune femme, des bijoux, des fantaisies (mon pauvre père nous avait accoutumés à ne nous rien refuser), j’ai souffert le  
Martyre ;

With some reticence she then lets Rastignac know that, at this point in her life, she had met her rich lover, de Marsay, and her financial problems were taken care of.

Now, she urgently needed money because her lover had left her.  During their relationship, she had confidently believed that their love would last forever and had had no qualms about accepting money from him.  Her pride now demanded that she should pay him back, to show that she was never a woman to be bought.

During the period of time covered by the novel, we see Delphine take money from her father only once.  Shortly after the dramatic arrest of Vautrin, Goriot surprises Rastignac by telling him that, in the last month, he and Delphine have been secretly arranging to provide him with an apartment which she had found in the Rue d'Artois.  In addition, his solicitor had arranged for Rastignac to receive 36,000 francs a year - the interest from her dowry.  As Goriot recognised that her dowry money would not be free for some time so he had used the last of his personal savings to pay for all this,  leaving a very small allowance for himself, which was all he needed to live off.
Delphine is sincerely grateful to him. -Page 238:
Cher père, vous êtes un père!  Non, il n'existe pas deux pères comme vous sous le ciel. Eugène vous aimait bien déjà, que sera-ce maintenant !

We might feel that Delphine is being very reprehensible in taking the very last of Goriot’s money in this way, but when condemned by her sister for this, she tells Anastasie that she had never asked him for the 12,000 francs for the apartment and.  That Goriot had always given her presents without her asking.  She goes on to claim categorically that she Delphine had never asked for money from her father and had never closed her door on him.

The reader recognises that the plan for the flat in the Rue d'Artois was in fact very commendable.  It was for Goriot’s benefit as it rescued him from penury at Mme Vauquer’s and brought him back into his daughter’s life.

Our confidence in the depth of her affection for her father is tested later by way in which her first entry into the highest level of Paris society is able to push her concern for her desperately ill father to the back of her mind and by her absence from his funeral (See below).

2 Anastasie’s role in the impoverishment of Goriot

In contrast to Delphine’s conduct towards her father, the picture of Anastasie’s exploitation of Goriot is blatant and extreme.
a)  Her debts paid by Goriot’s gold and silver plate
The first time that Goriot comes into the action of the novel, is, when Rastignac, returning late from the ball, hears a great sigh coming from Goriot’s bedroom, fears for his health and goes to investigate by peeping through the key-hole of the old man’s room.  There he sees Goriot with unsuspected strength twisting silver plate into ingots and uttering the words: “The poor child” with a sincerity that Rastignac finds very moving.  
 The next morning is also one of frantic activity on the part of Goriot.  In the early hours, he goes to a shady money lender to pay off the debts of someone, which urgently require payment, achieved by the sale of his gold and silver ingots. When Goriot, driven to despair by the fear of being too late, sends the servant to deliver the receipted bill, we realise who is the person who has made these huge financial and emotional demands on Goriot.  The address on the envelope was “Anastasie de Restaud”.

b) Goriot’s involvement in paying off her lover’s debts
The second example of her wild financial irresponsibility was the misappropriation of her husband’s family jewellery to pay for her lover’s debts of 100,000 francs (Page 256).  Delphine tells how this scandalous behaviour had become a major topic of the malicious gossip of Paris high society.

Anastasie confirms  this story to her sister and her father and tells how the Comte de Restaud had gone to the moneylenders the previous day to buy them back.  Her confession is not made out of contriteness but to explain her current need to ask her father for money.  The diamonds she had sold had raised only 88,000 francs and her lover still owed 12,000 francs. She loved him and wanted to save him for her sake from debtor’s prison, and also for the sake of their children. She had come to ask Goriot to give her the remainder.

Goriot is in despair, because he has no money left.  However, Rastignac intervenes to pay back to Goriot the cost of the apartment, which coincidently is the same amount, using Vautrin’s blank cheque.  Goriot pays over to Anastasie this sum, which had represented his last savings, to settle the debts of the rogue, le Comte de Trailles.

c) Goriot’s frantic efforts to buy her a dress for Mme de Beauséant’s ball
The final demands of Anastasie on her father can be seen as the cause of his death.  Even though she had seen how seriously ill her father was, when she had visited him to obtain the payment for her lover, she later returned to ask Goriot to give her another 1,000 francs, which she needed to buy her dress for Mme de Beauséant’s final ball.  Her financial affairs were in such a parlous state that she could not get credit.  Penniless, Goriot sold his last belongings for 600 francs and made over one year of his yearly income to Gobseck, the moneylender, for 400 francs.  For this he had gone to great lengths to make himself  look young.

Bianchon blames the demands made on him by Anastasie as the reason for his fatal stroke: Page 271:
Il est sorti vers le matin, il a été à pied dans Paris, on ne sait où.  Il a emporté tout ce qu’il possédait de vaillant, il a été faire quelque sacré trafic pour lequel il a outrepassé ses forces! Une de ses filles est venue.

D) OTHER FEATURES OF THE CHARACTER DIFFERENCES OF THE TWO SISTERS
1) Anastasie more calculating
It is not only with regard to her treatment of Goriot that Anastasie reveals less admirable attributes of character.  Whereas Delphine is frank and open, her sister is secretive and calculating. We get a glimpse of her scheming nature when Rastignac first visits her at her home.  Anastasie had not felt any urgency in getting rid of Rastignac, even though her lover had come to see her, because she thought she could use the naive Eugène as a lightning conductor for any possible jealousy on the part of her husband over her relationship with de Trailles.

2) Anastasie more guilty in the strife between them
Society believed both sisters guilty of mutual jealousy, but Delphine was adamant that Anastasie had caused the problem between them out of gratuitous malice, in spite of the kindness Delphine had shown her.  As a result, when Delphine hears of Anastasie’s desperate predicament after her theft of the Restaud family jewels, she has little sympathy for her plight. - Page 247:
Elle a toujours cherche à m'écraser, elle n'a jamais été bonne pour moi, qui lui rendais tant de services,

 Delphine repeats these allegations when the two sisters quarrel in the presence of their sick father.  She tells Anastasie that she had blocked her way into society.  When we see how easily Rastignac used a contact to gain Delphine’s entry into society, we wonder why it had not been possible for Anastasie, who was the object of the rapturous admiration of so many distinguished men, to do the same.

3) Anastasie more quick-tempered
In the scene where the two young women quarrel, Anastasie’s reveals a quick temper.  She becomes instantly very aggressive when she discovers that Delphine has taken money from Goriot for the new apartment, even though previously she had taken much more than this. When Rastignac rescues her by giving her the blank cheque of Vautrin, she accepts it with very ill grace, flouncing out of the room in anger that Rastignac had been near enough to hear all her humiliating personal secrets.

4) Anastasie’s act of hypocrisy
When she returns, almost immediately, ostensibly to apologise and seek reconciliation with her sister, Rastignac is well aware that this is pure hypocrisy as she had been forced to come back when she realised that she needed Goriot’s countersignature on the cheque.

5) The total mess that Anastasie makes of her life.
The catastrophic way in which Anastasie has led her life can be measured by the desperate circumstances in which Rastignac finds her at the end of the novel. When Goriot lies dying, he goes to the Restaud mansion to insist that she comes to be with her father in his last moments of life.   Rastignac is shocked to see that the Comte de Restaud has reduced this proud lady  to his total subjugation, refusing her permission to leave the house until she has fulfilled, what he claims is her duty to him and his son. Eugène pities her when he sees the state of mental and physical prostration to which she has been reduced. -Page 297:            
Elle  lui fit pitié. Avant de regarder Rastignac, elle jeta sur son mari de craintifs regards qui annonçaient une prostration complète de ses forces écrasées par une tyrannie morale et physique. Le comte hocha la tête, elle se crut encouragé à parler.

When he gives her permission to speak, she tells Rastignac that she is helpless.  As she refuses to give in to her husband all she can do is to send apologies to her father.  Eugène recognises that she is not a free agent and leaves.

6) Some better features of Delphine’s character
Delphine’s conduct and character gain by the comparison with her sister.  She shows a strong sense of self-respect in refusing the degrading terms that Nucingen proposed for their marriage.  She maintained similar dignity by insisting on paying back the money given to her by her previous lover de Marsay. That she had to achieve this in a most undignified manner, by sending her new friend, Rastignac to the gambling tables, causes her excruciating embarrassment that she describes very convincingly.  She is thoughtful about Rastignac in this, genuinely concerned about teaching him to gamble and asks him to promise never to take up this dangerous habit.

We see her in spontaneous displays of love for her father.   After she and Goriot have worked to reunite the three of them at the new flat, she exclaims to Goriot:
-Page 238:
— Cher père, vous êtes un père!  Non, il n'existe pas deux pères comme vous sous le ciel. Eugène vous aimait bien déjà, que sera-ce maintenant !

7) Goriot’s greater confidence in Delphine
After the Quarrel of his daughters, Goriot is desperately ill and Eugène and Delphine they lay him down in his bed.  When he falls asleep, they go to Eugène's room but return when they hear Goriot moan in his sleep. -Page 265-266:
— Elles ne sont pas heureuses!  Qu’il dormît ou qu’il veillât, l'accent de cette phrase frappa si vivement le cœur de sa fille, qu’elle s'approcha du grabat sur lequel gisait son père, et le baisa au front. Il ouvrit les yeux en disant. : C'est Delphine
Goriot has no doubt that Delphine is the better of the two. As he lies on his deathbed crying for his daughters to come, his greater hopes are in Delphine and he expects her to arrive  Page 294:
Delphine est là?   C’est la meilleure des deux.

8) Delphine’s story has a happier outcome
Having introduced fewer complications into her life than her sister, Delphine ends up in a much happier and much more secure position. Although Delphine also finds the money from her dowry completely in the control of her husband, Delphine has a hold over Nucingen.  If she insists on the repayment of her dowry money, which the banker had secretly placed in a long-term investment, she is able to bankrupt them both and Nucingen’s career in finance, which is his sole raison d’être would be ended. As a result, Delphine gains her independence from her husband, who sanctions her liaison with Rastignac.  (Later books of the Comédie Humaine show Nucingen cooperating with Eugène to build up his fortune.)

E) ARE ANASTASIE AND DELPHINE UNNATURAL DAUGHTERS?

1) Delphine’s neglect of her father also 
It would be wrong if the previous section, which puts the blame much more heavily on Anastasie, should seem to largely exonerate Delphine.  Such an impression would be an unfortunate misrepresentation.  The book describes the failure of love of both the daughters of Goriot.

After their first conversation at the theatre Rastignac finds himself in love with the beautiful Delphine.  When he tells Goriot about this he is delighted.  Delphine had sent no message for her father, but Eugene lies and makes him happy by saying she sends a kiss.
He pities the old man, realising that Delphine gives no thought to her father- Page 152:

  1. Le pauvre homme, se dit Eugène en se couchant, il y a de quoi toucher des cœurs de marbre. Sa fille n'a pas plus pensé à lui qu'au grand-Turc.

2) The quarrel of the two girls brought on his fatal stroke 
Delphine was equally involved as her sister in the onset of Goriot’s fatal stroke.  He had been feeling optimistic about his future, but then Delphine arrived at Mme Vauquer’s in her coach, rushed up to his room and told him that she was desperately worried whether her father had taken the steps over her dowry in time to save her from ruin.  Goriot was badly shaken and as he heard the details,  he became more and more angry and upset.  The intense emotion caused a burning sensation in his head and he collapsed to his knees.

Delphine arrived in a coach, in a hurry and went into Goriot's room. Delphine says.
She sees a sudden dramatic change in Goriot’s appearance. He has been badly shaken by her dramatic arrival and her desperate words.
She has come because she needs her father's business experience to advise her. Nucingen had been to Delphine after the lawyer's visit to say that all her money and his was invested and could not be touched. If she forced him, they both faced bankruptcy.
Goriot is angry and upset. He distrusts Nucingen In his intense emotion he feels a burning sensation in his head Goriot collapses to his knees It is at that point that Anastasie arrives. There are cross words exchanged between the two girls, which they halt temporarily when they notice Goriot’s physical distress.  Their quarrel reignites when Anastasie discovers her father has paid for an apartment for Delphine's lover, Rastignac. As the quarrel rages, Goriot's head becomes more enflamed. On his knees and in tears he begs them to make peace. Delphine sees his wild expression and they embrace.

After taking Delphine home, Rastignac returns to ask the student doctor, Bianchon, about Goriot’s illness.  After a close examination, Bianchon said Goriot was on the brink of a stroke and there was little to be done. Bianchon wanted to know what shock had brought this on. Rastignac, in his mind, knew both girls were responsible- Page 267:
Sais-tu par quel événement la maladie a été causée il a dû recevoir un coup violent sous lequel son moral aura succombé.
— Oui, dit Rastignac en se rappelant que les deux filles avaient battu sans relâche sur le cœur de leur père.

3) The heartlessness both girls show on the night of Mme de Beauséant’s ball
Rastignac is heartbroken by the doctor’s report that death is imminent.  When he goes to Delphine’s, he finds her almost ready for the ball. She is impatient with him for not being ready and for going on about her father.
Her maid pushes him out to get ready. - Page 275:
Mais, allez donc, monsieur Eugene, vous fâcherez madame', dit Thérèse en poussant le jeune homme épouvanté de cet élégant parricide.

At the glittering occasion of Mme de Beauséant’s ball, Rastignac looks at the diamonds of the Goriot daughters and, in his mind’s eye, sees the miserable bed of their very sick father-Page 281 
Il revit lors, sous les diamants des deux sœurs, le grabat sur lequel gisait le père Goriot
Later when he looks at Goriot’s  unheated room with walls running with damp, Rastignac thinks bitterly of the contrast with the life of his daughters Page 284
Mon Dieu! dit Rastignac, mais ses filles!

4) The absence of the sisters from the funeral
Both Rastignac and Bianchon are disgusted that both of the daughters leave it to two impoverished students to pay for their father’s funeral.  Bianchon puts Goriot in a pauper’s coffin that he was able to buy cheaply at his hospital and says that to show the families up, they should buy a cheap grave, arrange a cheap funeral and then write on the grave stone. - Page 306:
« Ci-gît monsieur Goriot, père de la comtesse de Restaud et de la baronne de Nucingen, enterré aux frais de deux étudiants. »
 Neither daughter nor any member of their families attend the funeral, each sending instead their coach men to drive an empty family carriage after the coffin.

5) The pathos of Goriot’s vain final wait for his daughters
The dereliction of filial duty by the Goriot daughters is vividly and disturbingly illustrated by the anguish of Goriot on his deathbed as he awaits his final comfort from them. Their presence would make him better. -Page 288:
Mon Dieu! si j'avais seulement leurs mains dans les miennes, je ne sentirais point mon mal. Croyez-vous qu'elles viennent?

a) He sends Christophe to bring them Page 288
The servant returns ith the news that neither is able to come.  At that Goriot, who Rastignac had believed asleep and cries out in despair at their betrayal, speaking of them driving him away and killing him:  -Page 289:
Il faut mourir pour savoir ce que c’est que des enfants. Ah! mon ami, ne vous mariez pas, n'ayez pas d'enfants! Vous leur donnez la vie, ils vous donnent la mort. Vous les faites entrer dans le monde, ils vous en chassent. Non, elles ne viendront pas! Je sais cela depuis dix ans. Je me le disais quelquefois, mais je n’osais pas y croire.

b)Goriot goes on to describe them as having hearts of stone.  He describes the sufferings they inflicted on him when they made him afraid to go to their houses, which had aged him rapidly.  Page 291:
0 mon Dieu! Puisque tu connais les misères, les souffrances que j’ai endurées, puisque tu as compté les coups de poignard que j'ai reçus, dans ce temps qui m'a vieilli, changé, tué, blanchi, pourquoi me fais-tu donc souffrir aujourd'hui? J'ai bien expié le péché de les trop aimer.

He realises they may not come and do not love him. -Page 293:
Je suis dupe! Elles ne m'aiment pas, elles ne m ont jamais aimé! Cela est clair. Si elles ne sont pas venues, elles ne viendront pas. Plus elles auront tardé, moins elles se décideront à me faire cette joie.

c)  He calls for them. Then he curses them. - Page 293:
Mourrai-je donc comme un chien? Voila ma récompense, l'abandon. Cc sont des infâmes, des scélérates; je les abomine, je les maudis; je me relèverai, la nuit, de mon cercueil pour les remaudire,

d) Goriot is again consoled by self-deception
Right from the start Goriot had sustained himself by self-deception.  When Rastignac told how Anastasie had been angry at him speaking Goriot’s name, Goriot said to him Page l35:
— Mon cher monsieur, lui avait-il dit le lendemain, comment avez-vous pu croire que madame de Restaud vous en ait voulu d'avoir prononcé mon nom? Mes deux filles m'aiment bien.  Je suis un heureux père.

e) On his deathbed, he stops his criticism believing Delphine, the better of the two, is now with them. Goriot denies he cursed his daughters and rages against their husbands. Goriot blesses their imaginary heads by his bed and collapses Page 302 :
……et l'on entendit fàiblement — « Ah! mes anges! » Deux mots, deux murmures accentués par l'âme qui s'envola sur cette parole

F) ANASTASIE AND DELPHINE ARE NOT UNNATURAL DAUGHTERS
1) They genuinely love their father
When Goriot arranges for them to have the apartment Delphine gratitude to him is sincere and she sees him to be the best father in the world. -Page 238:
— Cher père, vous êtes un père!  Non, il n'existe pas deux pères comme vous sous le ciel. Eugène vous aimait bien déjà, que sera-ce maintenant. 

2) When the daughters finally face up to the fact that their father is dying, they are completely distraught 
Delphine has such a furious quarrel with her money-grabbing husband, when he refuses to spend money for her dying father that she ends up in a state of collapse.  Her maid, Thérèse, has to go to the Maison Vauquer to explain:. -Page 303.
Elle s'est évanouie, le médecin est venu, il a fallu la saigner, elle criait : — Mon père se meurt, je veux voir papa!' Enfin, des cris à fendre l'âme.

 Anastasie arrives after her father has lapsed into unconsciousness before her arrival.  With typical passion, she castigates herself for her betrayal of the father from whom, alone, she had known true love Page 304:
J'ai perdu toutes mes illusions. Hélas! Pour qui ai-je trahi le seul cœur (elle montra son père) où j'étais adorée! Je l'ai méconnu, je l'ai repoussé, je lui ai fait mille maux, infâme que je suis!
 Anastasie is left alone with him and he dies shortly afterwards without regaining consciousness.  Anastasie is helpless with distress and Rastignac has her taken to her sister’s for support in the immense loss that both felt equally.

G) THEIR CONDUCT IS NOT A DENIAL OF HUMAN LOVE BUT A DEMONSTRATION OF ITS INADEQUACY
1) Children often desert their parents after marriage
Eugène is touched when he first hears the story of Goriot’s apparent abandonment by his daughters Page 89.     —
Quelques larmes roulèrent dans les yeux d'Eugene, récemment rafraîchi par les pures et saintes émotions de la famille, encore sous le charme des croyances jeunes, et qui n'en était qu’à sa première journée sur le champ de bataille de la civilisation parisienne. However the Duchess says such treatment of parents after marriage is common.

2) Married children build independent lives with their own preoccupations.
The overriding ambition which took hold of both daughters to become the controlling passion of their lives was to star at the highest level of Paris society.  Anastasie’s marriage to into a leading noble family gave her automatic access, but she needed more and more extravagant expenditure to sustain the admiration she had won there.

Delphine finally achieves this through Rastignac’s invitation and it is a bitter coincidence that on the evening of this glittering success, her father lies dying.  Delphine has her priorities. She weeps to hear what her father has gone through that day, but stops crying in order to look her best at the ball, swearing she will go to her father's bedside after the ball – a promise she does no keep.

The ambition that preoccupied them, was the same one that motivated many women in Paris society.  Balzac remarks that Rastignac was suspicious of the way that Delphine was throwing herself at him was because he did not fully understand the lengths that many women would go to in order to get into the very top circles of Paris society Page 157
Eugène……. ne savait pas le délire de vanité dont certaines femmes étaient saisies en ce moment.

Sadly Goriot is right when he says on his deathbed that both his daughters are devoted to a life of pleasure, but it is not entirely pleasure for pleasure’s sake.

3) When a couple have set up home, it is a common experience for them to find parents intrusive.  
Goriot, Rastignac and Delphine spend an evening together in their new flat..  Unfortunately, Goriot is in the way with his excessive affection. -Page 240:
….enfin il faisait des folies comme en aurait fait l'amant le plus jeune et le plus tendre.
 Voyez-vous? dit De1phine    Eugene, quand mon père est avec nous, il faut être tout à lui Ce sera pourtant bien gênant quelquefois.

4) One of the most powerful forces that distract human beings from other obligations is sexual love.  
We have described above the destructive effect of Anastasie’s all absorbing passion for de Trailles.

Similarly Delphine confesses with not too much shame that her love for Rastignac has come to have priority over her love for her father.  She tells him that her only preoccupation now is her love for him and admits that this love comes before her love as a daughter -page 267:           
Il n’est plus aujourd'hui qu'une seule crainte, un seul malheur pour moi, c'est de perdre l'amour qui m'a fait sentir le plaisir de vivre. En dehors de ce sentiment tout m'est indifférent, je n'aime plus rien au monde. Vous êtes tout pour moi.  Si je sens le bonheur d'être riche, c'est pour mieux vous plaire. Je suis, à ma honte, plus aimante que je ne suis fille.

5) Every favour parents give a child forms a responsibility for which they can be blamed.
Delphine loves her father, but there is no way in which she can stop him from suffering from the outcome of their deplorable marriages for which he too is responsible, she says.

6) Children assume that parents will continue the habit of sacrifice and are indestructible
Delphine recognises her father’s habitual behaviour and how they have used it.  Page 165:
Anastasie et moi nous l’avons égorgé;  mon pauvre père se serait vendu s'il pouvait valoir six mille francs.  
 
When Goriot is ill, Delphine is confined to bed with a cold. She doesn't believe her he would not want her to risk her health by coming to see her, and she is sure that he is a strong man and will pull through

7) Parents conspire with their own exploitation
Goriot blames himself for teaching them to trample on him. -Page 292:
Tout est de ma faute, je les ai habituées à me fouler aux pieds. J'aimais cela, moi. Ca ne regarde personne,
He does not want them to be blamed.  It was he who spoiled them. - Page 292:
Je suis un misérable, je suis justement puni. Moi seul ai causé les désordres de mes filles, je les ai gâtées. Elles veulent aujourd’hui le plaisir, comme elles voulaient autrefois du bonbon.

Conclusion
Balzac describes the behaviour of Anastasie and Delphine behaviour at the time of their father’s death as an act of parricide.  We should perhaps accept this verdict.  At the same time we should recall the author’s word at the beginning of the book, when hr assures us that this is a true story- Page 6:
Ah! sachez-le : ce drame n'est ni une fiction, ni un roman. All is true, il est si véritable, que chacun peut en reconnaître les éléments chez soi, dans son cœur peut-être.
If we examine ourselves honestly, we may discern elements of this story in our own lives and our own hearts.  We would perhaps then come to relate the cruelty of the Goriot daughters with the sad deficiencies of the human condition and remember in the words of Oscar Wilde that everyone kills the one they love.

The Ballad of Reading Gaol
By Oscar Wilde - An Extract
The poet looks at an army officer awaiting hanging for killing his mistress.

I never saw a man who looked with such a wistful eye upon that little tent of blue, which prisoners call the sky. And at every drifting cloud that went with sails of silver by...The man had killed the thing he loved, and so he had to die.

Yet, each man kills the thing he loves
By each let this be heard,
Some do it with a bitter look,
Some with a flattering word,
The coward does it with a kiss,
The brave man with a sword!
Some kill their love when they are young,
And some when they are old;
Some strangle with the hands of Lust,
Some with the hands of Gold:
The kindest use a knife, because
The dead so soon grow cold.
Some love too little, some too long,
Some sell, and others buy;
Some do the deed with many tears,
And some without a sigh:
For each man kills the thing he loves,
Yet each man does not die.

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