Honore de Balzac

The Magic Skin (eBook, ePUB)

• Format: ePub

Produktbeschreibung

I. THE TALISMAN

Towards the end of the month of October 1829 a young man entered the Palais-Royal just as the gaming-houses opened, agreeably to the law which protects a passion by its very nature easily excisable. He mounted the staircase of one of the gambling hells distinguished by the number 36, without too much deliberation.

"Your hat, sir, if you please?" a thin, querulous voice called out. A little old man, crouching in the darkness behind a railing, suddenly rose and exhibited his features, carved after a mean design.

As you enter a gaming-house the law despoils you of your hat at the outset. Is it by way of a parable, a divine revelation? Or by exacting some pledge or other, is not an infernal compact implied? Is it done to compel you to preserve a respectful demeanor towards those who are about to gain money of you? Or must the detective, who squats in our social sewers, know the name of your hatter, or your own, if you happen to have written it on the lining inside? Or, after all, is the measurement of your skull required for the compilation of statistics as to the cerebral capacity of gamblers? The executive is absolutely silent on this point. But be sure of this, that though you have scarcely taken a step towards the tables, your hat no more belongs to you now than you belong to yourself. Play possesses you, your fortune, your cap, your cane, your cloak.

Produktdetails

• Verlag: CAIMAN
• Erscheinungstermin: 7. Juli 2019
• Englisch
• ISBN-13: 9789881831538
• Artikelnr.: 58991244

Autorenporträt

Honoré de Balzac was a French novelist and dramatist who lived from 1799 to 1850. One of the most significant writers of the 19th century, he is regarded as such. Many people believe La Comédie Humaine, his masterwork, to be his finest work. His mother was Anne-Charlotte-Laure Sallambier, and his father was Bernard-François Balssa. He was the Balzacs' second child. Honoré Balzac spent his first two years of life living with a wet nurse after being abandoned as a newborn. From the age of 10, Balzac attended the Oratorian grammar school in Vendôme. "Look at the beautiful ones we sent the academy back!" was how his grandma put it. On a bridge over the River Loire, he attempted suicide. Balzac wrote El Verdugo shortly after his father died. It is the story of a 30-year-old man who kills his father (Balzac was 30 years old at the time). This was Honoré de Balzac's first piece of work. After courting her for five years, Balzac wed Countess Eve de Balzac (formerly Countess Haska) in Ukraine in 1850. On Sunday, August 18, 1850, five months after his wedding, Balzac died in the company of his mother; Eve de Balzac (previously Countess Haska) having retired to bed. Balzac is buried in Paris' Père Lachaise Cemetery.