A dramatic story of Lucien de Rubempré, a kind provincial young man taking his first steps in Paris. In a city where everything is sold and everything is bought—career and success, one’s place in society, patronage, trust, love, and friendship. And the peculiar symbol of this Paris—cheerful, cruel, deceitful, and corrupt—is the goddesses of the half-light: beautiful courtesans, tamers and destroyers of men…