"_Eh, mon Dieu!_" said Mme. de Langeais; "yes, it seems very horrible,
and yet we see such things every day. Is there not a reason for it?
Tell me, dear, have you ever really thought what a son-in-law is? A
son-in-law is the man for whom we bring up, you and I, a dear little
one, bound to us very closely in innumerable ways; for seventeen years
she will be the joy of her family, its 'white soul,' as Lamartine
says, and suddenly she will become its scourge. When HE comes and
takes her from us, his love from the very beginning is like an axe
laid to the root of all the old affection in our darling's heart, and
all the ties that bound her to her family are severed. But yesterday
our little daughter thought of no one but her mother and father, as we
had no thought that was not for her; by to-morrow she will have become
a hostile stranger. The tragedy is always going on under our eyes. On
the one hand you see a father who has sacrificed himself to his son,
and his daughter-in-law shows him the last degree of insolence. On the
other hand, it is the son-in-law who turns his wife's mother out of
the house. I sometimes hear it said that there is nothing dramatic
about society in these days; but the Drama of the Son-in-law is
appalling, to say nothing of our marriages, which have come to be very
poor farces. I can explain how it all came about in the old vermicelli
maker's case. I think I recollect that Foriot----"

"Goriot, madame."

"Yes, that Moriot was once President of his Section during the
Revolution. He was in the secret of the famous scarcity of grain, and
laid the foundation of his fortune in those days by selling flour for
ten times its cost. He had as much flour as he wanted. My
grandmother's steward sold him immense quantities. No doubt Noriot