"What is life, if not a machine set in motion by money?" “Goriot’s Concern” — scenes from the private life of a moneylender, a grotesque portrait of a maker of money out of money. To be buried twice and still remain alive… To be born in a foundling home, to die in an almshouse for the elderly—and in between these milestones help Napoleon conquer Europe and Egypt. What a fate! The fate of Colonel Chabert.