Gobseck
Gobseck is a novel in the series The Human Comedy by Honoré de Balzac ; there it belongs to the scenes from private life ( Scènes de la vie privée ).
The work was first published in 1830 under the title "The Usurer". The work was given the title Gobseck when the complete edition was published in 1842.
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In the Duchess de Grandlieu's drawing room, Madame is talking to a friend of the house, the lawyer Derville. She tells him about her daughter Camille's affection for Ernest de Restaud. Madame de Grandlieu is against this bond; she thinks Ernest's mother is an extremely wasteful woman who is also involved in a romance with Maxim de Trailles. Derville is of the opposite opinion, he points out Ernest's fortune and reminds that it is money that plays the main role in Paris.
He then tells a story from his youth in which a Dutch Jew named Gobseck was his neighbor. It was a loan from him that enabled Derville to become a lawyer, and watching Gobseck's visitors taught him much about life in Paris. Among other things, he learned the true story of Madame de Restaud: the Duchess ruined her husband because of her lover, Maxim de Trailles, and finally killed him by telling about the illegitimate children her husband thought were his.
In the meantime, Gobseck was already the owner of a large part of the restaud's assets. On his deathbed, the Duke bequeathed most of the remaining fortune to his legitimate son Ernest without completely disinheriting his wife's children. Madame de Restaud destroyed the unread will, although she was only later able to convince herself that she had ruined her own children with it.
Gobseck had meanwhile enriched himself and did not die until many years later. He bequeathed his fortune to Ernest de Restaud and his distant relative Esther van Gobseck (a main figure in the splendor and misery of courtesans ).
Narrative technique
Gobseck is another technique used in human comedy “a narration within a narration”, because the main plot of the novel is not the present situation (conversation in the house of the Duchess de Grandlieu), but the narration of Derville.
The analysis of the usury belongs to the group of works, which individually represent the hidden but essential institutions for understanding the great Parisian world. This completes the description of banking in Das Haus Nucingen . In this way Gobseck fits into the general picture of the contemporary world and into the analysis of the money ruling in him.
The structure of the novel, in which the seemingly insignificant story plays the most important role, is a reflection of the problem described - the role and position of the usurers in society. At the same time, the novel is a praise of human energy and a representation of the power of an individual who understands his era and is ready to face society with courage. One such figure is the eponymous usurer Gobseck.
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