Father Goriot by Honoré de Balzac

In a shabby Paris boarding house an old vermicelli merchant sells the last of his silver to keep two daughters in the gowns their marriages require, while upstairs a law student learns the city's actual curriculum. Balzac compresses the whole Human Comedy into one street, and Rastignac's challenge from the cemetery closes it. Paintings of gas-lit streets, candlelit garrets and glittering salons; Gilded Library ornament of boarding-house key, mantel clock and tallow.