"The novel culminated with the burial of its title character, Father Goriot, a kindly pasta merchant who'd spent all his wealth to keep his daughters happy. Yet the daughters were too self-involved to attend Father Goriot's funeral, and even the priest himself wasn't interested; after reciting the short prayer he'd been paid to perform, he fled the scene unceremoniously. Soon there remained only one mourner, young Eugene Rastignac, to shed a melancholy tear" (Fletcher 235) (determining to avenge this insult by seducing one of the ungrateful daughters)