Read the summary balzac shagreen leather. Shagreen leather
The theme of all-consuming passion that owns a person - a theme, of course, directly inherited from the romantics - from the very beginning worried Balzac - already as a purely psychological problem, outside the social plane. Evidence of how important this topic was for Balzac is his major work, published in 1831, the novel Shagreen Skin.
Balzac unfolds before us in this novel a motley picture of contemporary French society. The beginning of the events of the novel is clearly dated - the end of October 1829. This picture is given in sharp, contrasting contrasts - from the gambling house the action is transferred to secular living rooms; the main character - a young talented man - Raphael de Valantin - is opposed to a crowd of corrupt writers and corrupt women; the main female images of the novel are sharply contrasted - the cold, conceited socialite Theodora and the modest, loving worker Polina. Modern society is depicted by Balzac as a playground of unbridled low passions, whether it is a passion for profit or vice. Balzac deliberately thickens these colors, bringing them to a gloomy grotesque, as, for example, in the image of a gambling house or an orgy with the participation of courtesans.
It would be too one-sided to consider this novel only as another Balzac parable about the destructive power of money, gold. The problematic of the novel is much broader, it is clearly philosophical and symbolic in nature, and social pictures here exist only as a necessary background, but not as the main goal.
Balzac did not accidentally single out this novel in terms of genre, referring it to the cycle of the genre "Philosophical Studies", and he organized the action of the work around an unusual, obviously mystical event.
The plot is based on the story of shagreen leather (skin of a special, unusual breed of wild donkeys living in Persia - onagers). The inscription on the skin reads: "Wish - your desires will be fulfilled. But measure your desires with your life. She is here. With every desire, I will decrease like your days. Do you desire me? Take it!"
Rafael takes this fatal talisman, driven by the first and such a natural desire to get out of poverty, out of obscurity. But from the very beginning he makes a psychological mistake, interpreting the concept of "desire" in a very specific sense - at the moment it seems to him that only the desire for a miracle, something supernatural, unusual, roughly speaking, like in a fairy tale, fits into the category of "desire". about goldfish. But, having become rich and famous at once, he suddenly discovers that the effect of shagreen leather extends not only to such “large” desires, but also to the most elementary, habitual movements of the human soul. It turns out that it is enough for him to let slip about some trifle, to wish for something completely ordinary, some trifle, as it happens a thousand times in everyday life, the mechanism of the fatal contract immediately works - the desire is fulfilled, but the skin immediately decreases in size life is shortened.
It turns out that shagreen skin means desire in the literal sense, any, the smallest, most involuntary desire. Raphael finds himself in a devilish trap: he - as in another, also folklore, plot - cannot even get out and send something to hell so that this desire is not immediately fulfilled and his life is not immediately shortened. And then he, seized with panic, tries to isolate himself from the outside world, to crush all desires in himself, to exclude the very concept of desire from his psychology. But this already means - to die alive, to die even before the onset of physical death!
It is quite obvious that Balzac is not referring here to the corrupting power of money. The whole mechanism of interaction between shagreen leather and Raphael's fate is based on a completely different - on the purely psychological nature of the word "desire". In other words, Balzac explores here the mechanism of action of human desires and passions in general. Shagreen leather is an ominous symbol of the fact that every desire, every passion is bought by a shortening of life span, a decrease in vital energy in a person. For any desire, a person pays with a piece of his life. And the antiquary who endows Raphael with this dubious talisman does not hide its main meaning from the very beginning. “Man,” he says, “is weakened by two instinctive actions that drain and dry up the sources of our life. Two verbs express all the forms that these two causes of death take: to want and to be able. To want burns us, to be able destroys us.”
But Rafael, I repeat, is far from realizing the meaning of this generalization, heeding the words of the antiquary. And only on his own experience he is then convinced of the terrible literalness of these words.
So shagreen skin becomes a sign of the deepest psychological contradiction: desires and passions give us visible satisfaction, it is only temporary, transient and essentially illusory; the same desires and passions shorten our lives. The reverse side of the fulfilled desire is another step on the road to death. Satiation is inevitably followed by emptiness.
This, of course, is the psychology of a tired person, exhausted by aspirations and exhausted in the pursuit of their realization, a person disappointed in life, a person satiated and devastated by the eternal struggle for existence. Behind the image of Raphael lies the life experience of the young Balzac, who, on his own fate, has already known the sizzling effect of passions and desires, the pursuit of happiness, endless attempts to rise above the limit set for you by fate and not satisfying you. But it is not only the personal fate of the writer that is symbolically generalized here. Balzac's generalization is broader - it summarizes the spiritual experience of a whole generation - a generation of romantic geniuses and dreamers who suddenly discovered a cold zone of emptiness in their souls and around them.
Here a whole stage in the development of romantic psychology is summarized, which began with the early Byron and Chateaubriand and was later completed by Musset in France, Büchner in Germany, and Lermontov in Russia. Disappointment in romantic ideals gave rise to a reaction of satiety, fatigue, emptiness. Romantic geniuses more and more discovered that their burning takes place in an airless environment, that their energy does not find application and application outside. Then the images of "superfluous people" appeared - Russian literature gave especially many formulas for this state, especially in Lermontov's poetry: "barren fever of the soul", "heat of the soul wasted in the desert", "Desires? What good is it to wish in vain and forever?" etc. Naturally, objectively, the fate of such superfluous people depends on external circumstances. But the intentions of the poets depicting such "superfluous people" were not limited only to the "criticism of reality", which crushed the heroes; the general philosophical interpretation of the tragedy of a generation played an equally important role for them - precisely as generations of people who desired too much and therefore fell victim to own desires - not in the sense of some reprehensible, vicious passions, but, on the contrary, even lofty passions, but just too lofty and too strong.In various aspects, this problem was studied by Kleist, Hölderlin, Byron.
And so Balzac in "Shagreen Skin" tries to give, as it were, a philosophical and psychological form of this dependence between the starting point - passion - and the end point - empty satiety and death.
So, the main initial idea of the novel Shagreen Skin is an analysis of a certain stage in the development of romantic psychology. But now is the time to return to the other side of the question - to the problem of the external environment, the surrounding circumstances in which this psychology develops. Now we can more accurately understand the function of the socio-critical elements of the novel. Already the hero of Balzac himself is connected by very many and strong threads with the environment, he does not just burn in the fire of his own desires - his fate, his character is in constant interaction with society.
And society, as, for example, shows Balzac in the image of Countess Theodora, is inherently hostile to the individual. And this hostility is especially clearly revealed when a person suffers. Society is afraid of human suffering, it eschews such people, it pushes a person out of its body, like an alien body, and, on the contrary, surrounds the successful with care and affection. Thus, quite realistic, concrete moments are included in the romantic-abstract philosophical idea of the novel.
"Shagreen leather"- novel . Dedicated to the problem of the collision of an inexperienced person with a society teeming with vices.
"Shagreen leather" summary by chapter
Mascot
The young man, Rafael de Valentin, is poor. Education has given him little, he is not able to provide for himself. He wants to commit suicide, and, waiting for the right moment (he decides to die at night, throwing himself off the bridge into the Seine), he enters the antiquities shop, where the old owner shows him an amazing talisman - shagreen leather. On the inside of the talisman, signs in "Sanskrit" are squeezed out; the translation reads:
Possessing me, you will possess everything, but your life will belong to me. So please God. Wish - and your desires will be fulfilled. However, measure your desires with your life. She is here. With every desire, I will decrease, like your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. God will hear you. Let it be so!
Thus, any desire of Rafael will be fulfilled, but for this, his life time will also be reduced. Raphael entered into an agreement with an old antiquary (the motive for a deal with the devil, a connection with Goethe's Faust), who saved his strength all his life, depriving himself of desires and passions and wished him to fall in love with a young dancer.
The hero decides to arrange an orgy (the skin shrinks to such a size that you can put it in your pocket when folded).
He leaves the shop and meets friends. His friend, the journalist Emil, encourages Rafael to head a wealthy newspaper and informs him that he has been invited to the celebration of its establishment. Rafael sees this as a coincidence, but not a miracle. The feast really corresponds to all his desires. He confesses to Emil that a few hours ago he was ready to throw himself into the Seine. Emil asks Rafael about what made him decide to commit suicide.
Woman without a heart
Rafael tells the story of his life.
The hero was brought up in severity. His father was a nobleman from the south of France. At the end of the reign of Louis XVI he came to Paris, where he quickly made a fortune. The revolution ruined it. However, during the Empire, he again achieved fame and fortune, thanks to his wife's dowry. The fall of Napoleon was a tragedy for him, because he bought up land on the border of the empire, which has now gone to other countries. A long lawsuit, in which he dragged his son - the future doctor of law - ended in 1825, when Mr. de Ville "dug out" the imperial decree on the loss of rights. Ten months later, my father died. Rafael sold all his property and was left with an amount of 1120 francs.
He decides to live a quiet life in the attic of a beggarly hotel in a remote quarter of Paris. The hostess of the hotel, Madame Godin, lost her husband, a baron, in India. She believes that someday he will return, fabulously rich. Polina - her daughter - falls in love with Rafael, but he does not know about it. He devotes his entire life to working on two things: comedy and the scientific treatise The Theory of Will.
One day he meets young Rastignac on the street. He offers him a way to quickly get rich through marriage. There is one woman in the world - Theodora - fabulously beautiful and rich. But she does not love anyone and does not even want to hear about marriage. Raphael falls in love, begins to spend all the money on courtship. Theodora is unaware of his poverty. Rastignac introduces Raphael to Fino, a man who offers to write a fake memoir of his grandmother, offering him big money. Rafael agrees. He begins to lead a broken life: he leaves the hotel, rents and furnishes the house; every day he is in society ... but he still loves Theodora. Deep in debt, he goes to a gambling house where Rastignac was once lucky enough to win 27,000 francs, loses the last Napoleon and wants to drown himself.
This is where the story ends.
Raphael remembers the pebbled leather in his pocket. As a joke, to prove his power to Emil, he asks for two hundred thousand francs of income. Along the way, they take measurements - they put the skin on a napkin, and Emil circles the edges of the talisman with ink. Everyone falls asleep. The next morning, the lawyer Cardo comes and announces that Raphael's rich uncle died in Calcutta, who had no other heirs. Raphael jumps up, checking his skin with a napkin. The skin has shrunk! He is horrified. Emil declares that Raphael can grant any wish. All half-serious, half-jokingly make applications. Raphael doesn't listen to anyone. He is rich, but at the same time almost dead. The talisman works!
Agony
Beginning of December. Raphael lives in a luxurious house. Everything is arranged so as not to utter words Wish, Want etc. On the wall in front of him there is always a framed shagreen paper, circled in ink.
To Raphael - an influential person - comes a former teacher, Mr. Porrique. He asks to secure for him a position as an inspector at a provincial college. Raphael accidentally says in a conversation: "I sincerely wish ...". Skin tightens, he screams with rage at Porik; his life hangs in the balance.
Raphael goes to the theater and meets Polina there. She is rich - her father has returned, and with a large fortune. They see each other in Madame Godin's former hotel, in the same old attic. Raphael is in love. Polina admits that she has always loved him. They decide to get married. Arriving home, Raphael finds a way to deal with the shagreen: he throws the skin into the well.
End of February. Rafael and Polina live together. One morning a gardener comes, having caught shagreen in the well. She became very small. Rafael is desperate. He goes to the learned men, but everything is useless: the naturalist Lavril reads him a whole lecture on the origin of donkey skin, but he cannot stretch it; the mechanic Tablet puts her in a hydraulic press, which breaks; the chemist Baron Jafe cannot break it down with any substances.
Polina notices signs of consumption in Raphael. He calls Horace Bianchon - his friend, a young doctor - he convenes a council. Each doctor expresses his scientific theory, they all unanimously advise to go to the waters, put leeches on the stomach and breathe fresh air. However, they cannot determine the cause of his illness. Rafael leaves for Aix, where he is mistreated. He is avoided and almost to his face they say that "since a person is so sick, he should not go to the water." An encounter with the cruelty of secular treatment led to a duel with one of the brave brave men. Raphael killed his opponent, and the skin shrank again. After making sure that he is dying, he returns to Paris, where he continues to hide from Polina, putting himself into a state of artificial sleep in order to stretch it out longer, but she finds him. At the sight of her, he lights up with desire, rushes at her. The girl runs away in horror, and Rafael finds Polina half-dressed - she scratched her chest and tried to suffocate herself with a shawl. The girl thought that if she dies, she will leave the life of her lover. The main character's life is cut short.
Epilogue
In the epilogue, Balzac makes it clear that he does not want to describe Pauline's further earthly path. In a symbolic description, he calls her either a flower blooming in flames, or an angel who comes in a dream, or the ghost of the Lady, depicted by Antoine de la Salle. This ghost, as it were, wants to protect his country from the invasion of modernity. Speaking of Theodore, Balzac notes that she is everywhere, as she personifies secular society.
Balzac is considered the founding father of such a trend as realism in the literary art of European countries. The year 1831 can be considered a landmark for the creative life of the prose writer, because it was during this period that the writer came up with a global idea - to create an epic called "The Human Comedy". This is not just a work, it is a large-scale literary work, which is nothing more than a picture of the mores of the period in which the writer lived. This is a kind of art chronicle - an essay on post-revolutionary French history, art, everyday life and philosophy. The whole subsequent life of the prose writer will be devoted to the implementation of the above-mentioned global plan. As a result, the epic creation, entitled by the author "The Human Comedy" (a little ironic, isn't it?), Will include three parts:
- Studies describing manners (called "Studies on manners", proper);
- Reflections of a writer of a philosophical nature (titled, respectively, "Philosophical Studies");
- And finally, the part called "Analytical Studies".
"Shagreen leather" is included in the part with the philosophical reflections of the author. The central theme of the Balzac work concerns the problems of the life of a naive, uncorrupted person in a society teeming with vices and sins. It is curious that the concept of the epic begins with Shagreen Skin, since the author prints a fragment of the novel back in 1830.
The writer entered the history of literature as an innovator. In the period when the writer was just starting his career, romanticism dominated in France. As for the novel, at the time when Balzac worked, this genre was divided into several conditional subspecies:
- The first was called a novel of personality (where the central character was a strong personality endowed with adventurous character traits);
- The second is a historical novel (which was dominated by the texts of Walter Scott).
The French innovative writer, the author of the novel we are interested in, does not work either within the framework of personality novels or in the field of historical novels. The purpose of the author is to demonstrate to the reader the actions of the “individualized type”. That is, we are not talking about some outstanding, heroic personality, but about a character - a bearer of typical features of a certain (in this case, bourgeois) society.
Shagreen Skin is one of the most famous novels by the titan of French prose Honore de Balzac. The work was published in two volumes in August 1831 and later included in the grandiose Human Comedy cycle. The author placed "Shagreen Skin" in the second section called "Philosophical Etudes".
The reader was already partly familiar with "Shagreen Skin" before the release of the official two-volume edition. Separate episodes of the novel are first published in the magazines Caricature, Revue de De Monde, Revue de Paris. Balzac's realistic fantasy appealed to fans. "Shagreen Skin" was a crazy success and only during the life of the writer was reprinted seven times.
This novel captivates with a dynamic intriguing plot and at the same time makes you think about the magnitude and versatility of such concepts as life and death, truth and lies, wealth and poverty, true love and its ability to transform the world around lovers. The scene for "Shagreen Skin" becomes a brilliant, insatiable, greedy Paris, which most clearly manifests its vicious traits in secular society.
The protagonist of the novel is a young provincial, writer, seeker Rafael de Valentin. Along with Valentin, Balzac introduces already familiar characters into the figurative structure of the work. One of them is the adventurer Eugene de Rastignac. He appeared more than once on the pages of the novels of the "Human Comedy" (somewhere in the main, somewhere in a minor role). So, Rastignac is the soloist in "Father Goriot", is included in the figurative structure of "Scenes of Political Life", "The Secrets of the Princess de Cadignan", "The Banking House of Nucingen", "Bretta's Cousin" and "Captain from Arcy".
Another star of the "Human Comedy" is the banker Tyfer, who is also a "murderer drowning in gold." The image of Tyfer is colorfully displayed on the pages of the novels "Father Goriot" and "Red Hotel".
The compositional and semantic structure of the novel is represented by three equal parts - "Talisman", "Woman without a heart" and "Agony".
Part One: "The Talisman"
A young man named Raphael de Valentin wanders through Paris. Once this city seemed to him a valley of joy and inexhaustible opportunities, but today it is only a reminder of his defeat in life. Having experienced happiness and found it, disappointed and having lost everything, Rafael de Valentin made a firm decision to die. This night he will throw himself into the Seine from the Pont Royal, and tomorrow afternoon the townspeople will fish up an unidentified human corpse. He does not hope for their participation and does not rely on pity. People are deaf to everything that does not concern themselves. Rafael understood this truth perfectly.
Walking the streets of Paris for the last time, our hero wandered into an antique shop. Its owner, a dry, wrinkled old man with a sinisterly wry smile, showed the late visitor the most valuable item in his shop. It was a piece of shagreen leather (approx. - soft rough skin (lamb, goat, horse, etc.). The flap was small - the size of an average fox.
According to the old owner, this is not just a shagreen, but a powerful magical artifact that can change the fate of its owner. On the reverse side there was an inscription in Sanskrit, an ancient message said: “Possessing me, you will have everything, but your life will belong to me ... Wish and your desires will be fulfilled. However, measure your desires with your life. She is here. With every desire, I will decrease, like your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. Let it be so".
Until now, no one has dared to become the owner of this piece of shagreen and secretly sign an agreement that looks suspiciously like a deal with the devil. However, what to lose to the destitute poor man, who just wanted to part with his life?!
Rafael acquires shagreen skin and immediately makes two wishes. The first is for the old shopkeeper to fall in love with the dancer, and the second for him, Rafael, to take part in the orgy that night.
Before the eyes, the skin noticeably shrinks to such a size that it can be put in a pocket. So far, this only amuses our hero. He says goodbye to the old man and goes out into the night.
No sooner had Valentine crossed the Pont des Arts than he met a friend, Emil, who offered him a job in his newspaper. It was decided to celebrate the joyful event at a party in the house of the banker Tyfer. Here Raphael meets with various representatives of Parisian society: corrupt artists, bored scientists, tight wallets, elite prostitutes and many others.
Together with Raphael de Valentin, we are carried away many years ago, when he was still a very young boy and knew how to dream. Valentin recalls his father, a tough and stern man. He never showed his love, which his sensual son so needed. De Valentin Sr. was a buyer of foreign lands that were available as a result of successful military campaigns. However, the golden age of the Napoleonic conquests is passing. Things are starting to go wrong for the Valentines. The head of the family dies, and the son has no choice but to quickly sell the land to pay off creditors.
Raphael has a modest amount at his disposal, which he decides to stretch over several years. This should be enough for the time until he becomes famous. Valentin wants to be a great writer, he feels a talent in himself, and therefore he rents an attic in a cheap Parisian hotel and starts working day and night on his literary brainchild.
The hostess of the hotel, Madame Godin, turned out to be a very kind and sweet woman, but her daughter Polina is especially good. Valentin likes the young Godin, he happily spends time in her company, but the woman of his dreams is different - she is a secular lady with excellent manners, brilliant outfits and solid capital, which gives her owner a certain charm.
Soon Valentin was lucky enough to meet just such a woman. Her name was Countess Theodora. This twenty-two-year-old beauty was the owner of eighty thousandth income. All of Paris unsuccessfully wooed her, and Valentin was no exception. At first, Theodora shows favor to the new boyfriend, but it soon turns out that she is not driven by an amorous feeling at all, but by calculation - the countess needs the patronage of a distant relative of Valentin, Duke de Navarren. The offended young man reveals his feelings to the tormentor, but she declares that she will never sink below her level. Only the Duke will become her husband.
A fiasco in love makes Valentin reconnect with his adventurous friend Eugene de Rastignac (it was he who introduced Raphael to the countess). Friends begin to revel, play cards, having won a large amount of money, they squander it uncontrollably. And when there was nothing left of a solid win, Valentin realized that he was on the social bottom, his life was over. Then he went out into the street and decided to throw himself off the bridge.
But, as you know, this did not happen, because on his way he met an antique shop ... The narrator stops the story. He completely forgot about the magical shagreen that grants wishes. You need to actually check it out! Valentin takes out a piece of skin and makes a wish - to receive 120 thousand annual income. The next day, Rafael is informed that his distant relative has died. He left Rafael a huge fortune, which totals exactly 120 thousand a year. Taking out a piece of shagreen, the newly-made rich man realized that magic works, the shagreen has decreased, which means that the period of his earthly existence has shortened.
Now Rafael de Valentin no longer has to huddle in a dark, damp attic, he lives in a spacious, richly furnished house. True, his real life is a constant control of his own desires. As soon as Raphael utters the phrase “I want” or “I want”, the shred of shagreen immediately decreases.
One day Rafael goes to the theatre. There he meets a wizened old man with a beautiful dancer on his arm. It's the same shopkeeper! But how the old man has changed, his face is still covered with wrinkles, but his eyes are burning, like those of a young guy. What is the reason? Raphael is surprised. It's all about love! - explains the old man, - A single hour of true love is worth more than a long life.
Raphael watches the dressed-down audience, a string of ladies' shoulders, gloves, men's tailcoats and collars. He meets Countess Theodora, as brilliant as ever. Only she no longer arouses in him his former admiration. It is as artificial and faceless as all high-society society.
Valentine's attention is attracted by one lady. What was Rafael's surprise when Polina turned out to be this secular beauty. The same Polina, with whom he spent long evenings in his miserable attic. It turns out that the girl became the heiress of a huge fortune. Returning home, Valentin wished Polina to fall in love with him. The shagreen cringed again treacherously. In a fit of anger, Raphael throws her into the well - come what may!
Raphael de Valentine's last wish
Young people begin to live in perfect harmony, make plans for the future and literally bathe in each other's love. One day, the gardener brings a piece of leather - he accidentally fished it out of the well. Valentin rushes to the best Parisian scientists with a plea to destroy the shagreen. But neither the zoologist, nor the mechanic, nor the chemist find a way to destroy the outlandish artifact. The life that Valentin once wanted to voluntarily part with now seems to him the greatest treasure, because he loves and is loved.
Raphael's health begins to fail, the doctors discover signs of consumption in him and make a helpless gesture - his days are numbered. Everyone, except Polina, is indifferent to the doomed to death. In order not to torment himself, Rafael runs away from the bride, and when after a while their meeting does take place, he is unable to resist the beauty of his beloved. Shouting, "I want you, Polina!", Valentin falls dead ...
... And Polina remains to live. True, nothing is known about her further fate.
I. Talisman
At the end of October, a young man, Rafael de Valantin, entered the building of the Palais Royal, in whose eyes the players noticed some terrible secret, his features expressed the impassivity of a suicide and a thousand deceived hopes. Lost, Valentin squandered the last napoleondore and, in a daze, began to wander the streets of Paris. His mind was consumed by a single thought - to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine from the Royal Bridge. The thought that, in the afternoon, he would become the prey of boatmen, which would be valued at fifty francs, aroused disgust in him. He decided to die at night, "in order to leave an unidentified corpse to the society, which despised the greatness of his soul." Carelessly walking around, he began to look at the Louvre, the Academy, the towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady, the towers of the Palace of Justice, the Pont des Arts. To wait for the night, he went to the antiquities store to ask the price of works of art. There before him appeared a thin old man with an ominous mockery on his thin lips. The astute old man guessed the young man's mental anguish and offered to make him more powerful than the monarch. He handed him a piece of shagreen, on which the following words were engraved in Sanskrit: “Having me, you will have everything, but your life will belong to me […] Desire - and your desires will be fulfilled […] With every desire, I will decrease how are your days…”
Rafael made an agreement with the old man, whose whole life consisted in saving the forces unspent in passions, and wished, if his fate did not change in the shortest possible time, that the old man fell in love with a dancer. On the Pont des Arts, Valentin accidentally met his friends, who, considering him an outstanding person, offered him a job in a newspaper in order to create an opposition “capable of satisfying the dissatisfied without much harm to the national government of the citizen king” (Louis Philippe). Friends took Rafael to a dinner party at the founding of the newspaper in the house of the richest banker Taifer. The audience that gathered that evening in a luxurious mansion was truly monstrous: “Young writers without style stood next to young writers without ideas, prose writers, greedy for poetic beauty, next to prose poets […] There were two or three scientists created by in order to dilute the atmosphere of conversation with nitrogen, and a few vaudeville players who are ready at any moment to sparkle with ephemeral sparkles, which, like sparks of a diamond, do not shine and do not warm. After a plentiful supper, the public were offered the most beautiful courtesans, subtle imitations of "innocent timid maidens." The courtesans Akilina and Euphrasia, in a conversation with Raphael and Emil, argue that it is better to die young than to be abandoned when their beauty fades.
II. Woman without a heart
Rafael tells Emil about the reasons for his mental anguish and suffering. From childhood, Rafael's father subjected his son to severe discipline. Until the age of twenty-one, he was under the firm hand of a parent, the young man was naive and longed for love. Once at a ball, he decided to play with his father's money and won an impressive amount of money for him, however, ashamed of his act, he hid this fact. Soon his father began to give him money for maintenance and share his plans. Raphael's father fought for ten years with Prussian and Bavarian diplomats, seeking recognition of the rights to foreign land holdings. His future depended on this process, to which Rafael was actively involved. When the decree on the loss of rights was promulgated, Rafael sold the lands, leaving only an island of no value, where the grave of his mother was located. A long reckoning with creditors began, which brought his father to the grave. The young man decided to stretch the remaining funds for three years, and settled in a cheap hotel, doing scientific work - "Theory of Will". He lived from hand to mouth, but the work of thought, studies, seemed to him the most beautiful thing in life. The hostess of the hotel, Madame Godin, motherly took care of Rafael, and her daughter Pauline provided him with many services that he could not refuse. After a while, he began to give lessons to Polina, the girl turned out to be extremely capable and quick-witted. Having gone headlong into science, Rafael continued to dream of a beautiful lady, luxurious, noble and rich. In Polina, he saw the embodiment of all his desires, but she lacked salon gloss. "... a woman - be she attractive, like the beautiful Helena, this Homer's Galatea - cannot win my heart if she is even a little dirty."
One winter, Rastignac introduced him to a house "where all Paris had been" and introduced him to the charming Countess Theodora, the owner of eighty thousand livres of income. The Countess was a lady of about twenty-two, of impeccable reputation, had a marriage behind her, but had no lover, the most enterprising red tape in Paris suffered a fiasco in the struggle for the right to possess her. Rafael fell in love with Theodora, she was the embodiment of those dreams that made his heart tremble. Parting with him, she asked him to visit her. Returning home and feeling the contrast of the situation, Rafael cursed his “honest respectable poverty” and decided to seduce Theodora, who was the last lottery ticket on which his fate depended. What sacrifices did the poor seducer make: he incredibly managed to get to her house on foot in the rain and maintain a presentable appearance; with the last money, he drove her home when they returned from the theater. In order to secure a decent wardrobe for himself, he had to enter into an agreement to write false memoirs, which were supposed to be published under the name of another person. One day she sent him a note with a messenger and asked him to come. Appearing at her call, Rafael found out that she needed the patronage of his influential relative, the Duke de Navarren. The madman in love was only a means to the realization of a mysterious affair, which he never found out about. Rafael was tormented by the thought that the reason for the countess's loneliness could be a physical handicap. To dispel his doubts, he decided to hide in her bedroom. Leaving the guests, Theodora entered her apartments and seemed to take off her usual mask of courtesy and friendliness. Raphael did not find any flaws in her, and calmed down; falling asleep, she said: “My God!”. The delighted Raphael built a lot of guesses, suggesting what such an exclamation could mean: “Her exclamation, either meaning nothing, or deep, or accidental, or significant, could express both happiness, and grief, and bodily pain, and concern” . As it turned out later, she only remembered that she had forgotten to tell her broker to exchange a five per cent rent for a three per cent. When Raphael revealed to her his poverty and his all-consuming passion for her, she replied that she would not belong to anyone and would only agree to marry the duke. Raphael left the countess forever and moved to Rastignac. Rastignac, having played in a gambling house with their joint money, won twenty-seven thousand francs. From that day on, friends went on a rampage. When the funds were spent, Valentin decided that he was a "social zero" and decided to die. The story jumps back to when Rafael is in Tyfer's mansion. He takes out a piece of shagreen leather from his pocket and expresses a desire to become the owner of two hundred thousand annual income. The next morning, the notary Cardo informs the public that Raphael has become the full heir of Major O'Flaherty, who died the day before. The newly-made rich man looked at the shagreen and noticed that it had decreased in size. ". III. Agony On one December day, an old man came to the chic mansion of the Marquis de Valentin, under whose guidance Raphael-Mr. Porrique once studied. The old devoted servant Jonathan tells the teacher that his master leads a reclusive life and suppresses everything in himself wishes. The venerable old man came to ask the marquis that he should petition the minister for the restoration of him, Porrique, as an inspector in the provincial college. Raphael, weary of the old man’s long outpourings, accidentally said that he sincerely wished that he could succeed in achieving reinstatement. Realizing what had been said , the Marquis was furious when he looked at the shagreen, she noticeably decreased.In the theater he once met a wizened old man with young eyes, while in his eyes now only echoes of obsolete passions were read. The old man led Raphael's acquaintance, the dancer Euphrasia, by the arm. At the inquiring look of the marquis, the old man replied that now he was happy as a young man, and that he misunderstood being: "All life is in a single hour of love." Looking at the audience, Rafael fixed his gaze on Theodora, who was sitting with another admirer, still beautiful and cold. On the chair next to Rafael sat a beautiful stranger, riveting the admiring glances of all the men present. It was Polina. Her father, who at one time commanded a squadron of cavalry grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, was taken prisoner by the Cossacks; according to rumors, he managed to escape and get to India. When he returned, he made his daughter the heiress of a million-dollar fortune. They agreed to meet at the Hotel Saint-Quentin, their former home, which kept the memories of their poverty, Pauline wanted to hand over the papers that Rafael had bequeathed to her when he moved. Finding himself at home, Raphael looked longingly at the talisman and wished that Polina would love him. The next morning he was overwhelmed with joy - the talisman did not decrease, which means that the contract was violated. Having met, young people realized that they love each other with all their hearts and nothing prevents their happiness. When Rafael once again looked at the shagreen, he noticed that it had decreased again, and in a fit of anger he threw it into the well. What will be, will be, - decided the exhausted Rafael and healed soul to soul with Polina. One day in February, the gardener brought a strange find to the marquis, "the dimensions of which now did not exceed six square inches." From now on, Rafael decided to seek the means of salvation from scientists in order to stretch the shagreen and prolong his life. The first to whom he went was Mr. Lavril, "priest of zoology." When asked how to stop the narrowing of the skin, Lavril replied: “Science is vast, and human life is very short. Therefore, we do not pretend to know all the phenomena of nature. The second to whom the Marquis addressed was Professor of Mechanics Tablet. An attempt to stop the narrowing of the shagreen by applying a hydraulic press to it was unsuccessful. The shagreen remained intact and unharmed. The amazed German hit the skin with a blacksmith's hammer, but there was no trace of damage left on it. The apprentice threw the skin into the coal furnace, but even from it the shagreen was taken out completely unharmed. The chemist Jafe, broke his razor trying to cut the skin, tried to cut it with an electric current, exposed it to a voltaic column - all to no avail. Now Valentin no longer believed in anything, began to look for damage to his body and called the doctors. For a long time he began to notice signs of consumption, now it became obvious to him and Polina. The doctors came to the following conclusion: “a blow was needed to break the window, but who delivered it?” They attributed leeches, diet and climate change. Raphael smiled sarcastically in response to these recommendations. A month later he went to the waters in Aix. Here he encountered rude coldness and neglect of those around him. He was avoided and almost to his face declared that "since a person is so sick, he should not go to the water." An encounter with the cruelty of secular treatment led to a duel with one of the brave brave men. Rafael killed his opponent, and the skin shrank again. After leaving the waters, he settled in the rural hut of Mont-Dore. The people with whom he lived deeply sympathized with him, and pity is “a feeling that is most difficult to endure from other people.”
Soon Jonathan came for him and took his master home. Polina's letters handed over to him, in which she poured out her love for him, he threw into the fireplace. The opium solution made by Bianchon plunged Raphael into an artificial sleep for several days. The old servant decided to follow Bianchon's advice and entertain the master. He called a full house of friends, a magnificent feast was planned, but Valentin, who saw this spectacle, fell into a violent rage. After drinking a portion of sleeping pills, he again fell into a dream. Polina woke him up, he began to beg her to leave him, showed a piece of skin that had become the size of a "periwinkle leaf", she began to examine the talisman, and he, seeing how beautiful she was, could not control himself. "Pauline, come here! Pauline!" he shouted, and the talisman in her hand began to shrink. Polina decided to tear her chest to pieces, strangle herself with a shawl in order to die. She decided that if he killed himself, he would live. Raphael, seeing all this, became drunk with passion, rushed to her and died immediately. Epilogue What happened to Polina? On the steamer "City of Angers" a young man and a beautiful woman admired a figure in the fog over the Loire. “This light creature, now an undine, now a sylph, soared in the air, so the word that you look for in vain hovers somewhere in your memory, but you can’t catch it […] One might think that this is the ghost of the Lady depicted by Antoine de la Salle, wants to protect his country from the invasion of modernity."
The story is about a young man named Raphael de Valentin. The novel begins with a young man coming to a casino and losing his last money. After that, he decides to drown himself in the river. Whilst away the time until evening, he enters an antique shop, where he meets its owner, a sinister old man. This old man, seeing his condition, offers him incomparable power in exchange for life: he gives him a piece of skin with ancient inscriptions, claiming that this skin will be able to fulfill any desire, but will decrease in size, along with it will decrease and the life of Raphael. Rafael, who was about to drown himself, accepts the conditions, although he does not believe what the old man told him. Rafael longs for his life to become bright, rich, and for this he is ready to die. He wants to get to the feast, where passions and fun rage.
Leaving the shop, he meets friends who invite him to go to a feast, and he really finds himself at a feast, where wine flows like water, friends indulge in fun, charming ladies are present. When things have calmed down a bit, Raphael begins to tell his life story to his friend Emil. Now Rafael is 26 years old and he is completely poor, but he was once rich: his ancestors had a big name and wealth, but all of it disappeared due to the revolution. His father, who kept him strict, had high hopes for him. He read him into a lawyer, but the collapse of the family claimed not only all the money, but also the life of his father. Rafael received some money as an inheritance. He decided to distribute the money for 3 years and become a great writer during this time. He worked tirelessly, denying himself everything, and, finally, he wrote his work. One day he met his friend Rastignac in the city, who decided to help him go out into the world so that his work would be successful. He introduces Raphael to the socialite Countess Theodora, with whom Raphael falls in love. He tries to achieve reciprocity, but constantly stumbles upon her coldness. In an attempt to win the Countess, Rafael spends the last of his money and agrees to the publisher's offer to write the memoirs of his executed aunt. This brings him money, which, however, he again spent in an attempt to appear rich and carefree to the countess. The Countess, however, does not succumb to his charms and remains cold and prudent. Then he sold his last property - an island on the Loire, where his mother's grave was. But he spent the money too. From complete lack of money, he is often saved only by Polina, the daughter of the owner of a small hotel, where he rented an attic. Polina loves Rafael, but Rafael cannot love Polina because she is poor (he also wants to love the title and wealth).
Raphael makes an attempt to explain to Theodora, she rejects him, and he says goodbye to her. Rafael decides to change his life and leaves Polina with his mother. He receives the rest of the money for the memoirs and goes to Rastignac. Rastignac takes his money, goes to the casino and wins a fortune. Rafael again begins to spend money on a grand scale, wanting to forget himself, get the most out of life, and soon finds himself without money and in debt. He loses his last coin in a casino where Rastignac once won a fortune for them. The story of life ends, and the action is again transferred to the feast.
Raphael remembers that he has shagreen leather in his pocket and being drunk, wanting to prove to his friend her power, he thinks of becoming rich and falls asleep. In the morning, when everyone woke up, Rafael was told that he had a huge inheritance, while Rafael saw that the shagreen skin had shrunk in size...
Then the story shifts forward: Raphael, a very rich man, lives an empty life, trying not to want or desire anything, numerous well-trained servants and managers worry about everything. Every desire is immediately fulfilled by the pebbled skin at the expense of its own life. Rafael no longer thinks about the glory of the writer, he does not think about women either, he tries to humble any of his desires in order to save his life, with which he just recently wanted to part.
Once at the theater, Rafael notices Theodora, whom he no longer loves, but despises. Theodora also hates Raphael, since he is the only one of the admirers who was able to break out of her social fetters. He also became a harbinger of the rapid fading of Theodora, who until recently was considered the most beautiful woman in the city. At the theatre, Raphael meets Pauline, who is now also fabulously rich: her father has returned from a long journey with a lot of money. Feelings flare up between them, and they decide to get married. In the life of Raphael, a happy time comes, he woke up from a dream and longed for happiness with Polina. The shagreen leather, however, is getting smaller and smaller, to Raphael's dismay; he tried to throw it away - they returned it to him, he tried to stretch it - it did not work, even the best chemists could not cope. The best doctors could not diagnose him (tuberculosis) and recommended that he go to a spa. Raphael took advantage of this recommendation and went to the mountains. Society met him with contempt and displeasure, since everyone was offended to one degree or another and felt that he was weak. When trying to expel him from the resort, he is called to a duel. Raphael kills the offender and leaves for a secluded place, where he tries to live quietly so as not to undermine his already poor health. Every day he gets worse and everyone around clearly understands that Rafael will die soon (he was 27 years old at that time).
Raphael returns to Paris and asks the doctor to prepare a morphine solution that will allow him to be in oblivion in order to save at least some life. So he exists for some time, until Polina is looking for him. Trying to wake up from oblivion, the desire to live returns to Rafael, he longs for Polina and at that moment dies in Polina's arms.
Meaning
The protagonist of the novel, Rafael de Valentin, wants to live for his own pleasure and is ready to pay for it with his life. At the moment when he receives the greatest power, he begins to appreciate life and no longer wants to die, although, being on the verge of poverty, he was about to drown himself. Choosing between a short life for his own pleasure and a longer, emasculated existence, Rafael stops at the latter and thereby turns himself off from life, wanting to extend the days of his stay on this side of the grave as much as possible.
Realizing that the society around him is false and soulless, Rafael removes himself from his life, while the society rejects him: smart, rich, talented. Realizing the true values of life (love), Raphael becomes completely indifferent to what he was ready to give his life for a little earlier.
Conclusion
The first third of the novel by Honore de Balzac "Shagreen Skin" barely mastered - tedious, verbose, uninteresting. Then he got involved and finished reading already with a feeling of regret that the book was ending. The overall result - I liked it. I recommend reading!
Other books by Honore de Balzac:
1.
