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The Floating Press - De Balzac Honore

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168 pages

English

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Famous perfectionist Honore de Balzac labored for years to bring the fascinating idea behind The Magic Skin to life in a novel, and critics and fans alike agree that it is one of the French writer's masterworks. The story follows the experiences of a young man who finds a small piece of animal skin that magically fulfills his every desire. However, over time, he discovers that the seeming miracle has exacted a terrible toll on his body -- and his soul.

Informations

Publié par	The Floating Press
Date de parution	01 juillet 2011
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781775453567
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0134€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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THE MAGIC SKIN
OR THE WILD ASS'S SKIN
* * *
HONORE DE BALZAC
Translated by
ELLEN MARRIAGE

*
The Magic Skin Or The Wild Ass's Skin First published in 1831 ISBN 978-1-775453-56-7 © 2011 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Dedication I - The Talisman II - A Woman Without a Heart III - The Agony Epilogue Addendum
Dedication
*
To Monsieur Savary, Member of Le Academie des Sciences.
I - The Talisman
*
Towards the end of the month of October 1829 a young man entered thePalais-Royal just as the gaming-houses opened, agreeably to the lawwhich protects a passion by its very nature easily excisable. He mountedthe staircase of one of the gambling hells distinguished by the number36, without too much deliberation.
"Your hat, sir, if you please?" a thin, querulous voice called out. Alittle old man, crouching in the darkness behind a railing, suddenlyrose and exhibited his features, carved after a mean design.
As you enter a gaming-house the law despoils you of your hat at theoutset. Is it by way of a parable, a divine revelation? Or by exactingsome pledge or other, is not an infernal compact implied? Is it done tocompel you to preserve a respectful demeanor towards those who are aboutto gain money of you? Or must the detective, who squats in our socialsewers, know the name of your hatter, or your own, if you happen to havewritten it on the lining inside? Or, after all, is the measurement ofyour skull required for the compilation of statistics as to the cerebralcapacity of gamblers? The executive is absolutely silent on this point.But be sure of this, that though you have scarcely taken a step towardsthe tables, your hat no more belongs to you now than you belong toyourself. Play possesses you, your fortune, your cap, your cane, yourcloak.
As you go out, it will be made clear to you, by a savage irony, thatPlay has yet spared you something, since your property is returned. Forall that, if you bring a new hat with you, you will have to pay for theknowledge that a special costume is needed for a gambler.
The evident astonishment with which the young man took a numbered tallyin exchange for his hat, which was fortunately somewhat rubbed at thebrim, showed clearly enough that his mind was yet untainted; and thelittle old man, who had wallowed from his youth up in the furiouspleasures of a gambler's life, cast a dull, indifferent glance overhim, in which a philosopher might have seen wretchedness lying in thehospital, the vagrant lives of ruined folk, inquests on numberlesssuicides, life-long penal servitude and transportations to Guazacoalco.
His pallid, lengthy visage appeared like a haggard embodiment of thepassion reduced to its simplest terms. There were traces of past anguishin its wrinkles. He supported life on the glutinous soups at Darcet's,and gambled away his meagre earnings day by day. Like some old hackneywhich takes no heed of the strokes of the whip, nothing could move himnow. The stifled groans of ruined players, as they passed out, theirmute imprecations, their stupefied faces, found him impassive. He wasthe spirit of Play incarnate. If the young man had noticed this sorryCerberus, perhaps he would have said, "There is only a pack of cards inthat heart of his."
The stranger did not heed this warning writ in flesh and blood, puthere, no doubt, by Providence, who has set loathing on the threshold ofall evil haunts. He walked boldly into the saloon, where the rattle ofcoin brought his senses under the dazzling spell of an agony of greed.Most likely he had been drawn thither by that most convincing of JeanJacques' eloquent periods, which expresses, I think, this melancholythought, "Yes, I can imagine that a man may take to gambling when hesees only his last shilling between him and death."
There is an illusion about a gambling saloon at night as vulgar as thatof a bloodthirsty drama, and just as effective. The rooms are filledwith players and onlookers, with poverty-stricken age, which dragsitself thither in search of stimulation, with excited faces, and revelsthat began in wine, to end shortly in the Seine. The passion is therein full measure, but the great number of the actors prevents you fromseeing the gambling-demon face to face. The evening is a harmony orchorus in which all take part, to which each instrument in the orchestracontributes his share. You would see there plenty of respectable peoplewho have come in search of diversion, for which they pay as they pay forthe pleasures of the theatre, or of gluttony, or they come hither asto some garret where they cheapen poignant regrets for three months tocome.
Do you understand all the force and frenzy in a soul which impatientlywaits for the opening of a gambling hell? Between the daylight gamblerand the player at night there is the same difference that lies betweena careless husband and the lover swooning under his lady's window. Onlywith morning comes the real throb of the passion and the craving inits stark horror. Then you can admire the real gambler, who has neithereaten, slept, thought, nor lived, he has so smarted under the scourgeof his martingale, so suffered on the rack of his desire for a coup of trente-et-quarante . At that accursed hour you encounter eyes whosecalmness terrifies you, faces that fascinate, glances that seem as ifthey had power to turn the cards over and consume them. The grandesthours of a gambling saloon are not the opening ones. If Spain hasbull-fights, and Rome once had her gladiators, Paris waxes proud of herPalais-Royal, where the inevitable roulettes cause blood to flow instreams, and the public can have the pleasure of watching without fearof their feet slipping in it.
Take a quiet peep at the arena. How bare it looks! The paper on thewalls is greasy to the height of your head, there is nothing to bringone reviving thought. There is not so much as a nail for the convenienceof suicides. The floor is worn and dirty. An oblong table stands in themiddle of the room, the tablecloth is worn by the friction of gold,but the straw-bottomed chairs about it indicate an odd indifference toluxury in the men who will lose their lives here in the quest of thefortune that is to put luxury within their reach.
This contradiction in humanity is seen wherever the soul reactspowerfully upon itself. The gallant would clothe his mistress in silks,would deck her out in soft Eastern fabrics, though he and she must lieon a truckle-bed. The ambitious dreamer sees himself at the summit ofpower, while he slavishly prostrates himself in the mire. The tradesmanstagnates in his damp, unhealthy shop, while he builds a great mansionfor his son to inherit prematurely, only to be ejected from it by lawproceedings at his own brother's instance.
After all, is there a less pleasing thing in the world than a house ofpleasure? Singular question! Man is always at strife with himself. Hispresent woes give the lie to his hopes; yet he looks to a future whichis not his, to indemnify him for these present sufferings; setting uponall his actions the seal of inconsequence and of the weakness of hisnature. We have nothing here below in full measure but misfortune.
There were several gamblers in the room already when the young manentered. Three bald-headed seniors were lounging round the green table.Imperturbable as diplomatists, those plaster-cast faces of theirsbetokened blunted sensibilities, and hearts which had long forgottenhow to throb, even when a woman's dowry was the stake. A young Italian,olive-hued and dark-haired, sat at one end, with his elbows on thetable, seeming to listen to the presentiments of luck that dictate agambler's "Yes" or "No." The glow of fire and gold was on that southernface. Some seven or eight onlookers stood by way of an audience,awaiting a drama composed of the strokes of chance, the faces of theactors, the circulation of coin, and the motion of the croupier's rake,much as a silent, motionless crowd watches the headsman in the Place deGreve. A tall, thin man, in a threadbare coat, held a card in one hand,and a pin in the other, to mark the numbers of Red or Black. He seemeda modern Tantalus, with all the pleasures of his epoch at his lips, ahoardless miser drawing in imaginary gains, a sane species of lunaticwho consoles himself in his misery by chimerical dreams, a man whotouches peril and vice as a young priest handles the unconsecrated waferin the white mass.
One or two experts at the game, shrewd speculators, had placedthemselves opposite the bank, like old convicts who have lost all fearof the hulks; they meant to try two or three coups, and then to departat once with the expected gains, on which they lived. Two elderlywaiters dawdled about with their arms folded, looking from time to timeinto the garden from the windows, as if to show their insignificantfaces as a sign to passers-by.
The croupier and banker threw a ghastly and withering glance at thepunters, and cried, in a sharp voice, "Make your game!" as the young mancame in. The silence seemed to grow deeper as all heads turned curiouslytowards the new arrival. Who would have thought it? The jaded elders,the fossilized waiters, the onlookers, the fanatical Italian himself,felt an indefinable dread at sight of the stranger. Is he not wretchedindeed who can excite pity here? Must he not be very helpless to receivesympathy, ghastly in appearance to raise a shudder in these places,where pain utters