Book Reviews IX: Balzac, Dumas, Ibsen

Pere Goriot by Honore de Balzac  
The Vicomte de Bragelonne by Alexander Dumas
Eight Plays by Henrik Ibsen
Sarrasine by Honore de Balzac


Pere Goriot
By Honore de Balzac


1. Honoré de Balzac had a complex and dynamic life—as a writer, raconteur, rogue, dandy, business failure, and workaholic. The novels of La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) made him a literary giant of his day (and ours), and the most comprehensive chronicler of post-Napoleonic Paris.
Is referring to The Human Comedy, by Balzac.
2-10. Balzac was born in Tours, France, on May 20, 1799, to a bourgeois family that had little interest or involvement in their son’s childhood. Placed in boarding school when he was very young, Balzac studied little and read voraciously, and suffered a depressive breakdown. After leaving school, he worked for several years as a law clerk in Paris but abandoned the legal profession to pursue his dream of writing.
11. The tireless author rented a musty attic flat and spent days and nights composing sensationalist novels...The resulting novels, Les Chouans and the controversial satire Physiologie du Mariage, brought him success at last, and open invitations to the literary salons of Paris.
12. In Les Chouans, Balzac refers to Ernee, in France.
13. Now with some means at his disposal, Balzac lived as a dandy and, despite his unremarkable appearance, charmed and seduced many women. Fueling himself with potent coffee, he slept little; over his lifetime he created more than ninety novels and between 2,000 and 3,000 characters, in addition to numerous journal articles.
14. In 1841 Balzac grouped his novels of post-Napoleonic Paris and its rising middle class under the umbrella title La Comédie humaine. Père Goriot, Les Illusions perdues (Lost Illusions), Cousine Bette, Cousin Pons, and Eugénie Grandet are some of his masterpieces. Balzac’s realistic style and sociological detailing of industrial-era France went on to influence some of the country’s great authors, such as Émile Zola and Gustave Flaubert.

15. After a lifetime avoiding marriage, Balzac wed his longtime paramour, Eveline Rzewuska, Countess Hanska, in the spring of 1850. When he died on August 21 of that year, Victor Hugo honored his passing with a memorial speech. Honoré de Balzac is buried at Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris.
16. The World of Honoré de Balzac and Père Goriot
17.
1799 - Honoré de Balzac is born in Tours on May 20. His civil- servant father, Bernard-François Balzac (originally, Balssa) has moved the bourgeois family from Paris to Tours because of his Royalist sympathies during the French Revolution. Honoré’s mother, Anne-Charlotte- Laure Sallambier, is some thirty years her husband’s junior. Honoré is put in the care of a nurse till age four. Napoleon enters Paris.
1801 - The Louvre is opened to the public.
1802 - Victor Hugo is born.
1804 - Napoleon proclaims himself emperor of the French; the years that follow will be an era of intense upheaval, including the rise and decline of Napoleon’s empire, which will culminate in the 1815 Battle of Waterloo. Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve is born.
1807 - After spending time at grade school in Tours, Honoré is sent to boarding school in Vendôme, where he will re main until 1813. He almost never sees his family while at school, and loneliness causes him to have a spiritual crisis. Not a stellar student, Honoré nevertheless has a voracious appetite for literature. Works by E. T. A. Hoff mann (1776-1822) will be an enduring influence on the future author.
1815 - Napoleon escapes Elba and enters Paris, beginning his “100 Days” retaking of France. He is then defeated at Waterloo. Louis XVIII comes to power, restoring France’s monarchy. Napoleon is exiled to Santa Helena, off the African coast.
1816 - Balzac studies law at the Sorbonne and works as a law clerk for Guyonnet de Merville, upon whom his charac ter Derville is based in his later novels.
1819 - Balzac receives his law degree but decides to try to earn a living by writing. He moves to a tawdry attic apartment on the rue Lesdiguières, in the Bastille area.
1820 - He returns to live with his family, who now reside in a small town, Villeparisis, outside Paris. He writes a tragic drama in verse, Cromwell.
1821 - Desperate for money, Balzac writes sensational novels under various pseudonyms and will do so throughout the 1820s; the books fail, forcing him to seek other work. Around this time he meets Laure-Antoinette Hin ner, Madame de Berny, a wealthy woman twice his age who offers encouragement and financial aid, as well as inspiration for several of his female characters.
1825 - Balzac turns to business, becoming an editor of French classics, a publisher, and a printer, but with scant suc cess. His failed efforts and mounting debt over the next few years place him on the verge of financial ruin.
Suggests that you should read classics from the culture to which you belong.
1829 - He succeeds with the publication of a historical novel, Les Chouans (originally published as Le Dernier Chouan), and the satirical, provocative Physiologie du Manage. He thoroughly enjoys his newfound place in Parisian liter ary circles, seducing women and living lavishly. Bernard- François Balzac dies.
1830 - A workaholic with little need for sleep, Balzac drinks large amounts of coffee and spends entire days and nights at the writing desk in his apartment on the rue Cassini. In addition to fiction, he publishes many arti cles in journals. He adds the aristocratic de to his name.
1831 - La Peau de chagrin (The Wild Ass’s Skin, sometimes trans lated as The Magic Skin) is published to great success. Hugo’s Notre Dame de Paris (The Hunchback of Notre Dame) is published.
1832 - The semi autobiographical novel Louis Lambert, relating Balzac’s experiences as a student at the College de Vendôme, is published. Balzac writes articles for the Royalist paper Le Rénovateur. He receives a letter from a Polish noblewoman, Eveline Rzewuska, Countess Han ska, and the two begin to correspond.
1833 - A rendezvous with Mme. Hanska begins a primarily epis tolary affair that lasts until Balzac’s death. Balzac begins an affair with a married woman, Marie Daminois. George Sand’s Lelia appears.
1834 - La Recherche de l‘absolu (The Quest for the Absolute) is published. A daughter, Marie-Caroline du Fresnay, is born to Balzac and Daminois.
1835 - "Père Goriot" is published. Despite his literary success, Balzac lives beyond his means and is pursued by debt collectors.
1836 - Balzac acquires a periodical, Chronique de Paris, which soon fails. While traveling in Italy he hears that Madame de Berny has died.
1841 - Ill health compromises Balzac’s vigorous way of life and causes him to spend more time at his home near Sèvres. The author decides to group his voluminous portrayal of post-Napoleonic Paris—comprising more than ninety novels and an astonishing 2,000 to 3,000 characters—under the umbrella title La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) . His works are early examples of the Re alist style that will influence countless later novelists.
1842 - to La Comédie humaine. Taking Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire’s theories about the animal world and applying them to hu manity, Balzac asserts that human beings are shaped by their environments. His publisher, Hetzel, also prints works by Jules Verne, Victor Hugo, and George Sand.
1848 - Balzac’s masterpieces La Cousine Bette and Le Cousin Pons are published. Revolutions occur throughout Europe.
1849 - Eugène Delacroix paints the ceiling of the Louvre’s Salon d’Apollon.
1850 - Countess Hanska and Balzac marry in Ukraine in early spring. His health deteriorates, and Balzac dies on Au gust 18. Buried at Père-Lachaise cemetery in Paris, he is honored with a funeral speech by Victor Hugo.

18. Introduction
19. Subject of Père Goriot—A good man—middle-class lodging house—600 fr. income—having spent every penny for his daughters who each has 50,000 fr. income—dying like a dog.

20. The interweaving is crucial: Balzac is less interested in individual characters than in the relations that bind them together at different moments in their lives.
21. ...one could perhaps argue that Balzac’s work demonstrates that there is no such entity as the individual ; there is only the collective, shared existence of humanity (the boardinghouse in Père Goriot is a fine example of this commonality) , along with a thoroughly modern sense of the precariousness of the very categories of individual, self, and identity, which Balzac approaches with skepticism.
22. None of these minor imperfections seems significant when set beside the enormous achievement of La Comédie humaine, which gives us an unprecedented view of “the whole society,” a world of shifting social relations peopled by familiar and ever-evolving characters.
23. There is, in sum, an absence of narrative unity in Père Goriot that is related, I think, to the shift in narrative emphasis from the individual to the collective.
24. The notions of protagonist, hero, and even main character owe their existence to the very idea of the individual that Balzac leaves behind, such that we find ourselves before a centerless fiction in which all characters are invested with equal weight. All the characters in Père Goriot are round characters; none is flat, to use E. M. Forster’s terminology. If we were to say that there are multiple protagonists in this novel, we would simply be saying that Balzac tells the story of the many and not of one.

25. Everyone in Balzac, even the doormen, has spirit,” wrote Baudelaire.
26. For similar reasons, there are no secondary characters in Balzac. Certainly, there are characters who appear less frequently than others, who say little, who have subordinate roles in a technical, statistical sense.
27. Of Victorine Taillefer he writes: “A book might have been made of her story”
28. The statement could apply to any one of the characters in the narrative, and indeed does apply to several. “A book might have been made of her story”: This is as true of Victorine Taillefer as it is of Madame de Beauséant...Balzac’s books thus give the impression of being infinitely extensible in all directions, multiplexes opening up onto new vistas on all sides.
29. Balzac was a storyteller, and he saw the world as a vast network of interconnected stories: No one is without a story. No one, and perhaps no thing, for things in Balzac are as telling as bodies and faces.

30. Take a novel such as Adolphe (1816), by Benjamin Constant, and you would be hard put to find in it a single, material object.
31. Instead of penetrating deep into the hidden interior of a character, Balzac looks at the relationship between the character and his or her environment. The truth of the human subject, Balzac seems to be saying, lies not in mysterious inner realms, but much closer to the surface, in that subject’s relation to the material world. No recesses, no soul, no depth, just an infinitely expanding, substantive universe that gives an overall and characteristically Balzacian impression of denseness.
32. In his at-the-time authoritative Histoire de la littérature française (History of French Literature, 1894) he opined that Balzac “was a vulgar type, robust and exuberant” before assailing the novelist’s tastelessness.
33. The first to mount a defense of the Balzacian sentence was Ferdinand Brunetière. A disciple of Lanson, he saw in the breathlessness of Balzac’s style a masterful imitation of life’s rampant surges: “[Life] is the movement that upsets the straight line. It is confusion, disorder, illogic, irregularity.... One seizes it for a moment, one gives an imitation of it, only by making oneself as changing, as supple, as undulating as it is. This is what Molière, Saint-Simon, and Balzac tried to do."
34. Citing the highly introspective, first-person novels René (1802), by François-René de Chateaubriand and Adolphe, by Constant, Brunetière argues that Balzac substituted “for this type of personal, egotistical novel, the novel of others."

35. This is a necessary consequence of the shift from a “personal” or “egotistical” novel to one that looks outward and toward the other. Privileging observation over speculation, the outside over the inside, his fiction escapes from the tyranny of psychology and from the Rousseauist idea of a unique and original Self whose essence literature is meant to disclose. As an anthropologist (rather than a sociologist), he is close to another Rousseau, “Jean-Jacques Rousseau Founder of the Human Sciences,” in the words of Claude Lévi-Strauss.
36. ...that Balzac’s novel, while borrowing some of the formal elements of the bildungsroman, differs from the classical versions of this model in that the type of knowledge most prized here is not the humanist wisdom that is the hard-won fruit of experience, but rather the technical mastery of certain strategies for success.
37. Knowledge in Père Goriot has little to do with self-enhancement or enlightenment and everything to do with social survival. The knowledge Eugène seeks and acquires has an immediate use-value; factual rather than theoretical, its value is strategic and expedient.
38. Beyond this, his “education” consists of a type of social grooming. For example, he must learn, and does learn, “‘not [to] be so demonstrative’” (p. 78). Like Lucien de Rubempré, hero of Lost Illusions, or any recently arrived provincial, he must lose his accent and adopt the language of the Parisians. And he must learn the language of love, even if in this post-Romantic epoch a lover’s discourse amounts to nothing more than “stereotyped phrases” (p. 134). To know these things—customs and language—is to know Paris, and to know Paris is to know these things. “To know its customs, to learn the language, and to become familiar with the amusements of the capital” (p. 38), these should be the goals of the student, for a student in Paris is first and foremost a student of Paris.
39. More meaningful to Balzac, but occurring after the composition of Père Goriot, seems to have been his experience with Madame Hanska, who in 1846 was expecting a child by him, although the pregnancy did not come to term.

40. ...nothing in Balzac’s life or anything in his early works could anticipate the majestic portrait of fatherhood he offers up in Père Goriot. “Since I have been a father, I have come to understand God."
41. The flow of information, the flux of life, the endless onward (but not forward) movement of “civilization” (which is a “battlefield” [p. 82] ) : This is the dynamic setting for Père Goriot. In this novel there is a complex of stories, and there is also the matter, raised in the opening pages, of the reader and his or her reaction to these stories.
42. Instead of typing, I copy and paste the text that I like from the online book application on my phone then to the website editor then publish it online.
43. It is one of the privileges of the good city of Paris that any body may be born live, or die there without attracting any attention whatsoever."
44. He does not go in for deep psychology; he is not especially attached to the interior workings that make or unmake a soul,” wrote Lanson (in Vachon, p. 321). “I am not deep, but very thick”: The boarders in Père Goriot do not know the “interior workings,” the inner turmoil that forms the basis of the psychological novel and that marks some kind of attachment, however conflicted, to a greater ideal (of duty, faith, honor, etc.); they have known rather the strain of an exterior struggle that has worked over their bodies and left their faces “bleached by moral or physical suffering".

45. It is not to be denied, for example, that serious difficulties stand in the way of translating Balzac, which are caused by his own peculiarities of style and treatment. His French is not the clear, graceful, neatlyturned French of Voltaire and Rousseau. It is a strong, harsh, solidly vigorous language of his own; now flashing into the most exquisite felicities of expression, and now again involved in an obscurity which only the closest attention can hope to penetrate.
46. Certainly, Eugène is dazzled by the wealth and refinement of the society he encounters at the home of the Vicomtesse, but what he has beheld there, and is in thrall to, is the splendor of a world.
47. ...Balzac’s name had become synonymous with the representation of social scenes and social struggles.
48. NOTES
49. 3 The judgments of Sainte-Beuve, Zola, and Proust are collected in the Norton Critical Edition of Père Goriot, edited by Peter Brooks and translated by Burton Raffel (London and New York: W. W. Norton, 1998).

50. 5 It will be enough to say here, by way of warning to the reader, that the experiment of rendering the French of Balzac into its fair English equivalent still remains to be tried."
1. Step by step the daylight decreases, and the cicerone’s droning voice grows hollower as the traveler descends into the Catacombs. The comparison holds good! Who shall say which is more ghastly, the sight of the bleached skulls or of dried-up human hearts? (page 11)
2. “If ever you explore a Parisian woman’s heart, you will find the money-lender first, and the lover afterwards."
3. Goriot had raised the two girls to the level of the angels; and, quite naturally, he himself was left beneath them.
4. “Don’t stick to your opinions any more than to your words. If any one asks you for them, let him have them—at a price."
Suggests that you shouldn't get too caught up in words.
5. Now and then in life, you see, you must play for heavy stakes, and it is no use wasting your luck on low play.”

6. “Oh! so we have still a few dubious tatters of the swaddling clothes of virtue about us!”
7. My cup of misery is full.
8. Refers to the Greek myth Niobe.
51. CHAPTER 1 A Middle-Class Lodging-House
52. That word drama has been somewhat discredited of late...Will any one without the walls of Paris understand it?
53. In that district the pavements are clean and dry, there is neither mud nor water in the gutters, grass grows in the chinks of the walls.
54. A straight path beneath the walls on either side of the garden leads to a clump of lime-trees at the further end of it; line-trees, as Mme. Vauquer persists in calling them, in spite of the fact that she was a de Conflans, and regardless of repeated corrections from her lodgers.
55. Under the lime-trees there are a few green-painted garden seats and a wooden table, and hither, during the dog-days, such of the lodgers as are rich enough to indulge in a cup of coffee come to take their pleasure, though it is hot enough to roast eggs even in the shade.

55. The subject between the two windows is the banquet given by Calypso to the son of Ulysses, displayed thereon for the admiration of the boarders, and has furnished jokes these forty years...
56. A moment later the widow shows her face, she is tricked out in a net cap attached to a false front set on awry, and shuffles into the room in her slipshod fashion.
57. You can no more imagine the one without the other, than you can think of a jail without a turnkey.
58. Mme. Vauquer at the age of fifty is like all women who “have seen a deal of trouble.”
59. ...who believed that the widow was wholly dependent upon the money that they paid her, and sympathized when they heard her cough and groan like one of themselves.

60. ...she was wont to say, she herself had been through every possible misfortune.
61. ...white waistcoat and crumpled shirt frills and the cravat twisted about a throat like a turkey gobbler’s: altogether, his appearance set people wondering whether this outlandish ghost belonged to the audacious race of the sons of Japhet who flutter about on the Boulevard Italien.
62. What devouring passions had darkened that bulbous countenance, which would have seemed outrageous as a caricature?
63. ...he had paid twelve hundred francs a year like a man to whom five louism more or less was a mere trifle.
64. Though Goriot’s eyes seemed to have shrunk in their sockets, though they were weak and watery, owing to some glandular affection which compelled him to wipe them continually, she considered him to be a very gentlemanly and pleasant-looking man.

65. ...in her opinion the vermicelli maker was an excellent man.
66. Soup, boiled beef, and a dish of vegetables had been, and always would be, the dinner he liked best...
67. Empty-headed people who babble about their own affairs because they have nothing else to occupy them, naturally conclude that if people say nothing of their doings it is because their doings will not bear being talked about; so the highly respectable merchant became a scoundrel, and the late beau was an old rogue.


1. In the current book I'm reading, one of the characters feeds her pet cat milk, on a saucer, after boiling it. Moloko dlya koshka!
Balzac also suggests that pets enjoy eating scraps.
2. We learn that Honore de Balzac presents complex novels. The protagonists are round, dynamic characters rather than flat characters. There are also several different protagonists.
3. Calypso, in Greek mythology, the daughter of the Titan Atlas (or Oceanus or Nereus), a nymph of the mythical island of Ogygia. The current reading on Balzac discusses this myth.
4. Please see above notes #9, #19, #26, #34 ,#60, #79, #116 on the present Honore de Balzac novel.
5. In the Honore de Balzac reading, there is a character who has daughters who he is very fond of. When his daughters treat him well, he gives them gifts.
6. #109, "Suggests that money can enliven people, and make them happy."


1. At first he determined to fling himself heart and soul into his work, but he was diverted from this purpose by the need of society and connections.
2. Surely a clever and high-spirited young man, whose wit and courage were set off to advantage by a graceful figure, and the vigorous kind of beauty that readily strikes a woman’s imagination, need not despair of finding a protectress.
3. His aunt, Mme. de Marcillac, had been presented at court, and had moved among the brightest heights of that lofty region. Suddenly the young man’s ambition discerned in those recollections of hers, which had been like nursery fairy tales to her nephews and nieces, the elements of a social success at least as important as the success which he had achieved at the École de Droit.
4. That is odd! Christophe drew the bolts,” said Eugène, going back to his room. “You have to sit up at night, it seems, if you really mean to know all that is going on about you in Paris.”
5. Dish up the rest of the mutton with the potatoes, and you can put the stewed pears on the table, those at five a penny.

6. A few moments later Mme. Vauquer came down, just in time to see the cat knock down a plate that covered a bowl of milk, and begin to lap in all haste.
By this time the table was set. Sylvie was boiling the milk, Mme. Vauquer was lighting a fire in the stove with some assistance from Vautrin, who kept on humming to himself...
7. “I wonder where the old heathen can have gone?” said Mme. Vauquer, setting the plates round the table.
“Who knows? He is up to all sorts of tricks.”
8. Père Goriot in the goldsmith’s shop in the Rue Dauphine at half-past eight this morning. They buy old spoons and forks and gold lace there, and Goriot sold a piece of silver plate for a good round sum.
9. He came back to this quarter of the world, to the Rue des Grès, and went into a money-lender’s house; everybody knows him, Gobseck, a stuck-up rascal, that would make dominoes out of his father’s bones; a Turk, a heathen, an old Jew, a Greek; it would be a difficult matter to rob him, for he puts all his coin into the Bank.”

10. Please see today's Various Notes #2.
11. ...if you know of any way of communicating with my father, please be sure and tell him that his affection and my mother’s honor are more to me than all the money in the world. If you can induce him to relent a little towards me, I will pray to God for you. You may be sure of my gratitude——”
12. At this juncture, Goriot, Mlle. Michonneau, and Poiret came downstairs together; possibly the scent of the gravy which Sylvie was making to serve with the mutton had announced breakfast.
13. I said ‘fisher,’ because kingfishers see a good deal more fun than kings.”
Quite true; I would much rather be the little careless bird than a king,” said Poiret the ditto-ist, “because——”
14. Please see today's Various Note #3.

15. If ever you explore a Parisian woman’s heart, you will find the money-lender first, and the lover afterwards.
16. The other women were furious. She must have enjoyed herself, if ever creature did! It is a true saying that there is no more beautiful sight than a frigate in full sail, a galloping horse, or a woman dancing.”
17. Just a Parisienne through and through!
18. Well,” he went on, “when folk of that kind get a notion into their heads, they cannot drop it. They must drink the water from some particular spring—it is stagnant as often as not; but they will sell their wives and families, they will sell their own souls to the devil to get it.
19. ...so the Countess exploits him—just the way of the gay world. The poor old fellow thinks of her and of nothing else. In all other respects you see he is a stupid animal; but get him on that subject, and his eyes sparkle like diamonds.
20. Then, was he fond of it?” said Eugène. “He cried while he was breaking up the cup and plate. I happened to see him by accident.”
"It was dear to him as his own life,” answered the widow.
"There! you see how infatuated the old fellow is!” cried Vautrin. “The woman yonder can coax the soul out of him.”

21. Poiret gave his arm to Mlle. Michonneau, and they went together to spend the two sunniest hours of the day in the Jardin des Plantes.
22. Scandalous, isn’t it? And his great booby of a son came in and took no notice of his sister.
23. And then they both went out of the room,” Mme. Couture went on, without heeding the worthy vermicelli maker’s exclamation...
24. That is the history of our call. Well, he has seen his daughter at any rate. How he can refuse to acknowledge her I cannot think, for they are as like as two peas.

25. The boarders dropped in one after another, interchanging greetings and the empty jokes that certain classes of Parisians regard as humorous and witty.
26. The diorama, a recent invention, which carried an optical illusion a degree further than panoramas, had given rise to a mania among art students for ending every word with rama.
Suggests that you view dioramas online.
27. Well, Monsieur-r-r Poiret,” said the employé from the Museum, “how is your health-orama?
28. There is an uncommon frozerama outside,” said Vautrin.
29. Here is his Excellency the Marquis de Rastignac, Doctor of the Law of Contraries,” cried Bianchon...

30. “I have studied Gall’s system, and I am sure she has the bump of Judas.”
31. Upon my word, that ghastly old maid looks just like one of the long worms that will gnaw a beam through, give them time enough.”
32. Aha! here is a magnificent soupe-au-rama,” cried Poiret as Christophe came in bearing the soup with cautious heed.
"I beg your pardon, sir,” said Mme. Vauquer; “it is soupe aux choux.”
All the young men roared with laughter.
33. A Goriorama,” said the art student, “because you couldn’t see a thing in it.”
34. Père Goriot, seated at the lower end of the table, close to the door through which the servants entered, raised his face; he had smelt at a scrap of bread that lay under his table napkin, an old trick acquired in his commercial capacity, that still showed itself at times.
Suggests that pets enjoy eating scraps.

35. Well,” Madame Vauquer cried in sharp tones, that rang above the rattle of spoons and plates and the sound of other voices, “and is there anything the matter with the bread?”
36. In the next scene, Bianchon begins a quick language lesson.
37. [Then,] the poor old man thus suddenly attacked was for a moment too bewildered to do anything. Christophe carried off his plate, thinking that he had finished his soup, so that when Goriot had pushed back his cap from his eyes his spoon encountered the table. Every one burst out laughing.
38. Young men at his age take no account of obstacles nor of dangers; they see success in every direction: imagination has free play, and turns their lives into a romance; they are saddened or discouraged by the collapse of one of the wild visionary schemes that have no existence save in their heated fancy. If youth were not ignorant and timid, civilization would be impossible.
39. Every compartment in his brain which he had thought to find so full of wit was bolted fast; he grew positively stupid.

40. He meant to know whether this Goriot was really the Goriot that he knew. His heart beat unwontedly fast; he remembered Vautrin’s hideous insinuations.
41. Whereupon this insolent being, who, doubtless, had a right to be insolent, sang an Italian trill, and went towards the window where Eugène was standing, moved thereto quite as much by a desire to see the student’s face as by a wish to look out into the courtyard.
42. Rastignac turned abruptly and saw her standing before him, coquettishly dressed in a loose white cashmere gown with knots of rose-colored ribbon here and there; her hair was carelessly coiled about her head, as is the wont of Parisian women in the morning ; there was a soft fragrance about her—doubtless she was fresh from a bath;—her graceful form seemed more flexible, her beauty more luxuriant. Her eyes glistened.
43. Mme. de Restaud fled into the next room without waiting for Eugène to speak; shaking out the skirts of her dressing-gown in her flight, so that she looked like a white butterfly, and Maxime hurried after her.
44. "Delighted to have an opportunity of making your acquaintance,” he said.

45. I thought that the Marcillacs were extinct,” the Comte de Restaud said, addressing Eugène.
“Yes, they are extinct,” answered the law student. “My greatuncle, the Chevalier de Rastignac, married the heiress of the Marcillac family. They had only one daughter, who married the Maréchal de Clarimbault, Mme. de Beauséant’s grandfather on the mother’s side. We are the younger branch of the family, and the younger branch is all the poorer because my great-uncle, the Vice-Admiral, lost all that he had in the King’s service. The Government during the Revolution refused to admit our claims when the Compagnie des Indesz was liquidated.”
46. She rose to her feet and signed to Maxime to follow her, mirth and mischief in her whole attitude, and the two went in the direction of the boudoir. The morganatic couple (to use a convenient German expression which has no exact equivalent) had reached the door, when the Count interrupted himself in his talk with Eugène.
47. "Just wait a moment, Maxime!” the Count called after him.
48. She followed Maxime into the little drawing-room, where they sat together sufficiently long to feel sure that Rastignac had taken his leave.
49. What do you think, dear?” cried the Count...

50. She broke off, glanced at the piano as if some fancy had crossed her mind, and asked, “Are you fond of music, M. de Rastignac?”
Do you sing?” she cried, going to the piano, and, sitting down before it, she swept her fingers over the keyboard from end to end. R-r-r-r-ah!
"No, madame.” The Comte de Restaud walked to and fro.
"That is a pity; you are without one great means of success.—Ca-ro, ca-a-ro, ca-a-a-ro, non du-bi-ta-re,” sang the Countess.
51. He wished the earth would open and swallow him. Mme. de Restaud’s expression was reserved and chilly, her eyes had grown indifferent, and sedulousy avoided meeting those of the unlucky student of law.
52. ...and stepped into the cab; a few stray petals of orange blossom and scraps of wire bore witness to its recent occupation by a wedding party.
53. Doubtless she will know the secret of the criminal relation between that handsome woman and the old rat without a tail.
54. If you set yourself to carry the heights of heaven, you must face God.

55. In another moment the law student was enlightened as to the cause of their hilarity ; he felt the full force of the contrast between his equipage and one of the smartest broughams in Paris; a coachman, with powdered hair, seemed to find it difficult to hold a pair of spirited horses, who stood chafing the bit.
56. Harness five bullocks to your cart!” probably because you will need them all to pull..
57. Until this evening,” said Mme. de Beauséant, turning her head to give the Marquis a glance. “We are going to the Bouffons, are we not?”
“I cannot go,” he said, with his fingers on the door handle.
58. Omitted.
59. He thought that now Mme. de Beauséant would give him her attention; but suddenly she sprang forward, rushed to a window in the gallery, and watched M. d’Ajuda step into his carriage; she listened to the order that he gave, and heard the Swiss repeat it to the coachman: "To M. de Rochefide’s house.”

60. In this book as well as many others that I’ve read, the author doesn’t focus on storylines, but rather, centers the novel around several different events: discussions in the kitchen, the living room or a park, for example.
61. If you knew how my family are situated,” he went on, “you would love to play the part of a beneficent fairy godmother who graciously clears the obstacles from the path of her protégé.
62. Yes, indeed. I am a novice, and my blunders will set every one against me, if you do not give me your counsel.
63. Have you any news of General de Montriveau?
64. What was the blunder that you made, monsieur?” she asked. “The poor boy is only just launched into the world, Antoinette, so that he understands nothing of all this that we are speaking of. Be merciful to him, and let us finish our talk to-morrow.

65. ...he went on, turning to the Duchess with a mixture of humility and malice in his manner, “that as yet I am only a poor devil of a student, very much alone in the world, and very poor——”
66. "Bah!” said Eugène. “I am only two-and-twenty, and I must make up my mind to the drawbacks of my time of life."
67. "Yes, certainly; the old man had two daughters; he dotes on them, so to speak, though they will scarcely acknowledge him.”
68. "Didn’t the second daughter marry a banker with a German name?” the Vicomtesse asked, turning to Mme. de Langeais, “a Baron de Nucingen? And her name is Delphine, is it not? Isn’t she a fair-haired woman who has a side-box at the Opera? She comes sometimes to the Bouffons, and laughs loudly to attract attention.”
69. “...a kind father who gave them each five or six hundred thousand francs, it is said, to secure their happiness by marrying them well; while he only kept eight or ten thousand livres a year for himself, thinking that his daughters would always be his daughters, thinking that in them he would live his life twice over again, that in their houses he should find two homes, where he would be loved and looked up to, and made much of."

70. Yes, that Moriot was once President of his Section during the Revolution. He was in the secret of the famous scarcity of grain, and laid the foundation of his fortune in those days by selling flour for ten times its cost. He had as much flour as he wanted.
71. He settled one of them under Restaud’s roof, and grafted the other into the Nucingen family tree, the Baron de Nucingen being a rich banker who had turned Royalist. You can quite understand that so long as Bonaparte was Emperor, the two sons-in-law could manage to put up with the old Ninety-three...
(1:15pm) 72. ...the silence remained unbroken till the law student became almost paralyzed with embarrassment, and was equally afraid to go or stay or speak a word.
73. If you will introduce her to me, you will be her darling, her Benjamin; she will idolize you.
74. As soon as she singles you out, other women will begin to lose their heads about you, and her enemies and rivals and intimate friends will all try to take you from her. There are women who will fall in love with a man because another woman has chosen him; like the city madams, poor things, who copy our millinery, and hope thereby to acquire our manners. You will have a success, and in Paris success is everything; it is the key of power.

75. If the women credit you with wit and talent, the men will follow suit so long as you do not undeceive them yourself. There will be nothing you may not aspire to; you will go everywhere, and you will find out what the world is—an assemblage of fools and knaves. But you must be neither the one nor the other. I am giving you my name like Ariadne’s clue of threadah to take with you into this labyrinth; make no unworthy use of it,” she said, with a queenly glance and curve of her throat; “give it back to me unsullied. And now, go; leave me. We women also have our battles to fight.”
76. On the one hand, he beheld a vision of social life in its most charming and refined forms, of quick-pulsed youth, of fair, impassioned faces invested with all the charm of poetry, framed in a marvelous setting of luxury or art; and, on the other hand, he saw a sombre picture, the miry verge beyond these faces, in which passion was extinct and nothing was left of the drama but the cords and pulleys and bare mechanism.
77. Rastignac determined to open two parallel trenches, so as to insure success; he would be a learned doctor of law and a man of fashion. Clearly he was still a child! Those two lines are asymptotes, and will never meet.
78. Vautrin’s glance at Rastignac was half-paternal, half-contemptuous. “Puppy!” it seemed to say; “I should make one mouthful of him!” Then he answered:
79. Say nothing about this to my father; perhaps he might make objections, and unless I have the money, I may be led to put an end to myself, and so escape the clutches of despair.

80. Victory for yet a few more days was with the great lady, the most poetic figure in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; and the marriage of the Marquis d‘Ajuda-Pinto with Mlle. de Rochefide was postponed.
81. Rastignac made up his mind that he must learn the whole of Goriot’s previous history; he would come to his bearings before attempting to board the Maison de Nucingen. The results of his inquiries may be given briefly as follows:—
82. In the days before the Revolution, Jean-Joachim Goriot was simply a workman in the employ of a vermicelli maker. He was a skilful, thrifty workman, sufficiently enterprising to buy his master’s business when the latter fell a chance victim to the disturbances of 1789.
83. This prudent step had led to success; the foundations of his fortune were laid in the time of the Scarcity (real or artificial), when the price of grain of all kinds rose enormously in Paris. People used to fight for bread at the bakers’ doors; while other persons went to the grocers’ shops and bought Italian paste foods without brawling over it.
84. Goriot was an authority second to none on all questions relating to corn, flour, and “middlings”; and the production, storage, and quality of grain. He could estimate the yield of the harvest, and foresee market prices; he bought his cereals in Sicily, and imported Russian wheat. Any one who had heard him hold forth on the regulations that control the importation and exportation of grain, who had seen his grasp of the subject, his clear insight into the principles involved, his appreciation of weak points in the way that the system worked, would have thought that here was the stuff of which a minister is made.

85. Take him from his dark little counting-house, and he became once more the rough, slow-witted workman, a man who cannot understand a piece of reasoning, who is indifferent to all intellectual pleasures, and falls asleep at the play, a Parisian Dolibom in short, against whose stupidity other minds are powerless.
D’Oliban was a foolish father in a comedy by Pierre-Jean-Baptiste Choudard-Desforges (1746-1806).
86. Goriot had felt the charm of a lovely and sensitive nature, which, in its delicate strength, was the very opposite of his own.
87. Join love thereto, the warmth of gratitude that all generous souls feel for the source of their pleasures, and you have the explanation of many strange incongruities in human nature.
88. After seven years of unclouded happiness, Goriot lost his wife. It was very unfortunate for him.
89. She was beginning to gain an ascendency over him in other ways; possibly she might have brought that barren soil under cultivation, she might have widened his ideas and given other directions to his thoughts.

90. But when she was dead, the instinct of fatherhood developed in him till it almost became a mania. All the affection balked by death seemed to turn to his daughters, and he found full satisfaction for his heart in loving them.
91. Omitted.
92. CHAPTER 2 Entry on the Social Scene
93. His mother’s letter ran as follows:
— “My Dear Child,—
I am sending you the money that you asked for. Make a good use of it. Even to save your life I could not raise so large a sum a second time without your father’s knowledge, and there would be trouble about it. We should be obliged to mortgage the land.
94. To what courses are you committed? You are going to appear to be something that you are not, and your whole life and success depends upon this? You are about to see a society into which you cannot enter without rushing into expense that you cannot afford, without losing precious time that is needed for your studies. Ah! my dear Eugène, believe your mother, crooked ways cannot lead to great ends. Patience and endurance are the two qualities most needed in your position.

95. If I tremble, it is because I am a mother, but my prayers and blessings will be with you at every step. Be very careful, dear boy. You must have a man’s prudence, for it lies with you to shape the destinies of five others who are dear to you, and must look to you. Yes, our fortunes depend upon you, and your success is ours. We all pray to God to be with you in all that you do
96. Omitted.
97. Omitted.
98. By the time Eugène had finished the letter he was in tears. He thought of Père Goriot crushing his silver keepsake into a shapeless mass before he sold it to meet his daughter’s bill of exchange.
6:10pm 99. Rastignac opened his sister’s letter; its simplicity and kindness revived his heart.
“Your letter came just at the right time, dear brother. Agathe and I had thought of so many different ways of spending our money, that we did not know what to buy with it; and now you have come in, and, like the servant who upset all the watches that belonged to the King of Spain, you have restored harmony..."

100. I shall make a bad wife, I am afraid, I am too fond of spending. I had bought two sashes and a nice little stiletto for piercing eyelet-holes in my stays, trifles that I really did not want, so that I have less than that slow-coach Agathe, who is so economical, and hoards her money like a magpie.
101. She had two hundred francs! And I have only one hundred and fifty!
102. Don’t you think that happiness has made us lighter?’ Agathe said. We said all sorts of things, which I shall not tell you, Monsieur le Parisien, because they were all about you. Oh, we love you dearly, dear brother; it was all summed up in those few words.
103. Moreover, they list not to learn naught, wherefore the Papal Nuncio (called of the commonalty, M. le Cure) threateneth them with excommunication, since that they neglect the sacred canons of grammatical construction for the construction of other canon, deadly engines made of the stems of elder.
104. [A young girl], guileless where she herself is in question, and full of foresight for me,—she is like a heavenly angel forgiving the strange incomprehensible sins of earth.

105. The young man went down to breakfast with the indefinable air which the consciousness of the possession of money gives to youth. No sooner are the coins slipped into a student’s pocket than his wealth, in imagination at least, is piled into a fantastic column, which affords him a moral support.
Suggests that money can enliven people, and make them happy.
106. A poor student snatches at every chance pleasure much as a dog runs all sorts of risks to steal a bone, cracking it and sucking the marrow as he flies from pursuit...
107. An idea, of course, gains in force by the energy with which it is expressed; it strikes where the brain sends it, by a law as mathematically exact as the law that determines the course of a shell from a mortar.
108. Sometimes, in an impressible nature, the idea works havoc, but there are, no less, natures so robustly protected, that this sort of projectile falls flat and harmless on skulls of triple brass, as cannon-shot against solid masonry; then there are flaccid and spongy-fibred natures into which ideas from without sink like spent bullets into the earthworks of a redoubt.
109. Nothing escaped his mental vision; he was lynx-eyed; in him the mental powers of perception, which seem like duplicates of the senses, had the mysterious power of swift projection that astonishes us in intellects of a high order—slingers who are quick to detect the weak spot in any armor.

110. "We must go upstairs, my pet,” said Mme. Couture; “it is no business of ours.”
111. "Oh! monsieur,” cried Victorine, clasping her hands as she spoke, “why do you want to kill M. Eugène?”
112. “When I have given you ocular demonstration of the fact that I can put a bullet through the ace on a card five times running at thirty-five paces,” he said, “that won’t take away your appetite, I suppose? You look to me to be inclined to be a trifle quarrelsome this morning, and as if you would rush on your death like a blockhead.”
113. Here was a strange being who, a moment ago, had talked of killing him, and now posed as his protector.
114. I am what you call an artist. I have read Benvenuto Cellini’s Memoirs, such as you see me; and, what is more, an Italian.

115. Now I, for instance, can hit the ace in the middle of a card five times running, send one bullet after another through the same hole, and at thirty-five paces, moreover!
116. I will come for you this evening!’ and she betakes herself to her toilette as a cat licks its whiskers over a saucer of milk.
117. Then we have our ambitions; we are connected with the Beauséants, and we go afoot through the streets; we want to be rich, and we have not a penny; we eat Mme. Vauquer’s messes, and we like grand dinners in the Faubourg Saint-Germain; we sleep on a truckle-bed, and dream of a mansion!
118. So far so good.
119. You will see women who sell themselves body and soul to drive in a carriage belonging to the son of a peer of France, who has a right to drive in the middle rank at Longchamp.

120. Then, some night after sundry grimacings, comes the confession...
121. I am like Don Quixote, I have a fancy for defending the weak against the strong.
122. If laws and principles were fixed and invariable, nations would not change them as readily as we change our shirts.
123. There, out with it, fire away! I forgive you; it is quite natural at your age. I was like that myself once. Only remember this, you will do worse things yourself some day.
124. Keep in mind what I want to do for you. I will give you a fortnight. The offer is still open.

125. To sum it up, that outlaw has told me more about virtue than all I have learned from men and books.
126. Vautrin has put before me all that comes after ten years of marriage.
127. Very well then, she is going to the Maréchale Carigliano’s ball on Monday.
128. ...the material nature of our sentiments in the relations which they create between human beings and other animals. What physiognomist is as quick to discern character as a dog is to discover from a stranger’s face whether this is a friend or no? Those by words-“atoms,” “affinities”—are facts surviving in modern languages for the confusion of philosophic wiseacres who amuse themselves by winnowing the chaff of language to find its grammatical roots.
129. This friendship had, however, scarcely reached the stage at which confidences are made.

130. I wait, for they always go back the same way, and then I see them again; the fresh air has done them good and brought color into their cheeks; all about me people say 'What a beautiful woman that is!’ and it does my heart good to hear them. Their happiness is my life.
131. The student was about to go out to walk in the Garden of the Tuileries until the hour when he could venture to appear in Mme. de Beauséant’s drawing-room.
132. This almost admiring attention gave a new turn to his thoughts.
133. Eugène lounged about the walks till it was nearly five o’clock, then he went to Mme. de Beauséant, and received one of the terrible blows against which young hearts are defenceless.
134. ...in the phrase, in the tones of her voice, in her glance and bearing. He caught a glimpse of the iron hand beneath the velvet glove—the personality, the egoism beneath the manner, the wood beneath the varnish.

135. The kindness which knits two souls together is as rare, as divine, and as little understood as the passion of love, for both love and kindness are the lavish generosity of noble natures.
136. So it is every one for himself?
137. To have a mistress and an almost royal position is a sign of power,” he said to himself.
138. See Various Notes #7.
139. ...I also am beginning to talk nonsense; but let me talk.

140. See Various Notes #8.
141. The student meanwhile walked back from the Theatre-Italiens to the Rue Neuve-Sainte-Geneviève, making the most delightful plans as he went.
142. It is by a succession of such like transactions that men sink at last to the level of the relaxed morality of this epoch, when there have never been so few of those who square their courses with their theories...
143. ...the tones of her voice still exerted a spell over him; he had forgotten nothing; his walk perhaps heated his imagination by sending a glow of warmth through his veins. He knocked unceremoniously at Goriot’s door.
144. I can’t quite explain to you how it is; I am not used to stringing words together properly, but it all lies there——” he said, tapping his heart.

145. Père Goriot drank in every word that Eugène let fall, and watched him as a dog watches his master’s slightest movement.
146. “I am tormented by temptations.” “What kind? There is a cure for temptation.” “What?” “Yielding to it.” “You laugh, but you don’t know what it is all about. Have you read Rousseau?”
147. I learned reading Balzac that some people have a mania or an obsession with their job.


1. Well, then, Bianchon, I am mad; bring me to my senses. I have two sisters as beautiful and innocent as angels, and I want them to be happy.
2. I have heard from my father that you are fond of Italian music. I shall be delighted if you will do me the pleasure of accepting a seat in my box. La Fodor and Pellegrini will sing on Saturday, so I am sure that you will not refuse me. M. de Nucingen and I shall be pleased if you will dine with us; we shall be quite by ourselves.
3. a remedy for headache, indigestion, and all other diseases affecting the throat, eyes, and ears!” cried Vautrin...
4. All the crowned heads of Europe, including the Gr-r-rand Duke of Baden, have been anxious to get a sight of it. Walk up! walk up! gentlemen! Pay at the desk as you go in! Strike up the music there! Brooum, la, la, trinn! la, la, boum! boum! Mister Clarinette, there you are out of tune!” he added gruffly...

5. Goodness! what an amusing man!” said Mme. Vauquer to Mme. Couture; “I should never feel dull with him in the house.”
6. This burlesque of Vautrin’s was the signal for an outburst of merriment, and under cover of jokes and laughter Eugène caught a glance from Mlle. Taillefer; she had leaned over to say a few words in Mme. Couture’s ear.
7. At this, all eyes turned to the old vermicelli maker; he was gazing at Eugène with something like envy in his eyes.
8. We will dine together tête-à-tête, and afterwards we will go to hear the most exquisite music.
9. She surrendered it to him; he even felt the pressure of her fingers in one of the spasmodic clutches that betray terrible agitation.

10. Go up into one of the gaming-houses—I do not know where they are, but there are some near the Palais-Royal. Try your luck with the hundred francs at a game they call roulette; lose it all, or bring me back six thousand francs. I will tell you about my troubles when you come back.
11. It is because I was proud, and scorned to speak. We are so young, so artless when our married life begins! I never could bring myself to ask my husband for money; the words would have made my lips bleed, I did not dare to ask; I spent my savings first, and then the money that my poor father gave me, then I ran into debt.
12. Half the women in Paris lead such lives as mine; they live in apparent luxury, and in their souls are tormented by anxiety.
13. "Come and dine with me on opera evenings, and we will go to the Italiens afterwards,” she said.
14. My good neighbor, why did not you come to tell me of her difficulty? How had you the heart to go and risk her poor little hundred francs at play?

15. ...like Le Distrait of La Bruyere, he had descended so far as to make his bed in a ditch; but (also like Le Distrait) he himself was uncontaminated as yet by the mire that stained his garments.
16. He had fathomed the young man’s thoughts, and felt that a crisis was at hand. Rastignac was, in fact, in a dilemma, which many another young man must have known.
17. Whatever her reasons may have been, Delphine was playing with Rastignac, and took pleasure in playing with him, doubtless because she felt sure of his love...


1. Don’t make up your mind on the spur of the moment; you are a little thrown off your balance just now.
2. You are in debt, and I want you to come over to my way of thinking after sober reflection, and not in a fit of passion or desperation.
3. It was one of those informal gatherings where tea and little cakes are handed round, but where it is possible to lose six thousand francs at whist in the course of a night.
4. "You must see,” said Eugène, struggling to hide a convulsive tremor, “that after what has passed between us, I cannot possibly lay myself under any obligation to you.”
5. "You are a fine young fellow, honorable, brave as a lion, and as gentle as a young girl. You would be a fine haul for the devil! I like youngsters of your sort. Get rid of one or two more prejudices, and you will see the world as it is."

6. You should no sooner form a wish than it should be realized to the full; you should have all your desires—honors, wealth, or women. Civilization should flow with milk and honey for you. You should be our pet and favorite, our Benjamin. We would all work ourselves to death for you with pleasure; every obstacle should be removed from your path.
7. Well, M. de Turenne, quite as honorable a man as you take yourself to be, had some little private transactions with bandits, and did not feel that his honor was tarnished.
8. “Take those bits of paper and write across this,” he added, producing a piece of stamped paper, “Accepted the sum of three thousand five hundred francs due this day twelvemonth, and fill in the date. The rate of interest is stiff enough to silence any scruples on your part; it gives you the right to call me a Jew. You can call quits with me on the score of gratitude. I am quite willing that you should despise me to-day, because I am sure that you will have a kindlier feeling towards me later on. You will find out fathomless depths in my nature, enormous and concentrated forces that weaklings call vices, but you will never find me base or ungrateful. In short, I am neither a pawn nor a bishop, but a castle, a tower of strength, my boy.”
9. You will grow used to regarding men as common soldiers who have made up their minds to lose their lives for some self-constituted king.
10. “A man, in short, is everything to me, or just nothing at all. Less than nothing if his name happens to be Poiret: you can crush him like a bug, he is flat and he is offensive. But a man is a god when he is like you; he is not a machine covered with a skin, but a theatre in which the greatest sentiments are displayed—great thoughts and feelings—and for these, and these only, I live. A sentiment—what is that but the whole world in a thought? Look at Père Goriot. For him, his two girls are the whole universe; they are the clue by which he finds his way through creation. Well, for my own part, I have fathomed the depths of life, there is only one real sentiment—comradeship between man and man. Pierre and Jaffier, that is my passion."

11. "Well, then, it is all settled. You will marry. Both of us carry our point. Mine is made of iron, and will never soften, he! he!”
12. Vautrin went out. He would not wait to hear the student’s repudiation, he wished to put Eugène at his ease.
13. He may do as he likes; I shall not marry Mlle. Taillefer, that is certain,” said Eugène to himself.
14. For some days the Countess had paid more and more attention to a young man whose every step seemed a triumphal progress in the great world; it seemed to her that he might be a formidable power before long.

15. “I know, I know,” Vautrin broke in. “You are still acting like a child. You are making mountains out of molehills at the outset.”
16. CHAPTER 3 - Trompe-la-Mort
17. Two days later, Poiret and Mlle. Michonneau were sitting together on a bench in the sun.
18. ...who would think it likely that such a man would continue to lend an ear to this supposed independent gentleman of the Rue de Buffon...
19. Makes a reference to the Calife de Bagdad - In Le Calife de Bagdad (1800), a one-act comic opera by François-Adrien Boieldieu, the calif Isaoun goes by the magical name of II Bondocani as he roams the streets of the city at night incognito.

20. Pronounce the words “His Excellency,” and these poor folk will forthwith proceed to do what they would not do for their own interests.
21. Passive obedience is as well known in a Government department as in the army itself; and the administrative system silences consciences, annihilates the individual, and ends (give it time enough) by fashioning a man into a vise or a thumbscrew, and he becomes part of the machinery of Government.
22. Very well, his Excellency is at this moment absolutely certain that the so-called Vautrin, who lodges at the Maison Vauquer, is a convict who escaped from penal servitude at Toulon, where he is known by the nickname Trompe-la-Mort.
23. It is composed of the most distinguished of the men who are sent straight to the Assize Courts when they come up for trial. They know the Code too well to risk their necks when they are nabbed.
24. Then it is not quite as easy to make off with a lot of money as it is to run away with a young lady of family.

25. The old boy ought to pay people handsomely for listening to him.—Trompe-la-Mort, when he came back here,” he went on aloud, “slipped into the skin of an honest man; he turned up disguised as a decent Parisian citizen, and took up his quarters in an unpretending lodging-house. He is cunning, that he is! You don’t catch him napping.
26. “And suppose that the Minister were to make a mistake and get hold of the real Vautrin, he would put every one’s back up among the business men in Paris, and public opinion would be against him. M. le Préfet de Police is on slippery ground; he has enemies. They would take advantage of any mistake."
27. I will send you a little bottle containing a dose that will send a rush of blood to the head; it will do him no harm whatever, but he will fall down as if he were in a fit.
28. Bianchon, on his way back from Cuvier’s lecture, overheard the sufficiently striking nickname of Trompe-la-Mort, and caught the celebrated chief detective’s “Done!”
29. By the time they reached the Maison Vauquer he had tacked together a whole string of examples and quotations more or less irrelevant to the subject in hand, which led him to give a full account of his own deposition in the case of the Sieur Ragoulleau versus Dame Morin, when he had been summoned as a witness for the defence.

30. "I am talking about Mlle. Victorine,” said Mlle. Michonneau, as she entered Poiret’s room with an absent air, “and you answer, ‘Mme. Morin.’ Who may Mme. Morin be?”
31. To Victorine it seemed as if she heard an angel’s voice, that heaven was opening above her; the Maison Vauquer took strange and wonderful hues, like a stage fairy-palace. She loved and she was beloved; at any rate, she believed that she was loved; and what woman would not likewise have believed after seeing Rastignac’s face and listening to the tones of his voice during that hour snatched under the Argus eyes of the Maison Vauquer?
32. He had trampled on his conscience; he knew that he was doing wrong, and did it deliberately...
5:45pm 33. The near neighborhood of the stout Sylvie, who might invade that glorified room at any moment, only made these first tokens of love more ardent, more eloquent, more entrancing than the noblest deeds done for love’s sake in the most famous romances.
34. "You are born to command, you are strong, you stand firm on your feet, you are game! I respect you.”

35. It is a long while since I have heard them talk like that, a long, long time since she took my arm as she did to-day. Yes, indeed, it must be quite ten years since I walked side by side with one of my girls.
36. I did not feel old once during that delightful morning; I felt as light as a feather.
37. He went to the chimney-piece, saw the little square case, opened it, and found a watch of Breguet’s make wrapped in paper, on which these words were written:
"I want you to think of me every hour, because...
“Delphine.”
38. That last word doubtless contained an allusion to some scene that had taken place between them. Eugène felt touched. Inside the gold watch-case his arms had been wrought in enamel. The chain, the key, the workmanship and design of the trinket were all such as he had imagined, for he had long coveted such a possession.
39. "Aha! he looked very foolish when my attorney let him know where he was. He says he idolizes my daughter, does he? He had better let her alone, or I will kill him. To think that my Delphine is his”—he heaved a sigh—“it is enough to make me murder him, but it would not be manslaughter to kill that animal; he is a pig with a calf’s brains.—You will take me with you, will you not?”

40. "Mlle. Michonneau,” he went on, seeing that the elderly spinster was scrutinizing him intently, “have you any objection to some feature in my face, that you are making those lynx eyes at me?
41. Oh! Poiret shall pose as Poiret. He can be a garden god!” cried Vautrin; “his name means a pear——”
42. "What stuff you are all talking!” said Mme. Vauquer; “you would do better to treat us to your Bordeaux; I see a glimpse of a bottle there. It would keep us all in a good humor, and it is good for the stomach besides.”
43. The Bordeaux wine circulated; the dinner table became a livelier scene than ever, and the fun grew fast and furious. Imitations of the cries of various animals mingled with the loud laughter; the Museum official having taken it into his head to mimic a cat-call rather like the caterwauling of the animal in question, eight voices simultaneously struck up with the following variations:
44. "Hush, my good neighbor,” cried Mme. Couture, “you are saying such things——”

45. "No, you can get some one else to lace you. I am not going to be your murderer. It’s a rash thing to do, and might cost you your life.”
46. The old lady looked at the girl. Victorine’s innocent, pathetic face, so radiant with the new happiness that had befallen her, called to mind some naive work of mediaeval art, when the painter neglected the accessories, reserving all the magic of his brush for the quiet, austere outlines and ivory tints of the face, which seems to have caught something of the golden glory of heaven.
47. “M. Vautrin is a worthy man; he reminds me a little of my late husband, poor dear M. Couture, rough but kind-hearted; his bark is worse than his bite.”
48. ...pages to Bernardin de Saint-Pierre (good soul), who wrote Paul et Virginie - Sentimental novel published in 1787; Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a disciple of philosopher and writer Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778).
49. There is something touching and attractive to me about this young man, madame,” he continued; “I know that his nature is in harmony with his face. Just look, the head of a cherub on an angel’s shoulder! He deserves to be loved. If I were a woman, I would die (no—not such a fool), I would live for him.”

50. Yes, of course, we are serving our country, and we are very hardly used too. We do society very great services that are not recognized. In fact, a superior man must rise above vulgar prejudices, and a Christian must resign himself to the mishaps that doing right entails, when right is done in an out-of-the-way style. Paris is Paris, you see!
51. I know now that you have never loved before. What can have happened? Anxiety has taken hold of me. I would have come myself to find out what had happened, if I had not feared to betray the secrets of my heart.
52. The escaped convict cast a glance at Eugène, a cold and fascinating glance; men gifted with this magnetic power can quell furious lunatics in a madhouse by such a glance, it is said. Eugene shook in every limb.
53. Rastignac was glad of an excuse to leave that den of horrors, his hurry for the doctor was nothing but a flight.
54. Just go and see if you can find some ether,” said Mlle. Michonneau to Mme. Vauquer...

55. I must say that this is an eventful day. Lord! that man can’t have had a stroke; he is as white as curds.
56. Rastignac had gone out for the sake of physical exertion; he wanted to breathe the air, he felt stifled.
57. Omitted.
58. He turned pale, and staggered back. He turned his magnetic glance, like a ray of vivid light, on Mlle. Michonneau; the old maid shrank and trembled under the influence of that strong will, and collapsed into a chair.
59. You are not in the politest of humors to-day, he remarked to the chief, and he held out his hands to the policemen with a jerk of his head.
"Gentlemen,” he said, “put on the bracelets or the handcuffs. I call on those present to witness that I make no resistance."
60. "He expects you to go straight at full speed, in which case, you should go left or right."
61. "Some people can understand ideas, but not grammatical concepts."


1. “Gentlemen,” he said, “put on the bracelets or the handcuffs. I call on those present to witness that I make no resistance.”
2. The brand upon our shoulders is less shameful than the brand set on your hearts, you flabby members of a society rotten to the core…Our little bargain still holds good, dear boy; you can accept any time you like! Do you understand?
3. The convicts’ prison, its language and customs, its sudden sharp transitions from the humorous to the horrible, its appalling grandeur, its triviality and its dark depths, were all revealed in turn by the speaker’s discourse; he seemed to be no longer a man, but the type and mouthpiece of a degenerate race, a brutal, supple, clear-headed race of savages. In one moment Collin became the poet of an inferno, wherein all thoughts and passions that move human nature (save repentance) find a place.
4. Yes, I would have given six thousand francs to save myself an inconvenient journey and some loss of money...

5. Down yonder they will all turn themselves inside out to help their general—their good Trompe-la-Mort—to get clear away.
6. Is there a single one among you that can say, as I can, that he has ten thousand brothers ready to do anything for him?
7. As soon as the police, soldiers, and detectives had left the house, Sylvie, who was rubbing her mistress’ temples with vinegar, looked round at the bewildered lodgers.
8. "Well,” said she, “he was a man, he was, for all that.”
My interpretation of this is, "He is a man, what do you expect him to do?"
9. A smothered murmur filled the room; it was so unanimous, that it seemed as if the same feeling of loathing had pitched all the voices in one key.
Reminds us that we have different voices, that is, voices of different keys and different pitches.

10. Eugene started forward at the words, as if he meant to spring upon her and wring her neck.
11. "Come, now,” she said; “you would not be the ruin of my establishment, would you, eh? There’s a dear, kind soul.
12. "Go and lodge with the Buneaud; the wine would give a cat the colic, and the food is cheap and nasty.”
13. “Every one to his taste—free rendering from Virgil,” said the tutor.
14. Mlle. Michonneau made a movement as if to take Poiret’s arm, with an appealing glance that he could not resist.

15. "Four rooms to let! and five lodgers gone! ...”
She sat up, and seemed about to burst into tears.
16. Indifference to the fate of others is a matter of course in this selfish world, which, on the morrow of a tragedy, seeks among the events of Paris for a fresh sensation for its daily renewed appetite, and this indifference soon gained the upper hand.
17. The old man’s voice was full of unwonted happiness, but Eugène had been shaken by so many emotions that the words sounded in his ears like words spoken in a dream.
18. "You are one of those beings whom we cannot choose but to adore for ever,” he said in her ear. “Yes, the deeper and truer love is, the more mysterious and closely veiled it should be...
19. "Ah! ah! you say me nay already,” she said with arch imperiousness, and a charming little pout of the lips, a woman’s way of laughing away scruples.

20. But Eugène had submitted so lately to that solemn self-questioning, and Vautrin’s arrest had so plainly shown him the depths of the pit that lay ready to his feet, that the instincts of generosity and honor had been strengthened in him...
21. “do you want me to die of joy? My poor heart will break!"
22. Eugène sat dumb with amazement in the presence of this inexhaustible love; he gazed at Goriot, and his face betrayed the artless admiration which shapes the beliefs of youth.
23. Makes a reference to The Lament of Tasso, by George Gordon, Lord Byron (1788-1824), which describes the tribulations of the great sixteenth-century Italian poet Torquato Tasso; it was translated into French in 1830.
24. “Only three cups of coffee in the morning, Sylvie! Oh dear! to have your house emptied in this way is enough to break your heart."

25. "What can she have done to him to make him so fond of her? He runs about after her like a little dog.”
26. "Lord!” said Sylvie, flinging up her head, “those old maids are up to all sorts of tricks.”
27. "...but there, it is the end of the world, that is just what it is!”
28. True, she still wore a doleful countenance, as might be expected of a woman who had lost all her lodgers, and whose manner of life had been suddenly revolutionized, but she had all her wits about her.
29. Rastignac waited in her boudoir, enduring as best he might the natural impatience of an eager temperament for the reward desired and withheld for a year. Such sensations are only known once in a life.

30. But the student had not yet reached the time of life when a man surveys the whole course of existence and judges it soberly.
31. "Eugene,” she went on, lowering her voice, “she will go to dispel ugly suspicions.
32. 6:15am Great heavens! on what does a woman’s character and the honor of a whole family depend!
33. Eugène went back to the Maison Vauquer, never doubting but that he should leave it for good on the morrow; and on the way he fell to dreaming the bright dreams of youth, when the cup of happiness has left its sweetness on the lips.
34. CHAPTER 4 The Father’s Death

35. He made no more noise, and stood still to listen, thinking that she should have no secrets from him; but after the first few words, the conversation between the father and daughter was so strange and interesting that it absorbed all his attention.
36. He asked my pardon for his conduct; he has given me my liberty; I am free to act as I please on condition that I leave him to carry on my business in my name.
37. "I scolded, I did all I could to drive him to desperation, so as to find out more. He showed me his ledgers—he broke down and cried at last. I never saw a man in such a state. He lost his head completely, talked of killing himself, and raved till I felt quite sorry for him.”
38. "Do you really believe that silly rubbish?” ... cried her father. “It was all got up for your benefit."
39. In a previous chapter, briefly discusses playing with a German top.

40. I have had to do with Germans in the way of business; honest and straightforward they are pretty sure to be, but when with their simplicity and frankness they are sharpers and humbugs as well, they are the worst rogues of all.
41. Your husband is taking advantage of you. As soon as pressure is brought to bear on him he shams dead; he means to be more the master under your name than in his own. He will take advantage of the position to secure himself against the risks of business...I know something about business still.
42. Does that fellow really take us for idiots? Does he imagine that I could stand the idea of your being without fortune, without bread, for forty-eight hours? I would not stand it a day.
43. What! I have worked hard for forty years, carried sacks on my back, and sweated and pinched and saved all my life for you, my darlings, for you who made the toil and every burden borne for you seem light; and now, my fortune, my whole life, is to vanish in smoke!
44. I should die raving mad if I believed a word of it. By all that’s holiest in heaven and earth, we will have this cleared up at once; go through the books, have the whole business looked thoroughly into!

45. Money? why, it is life! Money does everything.
46. Oh! father dear, be careful how you set about it! If there is the least hint of vengeance in the business, if you show yourself openly hostile, it will be all over with me. He knows whom he has to deal with; he thinks it quite natural that if you put the idea into my head, I should be uneasy about my money; but I swear to you that he has it in his own hands, and that he had meant to keep it.
47. I noticed, too, that Nucingen had sent bills for large amounts to Amsterdam, London, Naples, and Vienna, in order to prove if necessary that large sums had been paid away by the firm. How could we get possession of those bills?
48. He said nothing to me; but it is so easy to read the hearts of those you love, a mere trifle is enough; and then you feel things instinctively.
49. Indeed, he was more tender and affectionate than ever, and I was happier than I had ever been before. Poor Maxime! in himself he was really saying good-bye to me, so he has told me since; he meant to blow his brains out!

50. 8:00am "Do nothing of the kind!” cried Goriot. ”Aha! M. de Restaud, you could not make your wife happy; she has looked for happiness and found it elsewhere, and you make her suffer for your own ineptitude?
51. Make yourself easy, Nasie. Aha! he cares about his heir! Good, very good. I will get hold of the boy; isn’t he my grandson? What the blazes!
52. In #50, suggests that one person blamed the other for his actions.
53. My darlings, my darlings! to think that trouble only should bring you to me, that I should only see you with tears on your faces! Ah! yes, yes, you love me, I see that you love me. Come to me and pour out your griefs to me; my heart is large enough to hold them all. Oh! you might rend my heart in pieces, and every fragment would make a father’s heart. If only I could bear all your sorrows for you! ... Ah! you were so happy when you were little and still with me...

55. "M. de Rastignac is incapable of ruining the woman he loves, dear."
56. "What does it matter where they were?” asked Goriot. “The money is spent now.”
57. "Nobody else would repeat what everybody has ceased to believe. You are an unnatural sister!” cried Delphine.
58. Ah! you put your money into a life annuity, old scoundrel; and had you not daughters? You did not love them. Die, die in a ditch, like the dog that you are!
59. "Delphine,” she said, with a white face, and her whole frame quivering with indignation, anger, and rage, “I forgave you everything; God is my witness that I forgave you, but I cannot forgive this!

60. Omitted.
61. Comfort Nasie, and be nice to her, Delphine; promise it to your poor father before he dies,” he asked, holding Delphine’s hand in a convulsive clasp.
62. "Nasie,” cried Delphine, flinging her arms round her sister, “my little Nasie, let us forget and forgive.”
63. Something very extraordinary must have taken place; he looks to me as if he were in imminent danger of serous apoplexy. The lower part of his face is composed enough, but the upper part is drawn and distorted. Then there is that peculiar look about the eyes that indicates an effusion of serum in the brain; they look as though they were covered with a film of fine dust, do you notice?
64. "Do not be anxious about him,” she said, however, as soon as Eugène began, “our father has really a strong constitution, but this morning we gave him a shock.

65. To my shame be it said, I think of my lover before my father. Do you ask why? I cannot tell you, but all my life is in you.
66. Parisian women are often false, intoxicated with vanity, selfish and self-absorbed, frivolous and shallow; yet of all women, when they love, they sacrifice their personal feelings to their passion they rise but so much the higher for all the pettiness overcome in their nature, and become sublime.
67. Why, all Paris will be there, and so shall I; I ought to go there for your sake.
68. Oh! I did not do it by halves; I titivated myself up a bit, and went out and sold my spoons and forks and buckles for six hundred francs; then I went to old Daddy Gobseck, and sold a year’s interest in my annuity for four hundred francs down.
69. She is in the depths, and I cannot draw her out of them now. Oh! I will go into business again, I will buy wheat in Odessa; out there, wheat fetches a quarter of the price it sells for here. There is a law against the importation of grain, but the good folk who made the law forgot to prohibit the introduction of wheat products and food stuffs made from corn. Hey! hey! ... That struck me this morning. There is a fine trade to be done in starch.

70. The two students sat up with him that night, relieving each other in turn. Bianchon brought up his medical books and studied; Eugène wrote letters home to his mother and sisters.
71. Once you said, as we were listening to the Prayer in Mosè in Egitto, ‘For some it is the monotony of a single note; for others, it is the infinite of sound.'
72. The world of Paris was like an ocean of mud for him just then; and it seemed that whoever set foot in that black mire must needs sink into it up to the chin.
73. He had seen society in its three great phases—Obedience, Struggle, and Revolt; the Family, the World, and Vautrin; and he hesitated in his choice.
74. His education had begun to bear its fruits; he loved selfishly already.

75. Then he turned the doctor’s dictum over in his mind; he tried to believe that Goriot was not so dangerously ill as he had imagined, and ended by collecting together a sufficient quantity of traitorous excuses for Delphine’s conduct.
76. This woman was his, and Eugène recognized that not until then had he loved her; perhaps love is only gratitude for pleasure.
77. To be continued.


1. Never since Louis XIV tore her lover away from La Grande Mademoiselle, and the whole court hastened to visit that unfortunate princess, had a disastrous love affair made such a sensation in Paris.
2. But the youngest daughter of the almost royal house of Burgundy had risen proudly above her pain, and moved till the last moment like a queen in this world—its vanities had always been valueless for her, save in so far as they contributed to the triumph of her passion. The salons were filled with the most beautiful women in Paris, resplendent in their toilettes, and radiant with smiles.
3. Ministers and ambassadors, the most distinguished men at court, men bedizened with decorations, stars, and ribbons, men who bore the most illustrious names in France, had gathered about the Vicomtesse.
The music of the orchestra vibrated in wave after wave of sound from the golden ceiling of the palace, now made desolate for its queen.
4. She was dressed in white, and wore no ornament in the plaits of hair braided about her head; her face was calm; there was no sign there of pride, nor of pain, nor of joy that she did not feel. No one could read her soul; she stood there like some Niobe carved in marble.

5. "You are perhaps the only one that I can trust here among all these. Oh, my friend, when you love, love a woman whom you are sure that you can love always. Never forsake a woman.”
"If you don't love me, then what are we in a relationship for?"
6. She rose to go to meet the Duchesse de Langeais, her most intimate friend, who had come like the rest of the world.
7. He sat down by the fire, fixed his eyes on the cedar wood casket, and fell into deep mournful musings. Mme. de Beauséant loomed large in these imaginings, like a goddess in the Iliad.
8. I should like to give you some pledge of friendship. I shall often think of you. You have seemed to me to be kind and noble, fresh-hearted and true, in this world where such qualities are seldom found.
9. Every time I opened it before going to a ball or to the theatre, I used to feel that I must be beautiful, because I was so happy; and I never touched it except to lay some gracious memory in it: there is so much of my old self in it, of a Madame de Beauséant who now lives no longer.

10. Omitted.
11. "May you be happy.”—She turned to the student. “You are young,” she said; “you have some beliefs still left. I have been privileged, like some dying people, to find sincere and reverent feeling in those about me as I take my leave of this world.”
12. ...for no greatness is so great that it can rise above the laws of human affection, or live beyond the jurisdiction of pain, as certain demagogues would have the people believe.
13. At two o’clock in the afternoon Bianchon came to wake Rastignac, and begged him to take charge of Goriot, who had grown worse as the day wore on.
14. I asked him about it while his mind was clear, and he told me he had not a farthing of his own.

15. “I have twenty francs left,” said Rastignac; “but I will take them to the roulette table, I shall be sure to win.”
16. The most pressing thing just now is not really money; we must put mustard poultices, as hot as they can be made, on his feet and legs.
17. The two young men went back to the room where the old man was lying. Eugene was startled at the change in Goriot’s face, so livid, distorted, and feeble.
18. One of the authorities says that if there is more pressure of serum on one or other portion of the brain, it should affect his mental capacities in such and such directions. So if he should talk, notice very carefully what kind of ideas his mind seems to run on; whether memory, or penetration, or the reasoning faculties are exercised; whether sentiments or practical questions fill his thoughts; whether he makes forecasts or dwells on the past; in fact, you must be prepared to give an accurate report of him.
19. It is quite likely that the extravasation fills the whole brain, in which case he will die in the imbecile state in which he is lying now.

20. You cannot tell anything about these mysterious nervous diseases. Suppose the crash came here,” said Bianchon, touching the back of the head, ”very strange things have been known to happen; the brain sometimes partially recovers, and death is delayed. Or the congested matter may pass out of the brain altogether through channels which can only be determined by a post-mortem examination.
Highlights the benefits of neurosurgery.
21. “Oh! he thinks of nothing but his daughters,” said Bianchon.
22. "What place indeed is there in the shallow petty frivolous thing called society for noble thoughts and feelings?”
23. Omitted.
24. For a father it is hell to be without your children; I have served my apprenticeship already since they married.
Suggests that it is fun to be around children, because you can teach them, and watch them play.

25. They used to come downstairs of a morning. ‘Good-morning, papa!’ they used to say, and I would take them on my knees; we had all sorts of little games of play together, and they had such pretty coaxing ways. We always had breakfast together, too, every morning, and they had dinner with me—in fact, I was a father then. I enjoyed my children.
26. They did not think for themselves so long as they lived in the Rue de la Jussienne ; they knew nothing of the world; they loved me with all their hearts.
27. ...Christophe, tell my father that my husband wants me to discuss some matters with him, and I cannot leave the house, the life or death of my children is at stake; but as soon as it is over, I will come.'
28. Omitted.
29. Money brings everything to you; even your daughters. My money. Oh! where is my money? If I had plenty of money to leave behind me, they would nurse me and tend me...

30. It is worth while to be civil to a man who has given his daughters eight hundred thousand francs apiece; and they showed me every attention then—but it was all for my money.
31. And besides, who is perfect?
32. The next day I went to Delphine for comfort, and what should I do there but make some stupid blunder that made her angry with me. I was like one driven out of his senses.
33. 12:05pm But, at the same time, they used to give me little lectures on my behavior in society; they began about it at once.
"Are you asking my opinion, or giving me a lecture?"
34. ...(This pain is fearful! Mon Dieu! These doctors! these doctors ! If they would open my head, it would give me some relief !

35. Send for the police, and make them come to me! Justice is on my side, the whole world is on my side, I have natural rights, and the law with me. I protest! The country will go to ruin if a father’s rights are trampled under foot. That is easy to see. The whole world turns on fatherly love; fatherly love is the foundation of society; it will crumble into ruin when children do not love their fathers.
36. There is a God in heaven who avenges us fathers whether we will or no.
37. Tell every one that it is not their fault, and no one need be distressed on my account. It is all my own fault, I taught them to trample upon me.
38. It is no one’s affair but mine; man’s justice and God’s justice have nothing to do in it.
39. supporting the dying man on his left arm, while he held a cup of tisane to Goriot’s lips.
tisane - a herbal tea.

40. To be always thirsting, and never to drink; that has been my life for the last ten years....
41. A son-in-law is a rascal who poisons a girl’s mind and contaminates her whole nature.
Suggests that medication might help your mind, eventhough it poisons your body.
42. "What is the matter with you? You are as pale as death.”
43. There is a God! Ah! yes, yes, there is a God, and He has made a better world for us, or this world of ours would be a nightmare.
44. ...spoke of complete prostration of body and mind; she seemed crushed by a tyranny both mental and physical.

45. “Poor dear Eugène, I am ill,” she said. “I caught cold after the ball, and I am afraid of pneumonia. I am waiting for the doctor to come.”
46. "What does he go on living for?” said Sylvie. “To suffer,” answered Rastignac
47. "Ah! my angels!” The father’s last breath must have been a sigh of joy, and in that sigh his whole life was summed up; he was cheated even at the last.
48. "Monsieur Eugène,” she said, “monsieur and madame have had a terrible scene about some money that Madame (poor thing!) wanted for her father. She fainted, and the doctor came...
49. "Charles, I think you might find something less painful to joke about,” said Eugène.

50. "Yes, he is dead,” he said.
He will not smell at his bread like this any more,” said the painter, mimicking the old man’s little trick.
51. It is one of the privileges of the good city of Paris that anybody may be born, or live, or die there without attracting any attention whatsoever. Let us profit by the advantages of civilization.
52. There are fifty or sixty deaths every day; if you have a mind to do it, you can sit down at any time and wail over whole hecatombs of dead in Paris. Père Goriot has gone off the books, has he? So much the better for him. If you venerate his memory, keep it to yourselves, and let the rest of us feed in peace.
53. Eugène took part of his friend’s advice...Eugène’s Parisian experience told him that it was idle to press the point.
54. To be continued.

55. 8:20pm "Yes, Monsieur Eugène,” said Christophe, “he was a good and worthy man, who never said one word louder than another; he never did any one any harm, and gave nobody any trouble.”
56. The ecclesiastics chanted a psalm, the Libera nos and the De profundis.
57. And with that tear that fell on Père Goriot’s grave, Eugène Rastignac’s youth ended. He folded his arms and gazed at the clouded sky; and Christophe, after a glance at him, turned and went—Rastignac was left alone.
58. Inspired by Père Goriot and La Comedie humaine
59. Balzac is at the head of the French literature of tomorrow.   —EMILE ZOLA

60. Honoré de Balzac stands alone among literature’s giants for his lifelong dedication to a single, overarching purpose in his work.
61. Everything Balzac wrote—beginning with the first novel he published under his own name, Les Chouans (1829)—he wove together into a great cycle known as La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy) . Though he did not initially intend for his various novels to grow into the interconnected epic they became, Balzac codified his literary method around 1834 when he decided to create a tapestry that would encompass the whole of contemporary Parisian society.
62. La Comédie humaine comprises more than ninety novels and novellas; 137 were planned. In it, Balzac showcases three kinds of novel, each with a different aim: Etudes analytiques (“analytic studies”) explore the principles and social factors that govern human life; études philosophiques (“philosophical studies”) examine the psychological factors that drive human action; and, by far the largest category, études de moeurs (“studies of manners”) are subdivided into novels of country, military, political, Parisian, private, and provincial life.
63. In addition, the progenitors of Marxism—Karl Marx and Frederich Engels—praised Balzac for his gritty realism, his “industrial literature,” as the critic C. A. Sainte-Beuve put it. Later novelists such as Charles Dickens and Fyodor Dostoevsky, who both published expansive novels in installments, would attempt to emulate Balzac’s unflinching attention to detail, his fanatical work ethic, and his impressive breadth of subject matter and human sentiment.
64. And many later writers would consult La Comédie humaine as a reference for Balzac’s historical moment—“The Nineteenth Century,” as Oscar Wilde wrote, “is largely an invention of Balzac’s.”

65. French novelist Èmile Zola (1840-1902), who was born around the time Balzac came up with the umbrella name for his novels, also wrote a sweeping literary saga that has its roots in La Comédie humaine. Zola, influenced by Balzac’s realist techniques, was the leading figure in the French school of naturalistic fiction, and his collective work Les Rougon-Macquart essentially picks up where La Comédie humaine leaves off. Comprising twenty novels, the Les Rougon-Macquart which carries the subtitle The Natural and Social History of a Family Under the Second EmPire-was published between 1871 and 1893.
66. Deeply fascinated and philosophically influenced by social determinism, Zola believed that human character was shaped by heredity, environment, and the cultural moment.
67. Zola followed Les Rougon-Macquart with two shorter cycles: Les Trois Villes: Lourdes, Rome, Paris (The Three Cities; 1894, 1896, 1898), a scathing attack on the Church of Rome; and Les Quatre Evangiles (The Four Gospels, 1899-1903), the last volume of which was left unfinished at Zola’s death.
68. Zola’s almost detached approach to his fiction pays homage to Balzac’s studies.
69. According to Zola (translation by Noah David Guynn): “[Balzac] created the naturalist novel, the exacting study of society, and all of a sudden, through his audacious genius, he dared to bring to life in his vast fresco an entire society copied directly from the society that posed before him. It was the most resounding affirmation of modern evolution.”

70. Comments & Questions
71. Algernon Swinburne - The pure artist never asserts, he suggests and therefore his meaning is totally lost upon moralists and socialists—is indeed irreparably wasted upon the run of men who cannot work out suggestions. Balzac asserts; and Balzac cannot blunder or lie. So profound and extensive a capacity of moral apprehension no other prose writer, no man of mere analytic faculty, ever had or can have. —from William Blake: A Critical Essay (1868)
72. Victor Hugo - All [Balzac’s] books form but a single book, a living, shining, profound book, in which our whole contemporary civilization can be seen going and coming, walking and moving, with a terrible and frightening je ne sais quoi mixed in with reality: a marvelous book called by its maker a comedy but which he might have called a history, which assumes all shapes and styles, which goes beyond Tacitus to Suetonius, and reaches beyond Beaumarchais to Rabelais; a book that is both observation and imagination, lavish in truth, intimacy, middle-class values, triviality, materiality, and that, suddenly and occasionally, tearing these realities wide open, lets us glimpse the most somber and tragic ideal. —translated by Martin Kanes, from Actes et Paroles (1872)

73. Questions
74. Does Balzac mean us to understand that human character is produced by the material objects that surround us—that is, not by something internal to a person, but outside?
75. How would you characterize Balzac as a psychologist? Is he astute? Is he deep? Or is he relatively indifferent to the depth of psychology? Do any of his characters seem to have a subconscious ?
76. Do you find any evidence of a hidden moral, or theory about society, or any metaphysical or religious belief that organizes the particulars, especially the plot and the characters’ fates, in Père Goriot?
77. For Further Reading
78. LA COMÉDIE HUMAINE To discover the destiny of some of the characters introduced in Père Goriot, readers should pursue other novels in Balzac’s cycle of La Comédie humaine, beginning perhaps with La Femme abandonnée (The Abandoned Woman), La Duchesse de Langeais (The Duchess of Langeais), Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes (A Harlot High and Low [also translated as Scenes from a Courtesan’s Life]), and La Peau de chagrin (also translated as The Magic Skin) .
The end.


The Vicomte de Bragelonne
By Alexander Dumas


1. “We shall lead a steady life, and not incur much danger, seeing that we have behind us a powerful protector…”
2. “But D’Artagan never said more than there was need to say, in order to leave people wondering.”
3. “Monk, always circumspect, stopped where he was, and placed his general quarters at Coldstream, on the Tweed.”
4. “Monk had ordered this spot to be guarded, as most subject to surprises.”
5. A fisherman who the party meets says, “a sharp wind from the south drove us from our course; then, seeing that it was useless to struggle against it, we let it drive us.”
6. “‘Oh, my lord!’ cried the fisherman, ‘that is a lucky question, and you could not put it to anybody better than to me, for in truth I can make you a famous reply.’”
8. One character says, "Excuse me king, but I am only a poor servant. You must understand from my perspective..."
9. Of one character, the narrator explains that he never travelled with more gold than could fit on his horse.

10. “I saw the ex-king walking on the dunes….he looks ill, and I don’t think the air of Holland agrees with him.”
11. Because the fishermen knew his trade so well, Monk, the lord, allowed him to command the fishing trade.
12. “I have made up my mind to address myself to you, because I believe you to be an honest man.”
13. “Because, my lord, when one acts in important matters, it is best to consult one’s instinct before everything.”

14. “Yes, my lord, for you do me an honor of which I feel myself worthy, by the inclination which drew me towards you.”
15. “Athos might be, and indeed, in the eyes of Digby, must be a spy, whose information was to enlighten the general.”
16. “I was wrong—it is the first lie I have pronounced in my life, a temporary lie, it is true.”
17. “I am assured God will give you a happy eternal life after a happy death.”
19. “Athos bowed, and prepared to absorb greedily the words which fell, one by one, from the mouth of Monk.”

20. “God who has given me the power, has, no doubt, willed that I should have that power for the good of all, and He has given me, at the same time, discernment.” If the parliament were to order such a thing, I should reflect."

21. “It would result, that if I were dead, whatever might happen, my army would not be demoralized all at once; it results, that if I chose to absent myself, there would not be in the camp the shadow of uneasiness or disorder.”
22. “Within a week there will be something fresh, a battle or an accommodation.”
23. In one scene writes that it was quite a sight to behold the activities of the people.
24. The lieutenant said, “if this gentleman speaks truth, there may still be some hope.”

1. “The safety of the whole army is at stake.”
Chapter XXVIII
2. “The only noise to be heard was the whistling of the night breeze among the bushes.”
3. The soldier had earned the confidence of his general.
4. “Well, my name is— I am the Chevalier D’Artagnan.”
5. “‘You come from the count, do you not?’
’The Comte de la Fere?’”
6. “Sire, it is M. le Chevalier D’Artagnan, who brings you some news.”
7. "Oh! I know very well, sir, that etiquette will not allow kings to be questioned.”

8. A dialogue ensues with the king.
9. “You have accomplished this unheard-of act of audacity and genius—impossible!”
Chapter XXIX
10. “General, I have a thousand excuses to make to you; my manner of acting has not been worthy of such a man as you, I know very well..."
11. “Monk did not turn his eyes; he stroked his moustache with a thoughtful air, which announced that matters were going badly.”
12. “…to add to the illustrious actions of an existence, already so well filled, one glorious deed more.”

13. “There is nothing ill in it, sir, except that the general accuses me of having laid a snare for him , which is not the case.”
14. “Monk walked with long, rapid strides; it might be thought that he did not yet feel certain of having reached English land.”
15. “The soldiers allowed themselves to be drawn away by the force of principles, which are, like discipline, the obligatory tie in every body constituted for any purpose.”
16. “It is true you do not know him, since he is here unknown, and that prevents your thinking about the matter.”
17. One of the characters says, "What are you getting at? What are you accusing me of?"

1. “… and, if I know you well, it will not be a small satisfaction to your mind to be able to say…”
2. “…believing he should stimulate the lazy memory of the host by his remark.
’That is very possible, but it is so long ago.’”
3. At this point, D’Artagnan goes on to relate the exploits, revolutions and triumphs he’d experienced in his life.
4. The two read a letter that begins, “The king has experienced much regret at not seeing you today beside him, at his entrance…”
5. “Come, let us go, my friend, the walk will be pleasant.”

6. “‘You must be deceived,’ said Athos, ‘or I know no more honest people in the world than you and myself.’”
Chapter 33 - The Audience
7. ”‘General,’ said the king aloud, ‘I have just signed your patent—you are Duke of Albemarle; and my intention is that no one shall equal you in power and fortune in this kingdom, where no one has equaled you in loyalty, courage, and talent.’”
”Gentlemen, the duke is commander of our armies of land and sea, pay him your respects, if you please, in that character.”
8. Mentions that the general “received all this homage without losing his impassivity for an instant."
9. Monk asks, “Gentlemen, you were speaking of me?” Athos replies, “My lord, we were speaking likewise of God.” Monk then asks that they all speak with the king.
10. “…and I am sure, count, my father smiles on me from his grave.”

11. Charles says, “Pardon me, the word duke is too short for me; I always seek some title to lengthen it…that I might say to you, you will be almost my brother, for I make you viceroy of Ireland and Scotland…”
12. In the next scene, D’Artagnan grumbles something, “and he turned away with an air so sorrowful and so comically piteous, that the king , who caught it, could not restrain a smile.”
13. After a bit more dialogue with D’Artagnan, King Charles “broke into hilarious laughter.”
14. “The king began to laugh again, like the happiest inhabitant of his kingdom.”

Chapter 34
1. “Yes, I know very well that Monk calls you his friend. But he has too penetrating an eye not to have a memory, and too lofty a brow not to be very proud, you know…”
2. “Be sure to make your peace with Monk!”
Chapter 35 - On the Canal
3. Suggests that swans swimming on a lake is an ancient tradition.
4. “The smile, then—that innocent favor of young girls—did not even lighten her countenance…”
5. “In the meanwhile the boat continued its course, the musicians made great noise, and the courtiers began, like them, to be out of breath.”
6. “‘My mother expects me,’ replied the princess; ‘and I must frankly admit, gentlemen, I am bored.’”
7. “Buckingham bit his lips in anger, for he was truly in love with the Lady Henrietta, and, in that case, took everything in a serious light. Rochester but his lips likewise; but his wit always dominated over his heart…”

8. “The king desires you to preserve in your memory the name and merit of M. D’Artagnan, to whom his majesty owes the recovery of his kingdom.”
9. “…I shall venture to ask your permission to take him to one side for a moment, to converse in private.”
Chapter 36
10. “My lord, in the first place, promise me secrecy and indulgence.”
"I promise you all you wish. What is the matter? Speak!"
11. “D’Artagnan never took his eyes off Monk; studying all which passed in the mind of the general, as he followed his train of thought through.”

Chapter 36
1. Monk says, “I have on the banks of the Clyde, a little house in a grove, a cottage as it is called here. To this house are attached a hundred acres of land. Accept it as a souvenir.”
Chapter 37
2. “In fact, D’Artagnan was so absorbed that he took advantage of the grease left at the bottom of his plate, to trace figures and make additions...”
3. “I shall love him still better when he is a man, and have seen him develop himself in all the phases of his character and actions, as I have seen you, my friend.”
4. “That is true. Oh! That was the time of youth, confidence, the generous season when the blood commands…”

5. “I have constantly met with fools who would boast of the days of hard lessons, canings, and crusts of dry bread.”
6. “I should always mistrust him who would pretend to prefer evil to good.”
7. “Night had just spread her thick veil over the yellow waters of the Thames; they heard those noises of casks and pulleys, the preliminaries of preparing to sail which had so many times made the hearts of the musketeers beat when the dangers of the sea were the least of those they were going to face.”
8. “These gentlemen were at breakfast of oysters, fish, and drink, when D’Artagnan arrived.”
9. “The army exchanged a glance of satisfaction in reply to the sufficiently proud look of D’Artagnan.”
10. “Menneville swore, as his comrades had sworn, that he would be as silent as the grave.”
11. “And yet someone must have spoken; it must have been D’Artagnan, who in his quality of a Gascon, had his tongue very near to his lips.”

Chapter 38
12. “You, who, whether you admit it or not, my dear friend, are a poet, will find enough pheasants, sunsets, to make you think you are Apollo..."
13. D’Artagnan says to Planchet, “You have not been wounded, I hope?”
14. “The principal thing is, monsieur, that your life is safe.”
”Doubtless! doubtless!—life is something—but I am ruined.”

Chapter 39
15. “Madame, I am repeating like a parrot all the stories related to me by different Englishmen. To my shame I am compelled to say, I am as exact a copy.”
16. Mazarin, in speaking to the king says, “And the two ideas, I am more curious about ideas than about men, for my part.”
17. “The prince had that clear and keen look which distinguishes birds of prey of the noble species: his physiognomy itself presented several distinct traits of this resemblance…constituted rather an eagle’s beak than a human nose.”
18. “This penetrating look, this imperious expression of the whole countenance, generally disturbed those to whom the prince spoke, more than either majesty or regular beauty could have done in the conqueror or Rocroi.”
19. One character has a discussion with the prince, and the prince indicates that it is good to have friends. Then the characters briefly discuss what they learned in school and how to benefit government.

Chapter 42
1. The prince says, "I have heard so much that I have frequently desired to number him among my friends."
2. "Monsieur de Bragelonne, is a good officer, and it is plainly seen he has been to a good school."
3. "'My lord,' said the cardinal, 'pick up, if you please, all those gold crowns.'"
4. "'Eh! yes, I am going to be married,' replied the Duc d'Anjou."
Chapter 44
5. "It is doubtless time to trace, in a few words, one of the most interesting portraits of the age, and trace it with as much truth, perhaps as contemporary painters have been able to do."
6. "But this anger could not last so long as not to be replaced in time by reason."
Chapter 47
7. Anne of Austria says, "Besides, the Lord never gives the goods of this world but for a season...and no man can take his wealth or greatness with him to the grave."

1. Suggests that despite your opinion of someone, you can not help giving him sympathy on his deathbed.
2. One character waited, "in order to gain more spring at the decisive moment."
3. "Louis did not exactly know how to make out Mazarin's conduct."
4. "The eyes of the cardinal devoured the king, for he felt the great moment had come."
5. "Anne of Austria, without strength to conceal her regret, raised her hands and eyes towards heaven."

6. "The legacy of the cardinal to the young king was composed of six words only, but those six words, as Mazarin had said, were worth forty million."
7. "He had revised his will, and as this will was the exact expression of his wishes..."
8. "Sleep, so powerful at his age, overcame him for about an hour."
9. "Are you, then, M. Colbert?"
"The depositary of many of his secrets?" - Perhaps the information contained on this blog can be viewed as a collection of secrets.
10. "No, no; I see the whole scheme of that man. The discovery of that conspiracy is the ruin of the superintendent."
11. "...or to see Mademoiselle de la Valliere again. Here the young man stopped. That dear name, so delightful to pronounce, affected him."
12. Suggests that some facial features are feminine, and some facial features are masculine.

1. "...but you are for me a god upon earth -- to you I sacrifice everything."
2. Athos says, "You are wrong, I have no longer any right over you. Age has emancipated you; you no longer even stand in need of my consent."
3. "Athos raised his eyes toward the vicomte. He had pronounced these words with the most melancholy inflection, accompanied by the most melancholy look."
4. "You are very hard upon the king, my dear Monsieur d'Artagnan; and yet you scarcely know him."
5. "Why, monsieur le chevalier, you are mad."
"On the contrary, I never was so sane."

6. "'We will get you out again,' said Raoul, with a quiet, calm air."
7. The Swiss spoke in his guttural accent.
8. "'You quitted my service, monsieur, after having told me the whole truth?'
'That is, after having declared to me all you thought to be true, with regard to my mode of thinking and acting.'"
9. Mentions that to succeed with Madame V. is one thing, and to succeed with the king is another.
10. This speech stopped the dark cloud which was beginning to throw its shade over the guests.

11. The musicians then supped, beneath a spring sky, mild and flower-scented.
12. "That disease should thus bring him down all at once."
"It is not a disease."
"'Then there is a remedy,' said S.
13. “Listen, would you submit to those who govern ill?”
14. Describes a woman whose keen glance was like a stiletto that Marguerite plunged straight into the hearts of the two confidants.
15. “It shall be done monsieur. Give me your other ideas.”

1. "The rich man, on the contrary, makes himself money with his money, which he does not even spend."
2. "But D'Artagnan, more embarrassed than the count, dug at every explanation, deeper into the mud, into which he sank by degrees."
3. "There are in the eye, when it is young, fibres which we must learn how to harden..."
4. "My dear Monsieur Gourville, put youreself in my place. I was the agent of the public force and a landlord, too..."
5. “There is sometimes in the manner in which an eulogy is given, in the voice, in the affectionate tone, a poison so sweet, that the strongest mind is intoxicated by it.”

6. “The sentiment of flattery is instinctive with people of abject condition; they have the sense of it, as the wild animal has that of hearing and smell.”
7. “…and D’Artagnan was a great drawer of horoscopes; but, with that imperturbable phlegm which does more than genius for the fortune and happiness of men of action, he put off reflection till the next day…”
8. “Now, let us inhale much morning air, much health…as if he needed the whole atmosphere to breathe.”
9. “Then, I do desire to live: and in reality, I live much better, more completely, since I have become rich.”
10. “Then I really don’t know if there will be, enough of air and sun for me.”

11. “But in truth, I only spoke of it from memory.”
12. Briefly discusses a fellow who had come from Nantes with a cart drawn by a horse.
13. “D’Artagnan perceived this, for he was a man who missed nothing.”
14. “By this time his respiration returned to normal, and he had fixed his plans for the campaign.”
15. The men discuss plans that involve a regular hexagon, a polygon, a quadrilateral, and a middle point that will form the precise lines of defense.
16. D’Artagnan says, “You have a reply for everything, my friend.”
17. “Athos was afraid Porthos was going to say something awkward, so interrupted him.”

1. "We know that the wind changes with the different hours of the day." While on the topic of the weather, in one of his novels, Chinua Achebe mentions that the atmosphere changes at night.
2. "But those laugh best who laugh last."
3. "Tell me, in the first place, clearly and precisely, what you think, M. Colbert."
"Upon what subject, sir?"
"Upon the conduct of M. Fouquet."
"I think, sire, that M. Fouquet, not content with..."
4. "This is a piece of great skill in the art of war that you have exhibited here, monsieur."
5. "The king possessed a piercing glance and infallible judgement, when it was his object to read men's minds."

6. "Certainly, sire. The father of the Vicomte de Bragelonne is M. le Comte de la Fere, who so powerfully assisted in the restoration of King Charles II. Bragelonne comes of a valiant race, sire."
7. After the Malicorne gets insulted, Dumas writes, "And she burst into a loud laugh, thinking to put the clerk out of countenance; but Malicorne sustained the attack bravely."
8. "...and she was obliged to sit down to avoid fainting."

1. "No evasive answers, Louise de la Valliere shall be aid of honor to Madame Henrietta within a week."
2. "Malicorne always came cram full of fresh news from the court and the city; that Malicorne always brought to Blois a fashion, a secret, a perfume..."
3. De Guiche says, "Monsieur, you seem to me a man of very good taste."
4. "Forgive me, it is the Latin that bothers me--that terrible mine of etymologies. Why the deuce are young men of family taught Latin?"
5. "No compliments; it is your opinion I ask."

6. The men discuss hatred, then one of the men says, "At all events, I have no personal ill-will towards M. de Bragelonne; I do not know him even."
7. "It is quite clear you are not acquainted with the English; they have a mania for monopolizing everything."
8. "After all, what does it matter to you? What does it matter to you whether the prince is to be what the late king was?"
9. One of the characters says, "we are not of the same opinion," "we don't share the same opinion."

1. In the end of the novel, Dumas writes that the main characters all sailed into the sunset together.
2. "Madame Henrietta...smiled at the mistake her vanity had led her into."
3. "Buckingham listened patiently to Raoul's remarks, for he instinctively felt, without having had any proof, that Raoul checked the display of D.'s feelings."
4. "All who were present, began immediately to clap their hands, and a thousand cheers and joyful shouts arose from all sides."
5. "Yes; a night's rest will probably restore me."

6. "Yes; I need rest. Many things have agitated me to-day, both in mind and body."
7. "Come, come, a truce, you know as well as I do what I mean."
8. "The night was clear, starlit, and splendid; the sweet influences of the evening had restored life, peace, and security everywhere."
9. A few fleecy clouds were floating in the heavens, and indicated from their appearance a continuance of beautiful weather, tempered by a gentle breeze from the west."
10. "Spring cast its flowers and perfumed foliage on their path."

11. "Normandy, with its vast variety of vegetation, its blue skies and silver rivers, displayed itself in all the loveliness of a paradise to the new sister of the king."
12. "Monsieur, I was mistaken, I find, in terming you a pedagogue."
13. "It would seem that I did not insult M. Bragelonne, since M. de Bragelonne, who carries a sword by his side, does not consider himself insulted."
14. "True it is, that on occasion there was far too great a concourse of persons present for your courage to be observed..."
15. "...in due course, you will consider, in a calmer frame of mind, the precepts of the Gospel, which enjoin forgetfulness of injuries."

16. "'You are right, monsieur,' said Raoul, mastering his emotion."
17. "I do not deny it. She has a noble air."
18. Monsieur says, "I am perfectly aware, that the subject is a delicate one, but you know you can tell me everything."
19. "Is M. de Buckingham witty too?"
"My own opinion is, that he must be, for he makes Madame laugh..."
"Of course, then he must be clever."
20. "Get into debt."
"I am in debt already."
"A greater reason for getting further in."

21. "You may possibly find in this letter what you are anxious to learn."
22. "As for the Comte, he conversed, with great animation, with Madame de Valentinois, and with M. de Chatillon."
23. "The princess's education may have been neglected, her principles, I believe, are good."
24. "I will tell you frankly that I do not understand the life I am required to lead."
25. "The prince, bewildered by his mother's serious manner, could only stammer out unintelligible words."

26. "The duke, however, wore about him a satchet which smelled of violets, and I am sure that the one my wife has came from him."
27. "Indeed, monsieur, you build your pyramids on needle-points; be careful."
28. "...and your anger blinds you while it alarms me; reflect a little."
29. "...to adopt towards the Duke of Buckingham, or any other Englishman, any rigorous measure--would be to plunge France and England into the most disastrous quarrel."
30. "Madame, you are the first person in this kingdom, not only by your rank, but the first person in the world on account of your angelic nature."

31. "You see, how you fight with shadows, when it would seem so easy to remain at peace with yourself."
32. "I feel there is indeed still room in my heart for a gentler and nobler sentiment than love."
The end.


A Doll's House
By Henrik Ibsen


A. Today's reading by Henrik Ibsen is about empowering women who are in unhappy relationships. It suggests that women can leave abusive relationships and gain their independence, and go on to lead rewarding, happy lives.
1. Suggests that despite the kind of room, the characters remain the same and act the same.
2. Mrs. Linde - We have a great deal to talk about.
Mrs. Linde - That's because you never really understood me.
3. Krogstad - When I lost you, it was just as if the ground had slipped away from under my feet. Look at me now: a broken man clinging to the wreck of his life.
Mrs Linde - Help might be near.
4. Mrs Linde - I know how far a man like you can be driven by despair.
5. Mrs Linde - All this secrecy and deception, it just can't go on.

6. Mrs Linde - How things change! How things change! Somebody to work for…to live for. A home to bring happiness into.
7. Helmer - So you knit, eh?
Helmer - You should embroider instead, you know.
Suggests that because of the motions, embroidery is much more elegant.
8. Suggests that at certain stages, you take life slow.
9. Nora - Yes I’m very tired, I just want to fall straight off to sleep.
10. Nora - You mustn’t talk to me like that tonight.

11. Helmer - You still have the Tarantella in your blood, I see. And that makes you even more desirable.
12. Helmer - You know, whenever I’m out at a party with you…do you know why I never talk to you very much, why I always stand away from you and only steal a quick glance at you now and then…
13. Helmer - What’s this? It’s just your little game isn’t it, my little Nora.
14. Nora - Torvald also drank a lot of champagne this evening.
15. Rank - Well, you never get anything for nothing in this life.

16. Rank - At the next masquerade, I shall be invisible.
Rank - There’s a big black cloak…haven’t you heard of the cloak of invisibility?
17. Rank - But I’m clean forgetting what I came for. Helmer, give me a cigar, one of those dark Havanas.
18. Nora - It is true. I loved you more than anything else in the world.
Helmer - Don’t come to me with a lot of paltry excuses.
19. Helmer - Oh stop pretending! What good would it do to me if you left this world behind, as you put it? Not the slightest bit of good.
20. Helmer - Yes you do. You try and get some rest, and set your mind at peace again. Have a good long sleep. You know you are safe and sound under my wing. What a nice, cozy little home we have here!

21. Nora - Eight whole years, ever since we first knew each other—and never have we exchanged one serious word about serious things.
22. Nora - That's why I'm leaving you. If I’m ever to reach any understanding of myself and the things around me, I must learn to stand alone. That’s why I can’t stay here with you any longer.
23. Helmer - First and foremost, you are a wife and a mother.
Nora - That I don’t believe anymore. I believe that first and foremost I am an individual, just as much as you are…
24. I have to think things out for myself, and get things clear.
25. Nora - I don’t really know what religion is.
Nora indicates that she feels that she needs to go on a religious journey, in search of knowledge.

26. Helmer - Then only one explanation is possible. You don’t love me anymore.
Nora - Exactly.
Helmer - Nora! Can you say that!
27. Nora - It was tonight, when the miracle didn’t happen. It was then I realized you weren’t the man I thought you were.
28. Nora - I was absolutely convinced you would say to him: Tell the whole wide world if you like. And when that was done…
29. Nora - I was absolutely convinced you would come forward and take everything on yourself, and say: I am the guilty one.
30. Nora - …It was to prevent it that I was ready to end my life.

31. Helmer - …But nobody sacrifices his honor for the one he loves.
32. Nora - …Look, here’s your ring back. Give me mine.
33. Nora - …I don’t accept things from strangers.
Helmer - Nora, can I never be anything more to you than a stranger.
Nora - Ah, Torvald, only by miracle of miracles…
Helmer - ...The miracle of miracles…
[The heavy sound of a door being slammed is heard from below.]
The end.


Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen
1. One of the characters is Mrs. Helene Alving, widow of Captain (and Chamberlain) Alving.
2. The action takes place on Mrs. Alving's country estate by one of the large fjords of Western Norway.
3. Jacob Engstrand is standing beside the door into the garden.
4. Engstrand: Well, we are frail creatures, all of us, my child...
5. ...and many are the temptations of this world, you know...but still, there I was up and at work at half-past five this morning.

6. Omitted.
7. Regine: What are you going to try and talk him into this time.
8. Engstrand: Sh! Are you crazy? Me talk Pastor Manders into anything? Oh no, Pastor Manders has been far too good to me for that. But look, what I really wanted to talk to you about was me going back home again tonight.
9. Regine: The sooner the better, as far as I'm concerned.

10. Regine: Not likely! You'll never get me coming home with you.
11. Engstrand: Oh? We'll see about that.
12. Regine: Who's been brought up here like a lady like Mrs. Alving...? Who's been treated like one of the family, almost...? Expect me to go home with you? To a place like that? Puh!
13. Regine: Often enough you've said I wasn't any concern of yours.
14. Engstrand: Huh! You are not going to bother your head about that...?

15. Engstrand: I'll be damned if I ever used such filthy language.
16. Regine: Oh, I know well enough what language you used.
17. Engstrand: Well, but only when I'd had a few...Many are the temptations of this world, Regine.
18. Engstrand: Or else when your mother started her nagging...
19. Regine: Poor mother! You drove her to her death the way you tormented her.
20. Engstrand: Oh that's right! Blame me for everything.

21. Regine: How many times haven't I heard that one before! But you always made a mess of it.
22. Engstrand: Because what can you spend your money on, stuck out here in the country?
23. Engstrand: To lend a hand, that's right. Just help to look after the place, if you know what I mean.
24. Engstrand: Because we'd want a bit of fun in the evenings, singing and dancing and that sort of thing.

25. Henrik Ibsen suggests that it can be rewarding for a guy and his girlfriend to do all the things she did with her previous boyfriends, with her current boyfriend.
26. Omitted.
27. Regine: No, if things worked out as I wanted them to...Well, it could happen. It could happen!
28. Omitted.
29. I bet you wouldn't stay very long with me. Not much chance of that. Not if you played your cards properly.
30. Regine: I wouln't marry anybody like that. Sailors have no savoir vivre.
31. Regine: I know what sailors are, let me tell you. No use marrying them.
32. Regine: Out, and quick about it! You're a barmy man!
33. Suggests that children cannot compete with adults, because they do not have deep, quick or clear enough voices, or strong enough bodies capable of working to earn money, or the other skills possessed by adults necessary to survive.
34. Engstrand: Now, now, you wouldn't hit me, would you!
35. Manders: But pretty busy, I imagine, getting ready for tomorrow?

36. Regine: Yes, thank you, quite well. But horribly tired after his journey.
37. Regine: Did he? He's always glad to have a talk with you, Pastor.
38. Regine: It's awfully lonely out here...and you know well enough yourself, Pastor, what it's like to be alone in the world.
39. Mrs. Alving: Can't you be persuaded even yet to stay the night in my house?
40. Manders: Well, of course you must be feeling extremely pleased with yourself today.

41. Manders: My dear lady, there are many occasions in life when one must rely on others. That's the way of the world, and things are best that way.
42. Please see Notes about Psychiatry, Item IV., for a conclusion drawn from this reading.
43. Manders: Nor can I blame you for wanting to get to know something about the new trends of thought which, so they tell me, are current in the great world outside...
44. Manders: But one doesn't talk about it, Mrs. Alving. One doesn't have to account to all sundry for what one reads and thinks in the privacy of one's own room.
45. Here, Ibsen is suggesting that people don't have to account and explain and replay every little event in their lives. They're people, they should just live their lives in peace.

46. Manders: You decided to found it at a time when your opinions and beliefs were very different from what they are now...
47. Manders: I chose 'Captain' rather than 'Chamberlain' for the name. 'Captain' looks less ostentatious.
48. Manders: And in this Bank Book you have details of the capital sum, the interest on which is to cover the running expenses of the Orphanage.
49. Manders: With pleasure. I think we'll leave the money in the bank for the time being. The interest isn't very attractive...then we could discuss the thing again in more detail.
50. Mrs. Alving: I keep everything insured--the buildings, the contents, the crops and the stock.

51. Suggests that sometimes we use too much opinion, and not enough facts.
52. Manders: I'm thinking principally of men in independent and influential positions of the kind that makes it difficult not to attach certain importance to their opinions.
53. Manders: You've only got to think of those who support my colleague!
54. Manders: So you don't want any insurance?
Mrs. Alving: No, we'll let it go.
Manders: But if there did happen to be an accident? You never know...
55. Manders: From what I hear, he's trying very hard to turn over a new leaf, thank God.

56. Manders: He told me so himself...
To be continued.
57. Manders: He has a lot on his mind, that man...all sorts of worries.
58. Mrs. Alving: Oh? Who told you that?
Manders: He told me himself. He's a good workman, too.
Mrs. Alving: Oh yes, when he's sober.
59. Manders: Good. What I wanted to say, my dear Oswald, was this--you mustn't think I want to condemn out of hand all artists and their ways.
60. Mrs Alving.: Even an artist must rest now and again.

61. Manders: A child's proper place is and must be the home.
62. Oswald: When some of our model husbands and fathers took themselves a trip to Paris...Then we got to know what was what.
63. [Mrs. Alving follows with close attention, and nods but says nothing.]
64. Oswald: Well, you can believe every word they say. Some of them are experts.
65. And I would be the last person to condone his conduct as a young man, assuming these rumors told the truth.

66. Manders: Yes, you should thank God...that I managed to dissuade you from your hysterical intentions, and that it was granted to me to lead you back into the path of duty, and home to your lawful husband.
67. Manders: All your life, you've always been quite disastrously selfish and stubborn. In everything you've done, you have tended to be headstrong and undisciplined... Turn back yourself, and save what can perhaps still be saved in him. Because Mrs. Alving [with raised forefinger], you are in truth a very guilty mother...I see it as my duty to tell you this.
68. Mrs. Alving [slowly, and with control]: You have had your say, Pastor Manders. And tomorrow you will make a speech in my husband's memory. I shall not speak tomorrow. But now I'm going to talk to you just as you have talked to me.
69. Mrs. Alving: None of these things you have been saying about my husband and me and our life together after you hadled me back to the path of duty, as you put it--absolutely none of these things do you know from first-hand. From that moment on, you--our closest friend, who regularly used to call every day--you never once set foot in our house.
70. Manders [fumbling for a chair] What did you say?

71. Alving: That was the expression our doctor used.
72. Manders: I don't understand you.
73. Manders: Am I to believe that your entire married life...all those years together with your husband...were nothing but a facade?
74. Manders: How was it possible...How could a thing like that be kept hidden?
75. That was the endless battle I fought, day after day. And then I had to battle twice as hard, fight tooth and nail to prevent anybody from knowing what sort of person my child's father was...then came the most hideous thing of all.
Manders: More hideous than this?

76. Mrs. Alving: I had to put up with a lot in this house. To keep him home in the evenings...and at nights...I had to sit there with him, just the two of us drinking, and listen to his remarks, and then struggling with him to get him dragged into his bed.
77. Mrs. Alving: And now you understand why he was never allowed to set foot in this place as long as his father was alive.
78. Mrs. Alving: I was obsessed by the thought that inevitably the truth must come out sometime and be believed.
79. Act Two
80. Omitted

81. Mrs. Alving: Oh, all this law and order! I often think that's the cause of all the trouble in the world.
Added to the newest page here, Notes about Law.
82. Mrs. Alving: Oh, I know! I know! I find the idea shocking myself. What a coward I am!
83. Manders: But I saw enough to realize that his father represents a kind of ideal to him.
84. Manders: You have built up a beautiful illusion in your son's mind, Mrs. Alving...
85. Mrs. Alving: I'll tell you what I mean. The reason I'm so timid and afraid is that I can never get properly rid of the ghosts that haunt me.

86. Suggests that you shouldn't overthink talking, we all know how to talk, just talk.
87. Manders: Are you in the right frame of mind for a meeting of this kind?
88. Engstrand: God help us Pastor, there's not much point in talking about consciences.
89. Engstrand: And isn't a man bound to keep his promise.
90. Engstrand: I must say it fair broke my heart to listen to her.
91. To be continued.

Ghosts, by Henrik Ibsen
1. Engstrand: We men shouldn't judge a woman too harshly.
2. Engstrand: But Jacob Engstrand, I says, he's a man that stands firm on his own two feet, he is...
3. Engstrand: I accept your offer, thank you for working with me.
4. Manders: You see how extremely careful one has to be when passing judgement on one's fellow men.
5. Mrs Alving: I thought you'd gone for a little walk up the road.
Oswald: In this weather?

6. Mrs Alving [gripping his arm]: Oswald, what is it?
7. Oswald: Yesterday and again today, I tried to shake off these thoughts...fight myself free. But it's no use.
8. Oswald: Oh, if only I could live my life over again...undo everything I've done!
9. Mrs Alving: Perhaps you think we don't know how to live out here in the country?
10. Oswald: ...it was then I realized that she was my salvation. Because she was filled with the joy of life.

11. Oswald: Yes, Mother, the joy of life...You don't see much of that around this place. I never feel it here.
12. Engstrand: Oh, you just let things take their course. It's not the first time somebody I know has taken the blame for somebody else.
13. Manders: Jacob! Characters like you are rare.
14. Mrs. Alving: Let me dry your face, Oswald, you are wet.
15. This reminds me of a scene in an old black and white movie where the male character asks the female character to take his temperature, and tell him if he is sick, by feeling his forehead.

16. Oswald: I don't understand a word of what you are saying.
17. Mrs Alving: You should have seen your father when he was a young lieutenant. He had plenty of the joy of living.
Is like a story by Charles Dickens: "I bet you were a strong young man when you were younger."
18. Regine: No more's the pity. And anyway, now that there can never be anything serious between us...No, you don't catch me staying out here in the country, working myself to death...
19. Regine: No thank you. Pastor Manders will look after me all right. And if the worst comes to the worst, I know a place I can make my home.
20. Oswald [stands at the window looking out]. Has she gone?

21. Oswald: Yes, surely you realize that, Mother. It's simply one of those ideas that get around and...
Mrs Alving: Ghosts!
Oswald: Yes, call them ghosts if you like.
22. Mrs Alving: Oswald...then you don't love me either.
23. Oswald: Yes, but these are just empty words.
24. The end.
25. To be continued.



Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen,
1. One of the characters is Jorgen Tesman, the holder of a University Fellowship in cultural history.
2. Miss Juliane Tesman is a good-looking lady of benevolent aspect, some 65 years old, neatly but simply dressed.
3. Berte is a serving-maid getting on in her years, with a plain and somewhat countrified exterior.
Miss Tessman: Well, well...let them have a good rest and welcome. But we'll give them a breath of the fresh morning air when they do come down.
4. Berte: And what about me then, Miss? What am I to say? For so many years now I've been with you and Miss Rina.
5. Miss Tessman: We must make the best of it, Berte. There's really no other way. Jorgen must have you in the house with him, you see. He simple must.

6. Berte: I'm really so scared I'll never give satisfaction to the young mistress.
7. Tessman: Just think, Auntie...the whole of that case was crammed full of nothing but notes. It's quite incredible, really, all the things I managed to dig up round about in those old archives. Fantastic old things that no one knew anything about...
8. Miss Tessman: Well to be sure, I don't expect you wasted your time on your honeymoon, did you, Jorgen?
9. Tessman: Hey, wait a moment...take this along, will you.
10. Miss Tessman: How wonderfully good it is to see you here again, as well as ever, and full of life, Jorgen!

11. Tesman: For me too! To be with you again, Auntie Julle! You've always been both father and mother to me.
Miss Tesman: Yes, I know you'll always have a soft spot in your heart for your old aunts.
12. Miss Tessman: But you were telling me about the journey...It must have cost a pretty penny, Jorgen?
13. Tesman [looks at her rather crestfallen]: Why yes, I suppose it will, Auntie?
14. Miss Tesman: There now...don't get so excited about it. It's just a formality, you know.
15. Tesman: [When I write], it will be an account of the domestic crafts of mediaeval Brabant.
"The Duchy of Brabant, a state of the Holy Roman Empire, was established in 1183. It developed from the Landgraviate of Brabant of 1085-1183." --Wikipedia

16. Tesman: Incidentally, it may be quite a while before I get it finished. There are all these extensive collections of material, you know, they all have to be sorted out first.
17. Miss Tesman: Yes, collecting things and sorting them out...you've always been good at that. You're not Joachim's son for nothing.
18. Miss Tessman: Ah, and most of all, now that you've won the wife of your heart, dear Jorgen.
19. [Hedda enters. She is a lady of 29. Her face and figure are aristocratic and elegant in their proportions.]
20. Tesman: Think of it...Aunt Rina lay there and embroidered them for me. Weak as she was. Oh, you can't imagine how many memories they have for me.

21. Hedda: Yes, we can do with a bit of fresh air. All these blessed flowers...won't you take a seat?
22. [While this is going on Hedda walks about the room, raises her arms and clenches her fists as though in a frenzy.]
23. Hedda: Do you think she was very put out about that hat business?
24. Hedda: Well, what manner of behavior is that, anyway, flinging her hat just anywhere in the drawing-room! It's not done.
25. Hedda: Exactly. That woman with the provoking hair that everyone made such a fuss of. An old flame of yours, too, I'm told.

26. Hedda: It's odd that she should come here. I hardly know her, apart from school.
27. Tesman: No, and I haven't seen her for...oh good Lord, it must be years.
28. Mrs Elvsted: And I don't know another soul here, not anyone I could turn to, apart from you.
29. Hedda: Come...we'll sit down here on the sofa...
Mrs Elvsted: Oh, I can hardly keep still, let alone sit down!
30. Mrs Elvsted: Well...it both is and yet isn't. Oh, I do so hope you won't misunderstand me.

31. Mrs Elvsted: ...you were such good friends before. And then you're both interested in the same subject. The same field of studies...so far as I understand it.
32. Henrik Ibsen reminds us that there are some people who will go to war over their girlfriends.

Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. The character Hedda Gabler is a quick, lively young woman.
2. BRACK - To make a long story short—he landed at last in Mademoiselle Diana’s rooms.
3. BRACK - Good heavens, Mrs. Hedda—we have eyes in our head.
4. LÖVBORG - Yes, I tell you! Tore it into a thousand pieces—and scattered them on the fiord—far out. There there is cool sea-water at any rate—let them drift upon it—drift with the current and the wind. And then presently they will sink—deeper and deeper—as I shall, Thea.
5. In this play, one thing that Ibsen does is suggest that male and female in a relationship do not have to do much to enjoy themselves and have fun in the relationship. He suggests that man and woman do not have to go to the movies and dinner to enjoy themselves, and can just have fun together being around one another talking and being in each other's presence.



The Master Builder, by Henrik Ibsen
1. INTRODUCTION IN GHOSTS, THE LACK OF fire insurance exposed the destructive hypocrisy of a pastor, but in The Master Builder (1892; Bygmester Solness ) Ibsen realized that the theme of insurance provides a much more powerful tool for the genre most dear to his heart: the tragic double bind. Master Builder Solness owes his fame as a builder of homes to the fire that destroyed his own house and, indirectly, his children’s and their mother’s happiness. His whole life has been spent attempting to rebuild a home that would somehow compensate for this original loss. But no matter how much he tries, no matter how great his powers as a Master Builder, everything he does will be nothing but a shallow substitute. The fire made him Master Builder and at the same time marks the limits of his skill; it makes and unmakes him at the same time.
2. Suggests that despite appearances, many people are not master builders.
3. On one of his first assignments, the Master Builder had met a child and promised to build her a castle in the air.
4. CHARACTERS
HALVARD SOLNESS, Master Builder.
ALINE SOLNESS, his wife.
DOCTOR HERDAL, physician.
KNUT BROVIK, formerly an architect, now in SOLNESS’s employment.
RAGNAR BROVIK, his son, draughtsman.
KAIA FOSLI, his niece, book-keeper.
MISS HILDA WANGEL.
5. The action passes in and about SOLNESS’s house.

6. The Master Builder was the first play Ibsen wrote after returning to Norway when he was in his early sixties...
7. KNUT BROVIK is a spare old man with white hair and beard. RAGNAR BROVIK is a well-dressed, light-haired man in his thirties.
8. SOLNESS Has any one been here for me?
RAGNAR [Rising.] Yes, the young couple who want a villa built, out at Lövstrand.
SOLNESS [Growling.] Oh, those two! They must wait. I am not quite clear about the plans yet.
RAGNAR [Advancing, with some hesitation.] They were very anxious to have the drawings at once.
SOLNESS [As before.] Yes, of course—so they all are.
BROVIK [Looks up.] They say they are longing so to get into a house of their own.
SOLNESS Yes, yes—we know all that! And so they are content to take whatever is offered them. They get a—a roof over their heads—an address—but nothing to call a home. No thank you! In that case, let them apply to somebody else. Tell them that, the next time they call.
BROVIK [Pushes his glasses up on to his forehead and looks in astonishment at him.] To somebody else? Are you prepared to give up the commission?
9. BROVIK Yes. You see, he knows the family. And then—just for the fun of the thing—he has made drawings and estimates and so forth——
10. SOLNESS Oh, it comes to the same thing.
[Laughs angrily.]
So that is it, is it? Halvard Solness is to see about retiring now!
To make room for younger men!

11. SOLNESS But confess now—you want to get married!
12. SOLNESS [Clasps her head with his two hands and whispers.] For I cannot get on without you, you see. I must have you with me every single day.
KAIA [In nervous exaltation.] My God! My God!
13. MRS. SOLNESS enters by the door on the right. She looks thin and wasted with grief, but shows traces of bygone beauty.
14. MRS. SOLNESS [With a glance at KAIA.] I am afraid I am disturbing you.
SOLNESS Not in the least. Miss Fosli has only a short letter to write.
15. SOLNESS What do you want with me, Aline?
MRS. SOLNESS I merely wanted to tell you that Dr. Herdal is in the drawing-room. Won’t you come and see him, Halvard?

16. MRS. SOLNESS and DR. HERDAL enter by the door on the right. He is a stoutish, elderly man, with a round, good-humoured face, clean shaven, with thin, light hair, and gold spectacles.
17. MRS. SOLNESS [Still in the doorway.] Halvard, I cannot keep the doctor any longer.
18. SOLNESS Then I daresay you fancy that I am an extremely happy man.
19. DR. HERDAL Afraid? Because you have the luck on your side!
SOLNESS It terrifies me—terrifies me every hour of the day. For sooner or later the luck must turn, you see.
DR. HERDAL Oh nonsense! What should make the luck turn?
SOLNESS [With firm assurance.] The younger generation.
20. HILDA For you must know I have run through all my money.

21. ACT SECOND
22. SOLNESS sits by the little table with RAGNAR BROVIK’s portfolio open in front of him. He is turning the drawings over and closely examining some of them
23. SOLNESS No, nothing of the kind. From the outside it looked like a great, dark, ugly wooden box; but all the same, it was snug and comfortable enough inside.



The Master Builder, by Henrik Ibsen
1. HILDA - I mean that your conscience is feeble—too delicately built, as it were—hasn’t strength to take a grip of things—to lift and bear what is heavy.
2. SOLNESS - [Growls.] H’m! May I ask, then, what sort of a conscience one ought to have?
3. Omitted.
4. SOLNESS - Stay where you are, Hilda!—I ought to tell a lie, you say.
5. SOLNESS - It is hopeless, Hilda. The luck is bound to turn.

6. ACT THIRD
7. HILDA - You understand nothing—since you can talk like that!
8. The end.




The Master Builder, by Henrik Ibsen
1. One thing that Ibsen does is invoke Becker’s theory, or the argument “that human beings need to create a meaningful world.”
2. In the last pages of the play, Ibsen suggests that someone who is not a master builder, can ruin the operation for everyone.


An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. Suggests that newspapers write for the class of reader they can expect the greatest response from.
2. Dr. Stockman - Yes, isn’t it grand to see young people eating well? Such an appetite they’ve got! That’s as it ought to be. They need food…need to build up their strength. They’ll be the ones to stir things up a bit in the coming years.
3. Billing - Ah! A supper like that and, if it doesn’t make you feel like a new man!
4. Dr. Stockmann - …Now let them come as they always do, and say it’s some madman’s crazy idea!
5. Dr Stockmann - Last year there were a number of curious cases of sickness among the visitors…typhoid and gastric fever...
6. Dr Stockmann - It testifies to the presence in the water of putrefied organic matter…it’s full of bacteria. It is extremely dangerous to health, internally and externally.
7. Suggests that people’s medical problems can interfere with their performance at work.
8. Hovstad - Do you mind if we put a little paragraph in the Herald about your discovery?
The sooner the public hears about this the better.
Act Two
9. Dr Stockmann - Aha, let us see. Your manuscript is herewith returned.
10. Hovstad - [In government,] this myth of official infallibility must be destroyed.
11. Suggests that in government, certain functions such as parades, are easier to administer than other more complicated functions.
12. Hovstad - Most of them are like that round here, teetering along, wobbling one way then the other; they are so cautious and scrupulous that they never dare commit themselves to any proper step forward.
13. Petra - What makes me cross is that you haven’t played straight with Father.
To be continued.

An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. Hovstad - But I have profited from the advice of experienced and thoughtful men that, when it comes to local affairs, a paper should proceed with a certain caution.
2. Hovstad - And in the matter under discussion it is now undeniably true that Dr Stockmann has public opinion against him.
3. Dr Stockmann - The truths the masses recognize today are the same truths as were held by advanced thinkers in our grandfathers’ day.
4. Dr Stockmann - No oxygen, no conscience! And there must be an awful lot of houses in this town short of oxygen, it seems…
5. Hovstad - It might also seem that Dr Stockmann is set on ruining the town.
6. Omitted.
7. Kit - If you persist with these stupid ideas, then things will not be worth much, you know.
8. Dr Stockmann - If I don’t come to the aid of the Herald then you’ll take a pretty poor view of things. The hunt will be up, I dare say….You’ll be after my blood…you’ll be on to me like a dog on to a hare.
Hovstad - That’s the law of nature. Every animal must fight for survival.
9. Dr Stockmann - …Jump, I tell you. And quick about it!
10. Dr Stockmann - Yes, and I could even go as far as to say that now I’m one of the strongest men in the whole world.
Dr Stockmann - The thing is, you see, that the strongest man in the world is the man who stands alone.
The end.

The Wild Duck, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. It is a play that recycles most of Ibsen’s earlier themes and topics: a harsh truth that is being covered up with lies...
3. ...an isolated character who is willing to force out the truth. Gregers Werle returns to his father and his poor high school friend Hialmar Ekdal and slowly learns that this friend has been coaxed into marrying Gregers’s father’s mistress and to bring up their illegitimate child as his own. Financially relying on Gregers’s father and his own competent wife, Hialmar has created for himself a fantasy world in which he is working on a great invention when in truth he does nothing of the sort.
4. All of these elements can be reassembled into a play such as Ibsen’s earlier ones—but this is not what happens. Rather than celebrating the difficult search for truth and the destruction of lies, here it is the very attempt to undo these lies that wreaks havoc among these characters.
5. The term Ibsen employs is that of the “life lie” (livslögnen), implying that a certain amount of self-deception is necessary to bear life on this earth. A misguided idealist such as Gregers, who will have the truth no matter what the cost, only creates more misery for everyone.

6. Gregers seems like an Ibsenite character run amok, a preacher of truth who takes no prisoners and risks the happiness of everyone in the process.
7. He did not allow himself to break with realism altogether, but he created a limited space in which wild fantasies may dwell
8. Set designers realized that everything in this play hinges on the contrast between inner and outer space, which Ibsen also detailed in his extensive stage directions. The entire play lives by these objects and how they are employed: the old uniform of Hialmar’s grandfather; his rifles; the decoration of the winter garden; the old books and maps; the work tools in the front room that doubles as a photography studio.
9. PETTERSEN - [Lights a lamp on the chimney-place and places a shade over it.] Hark to them, Jensen! now the old man’s on his legs holding a long palaver about Mrs. Sörby.
JENSEN - [Pushing forward an arm-chair.] Is it true, what folks say, that they’re—very good friends, eh?
10. JENSEN You can see he’s been through a lot.
PETTERSEN Yes; he was an army officer, you know.
JENSEN You don’t say so?

11. A THIRD GENTLEMAN I hear the coffee and maraschino are to be served in the music-room.
12. THE FLABBY GENTLEMAN Bravo! Then perhaps Mrs. Sörby will play us something.
13. GREGERS Why should that give me any feeling against you? Who can have put that into your head?
14. GREGERS [Starts.] My father! Oh indeed. H’m.—Was that why you never let me hear from you?—not a single word.
15. HIALMAR You see, life is itself an education. Her daily intercourse with me——And then we know one or two rather remarkable men,
16. To be continued.



The Wild Duck, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. WERLE - But was it not Ekdal that drew the map of the tracts we had bought—that fraudulent map! It was he who felled all that timber illegally on Government ground. In fact, the whole management was in his hands.
2. WERLE - Acquittal is acquittal. Why do you rake up these old miseries that turned my hair grey before its time?
3. WERLE - What would you have had me do for the people? When Ekdal came out of prison he was a broken-down being, past all help.
4. WERLE Then perhaps your mind would be easier than it seems to be now. What can be your object in remaining up at the works, year out and year in, drudging away like a common clerk, and not drawing a farthing more than the ordinary monthly wage? It is downright folly.
5. GREGERS - Oh, don’t let us be nice in our choice of words—not when we are alone together, at any rate.

6. GREGERS - [Without heeding.] And there he is now, with his great, confiding, childlike mind, compassed about with all this treachery—living under the same roof with such a creature, and never dreaming that what he calls his home is built upon a lie!
7. HIALMAR - [Comes to a standstill.] It may be a fine wine. But of course you know the vintages differ; it all depends on how much sunshine the grapes have had.
8. HIALMAR [Pacing up and down the room.] It’s monstrous what absurd things the father of a family is expected to think of; and if he forgets the smallest trifle, he is treated to sour faces at once. Well, well, one gets used to that too.
9. GREGERS - [Goes over to him.] I bring you a greeting from your old hunting-grounds, Lieutenant Ekdal.
EKDAL - Hunting-grounds?
GREGERS - Yes, up in Höidal, about the works, you know.
EKDAL - Oh, up there. Yes, I knew all those places well in the old days.
GREGERS - You were a great sportsman then.
10. ACT THIRD

11. One of the characters indicates that his medical condition is hereditary.




The Wild Duck, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. HEDVIG - There is one great big book called Harrison’s History of London. It must be a hundred years old; and there are such heaps of pictures in it.
2. HEDVIG - Oh, an old sea captain once lived here, and he brought them home with him. They used to call him “The Flying Dutchman.” That was curious, because he wasn’t a Dutchman at all.
3. HEDVIG - No. But at last he was drowned at sea; and so he left all those things behind him.
4. HEDVIG - I don’t think father likes it; father is strange about such things. Only think, he talks of my learning basket-making, and straw-plaiting! But I don’t think that would be much good.
5. In this play, perhaps Ibsen is simply encouraging discussion and dialogue of all kinds: two of the characters have a lengthy discussion about the Muscovy duck.
6. HIALMAR - I swore that if I consecrated my powers to this handicraft, I would so exalt it that it should become both an art and a science.
GREGERS - And what is the nature of the invention? What purpose does it serve?
7. An earlier introduction indicates that many of Ibsen's works are feminist plays.
8. HIALMAR - No no no; quite the contrary. You mustn’t say that. I cannot be everlastingly absorbed in the same laborious train of thought.
9. GREGERS - Don’t be afraid; I shall find a way to help you up again. I too have a mission in life now; I found it yesterday.
10. RELLING Molvik got it into his head that he could smell herring-salad, and then there was no holding him.—Good morning again, Ekdal.

11. HIALMAR - Oh, come now, don’t let us get upon unpleasant subjects again!
12. MOLVIK - Let us draw a veil over last night’s proceedings. That sort of thing is totally foreign to my better self.
13. EKDAL - Salted it too. It’s good tender meat, is rabbit; it’s sweet; it tastes like sugar. Good appetite to you, gentlemen!
14. RELLING - Drink some soda water, man!
15. Indicates that sometimes, people “shuffle in and out,” when they’re wearing slippers.
16. HIALMAR - Yes indeed—then you shall see——! Hedvig, I have resolved to make your future secure. You shall live in comfort all your days.
17. HIALMAR - Ah yes, I really prize these social hours.
18. RELLING - But devil take it—don’t you see that the fellow’s mad, cracked, demented!
GINA - There, what did I tell you! His mother before him had crazy fits like that sometimes.
19. ACT FOURTH
20. HIALMAR EKDAL’s studio. A photograph has just been taken; a camera with the cloth over it, a pedestal, two chairs, a folding table, etc., are standing out in the room. Afternoon light; the sun is going down; a little later it begins to grow dusk.

21. HIALMAR - Well? Oh yes, well enough. We have had a tiring walk, Gregers and I.
GINA - You didn’t ought to have gone so far, Ekdal; you’re not used to it.
22. HIALMAR - Oh yes, by-the-bye——. Well, the day after, then. Henceforth I mean to do everything myself; I shall take all the work into my own hands.
23. HIALMAR [Walks about.] And this is my Hedvig’s mother. And to know that all I see before me—
[Kicks at a chair] —all that I call my home—I owe to a favoured predecessor! Oh that scoundrel Werle!
24. HIALMAR - [Placing himself in front of her.] Have you not every day, every hour, repented of the spider’s-web of deceit you have spun around me?
25. HIALMAR - “Bad ways” do you call them? Little do you know what a man goes through when he is in grief and despair—especially a man of my fiery temperament.
26. GINA - And now we’d got everything so nice and cosy about us; and me and Hedvig was just thinking we’d soon be able to let ourselves go a bit, in the way of both food and clothes.
27. GREGERS - After so great a crisis—a crisis that is to be the starting-point of an entirely new life—of a communion founded on truth, and free from all taint of deception——
28. HIALMAR - A man’s whole moral basis may give away beneath his feet; that is the terrible part of it.
29. HIALMAR - What is all this hocus-pocus that I am to be kept in the dark about!
30. HIALMAR - [Puts on his overcoat.] In this case, there is nothing for a man like me to think twice about.

31. ACT FIFTH
32. GREGERS - When he ought to have been yearning for solitude, to collect and clear his thoughts——
33. GREGERS - [After a short silence.] I never dreamed that this would be the end of it. Do you really feel it a necessity to leave house and home?
34. HIALMAR - Why, great heavens, what would you have me invent? Other people have invented almost everything already. It becomes more and more difficult every day——
35. RELLING - We will talk of this again, when the grass has first withered on her grave. Then you’ll hear him spouting about “the child too early torn from her father’s heart;” then you’ll see him steep himself in a syrup of sentiment and self-admiration and self-pity.
36. The end.



Peer Gynt, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. INTRODUCTION
2. WRITTEN AFTER HIS FIRST SUCCESS, Brand (1865), Peer Gynt (1867) is Ibsen’s second “dramatic poem,” the second play he wrote after having left Norway and the theater, after deciding to settle in Italy and to write no longer for the stage. This decision to break with the theater, with the perceived limitations imposed by the stage, had an enormously liberating effect. The Aristotelian unities of time, place, and action had become a suffocating set of mechanical rules limiting dramatic literature, and Ibsen realized that a new drama could be written only outside and against the theater. The reading public had different and less rigid expectations than theater producers and audiences, and the printed page lent itself well to fantastic and imaginative material such as the adventures of Peer Gynt, which Ibsen had borrowed from a Norwegian folktale. Ibsen’s decision was unusual, but not unique. There existed a long tradition of reading or closet dramas, including Goethe’s Faust and the Romantic closet dramas of Shelley and Byron, as well as the tradition of the dramatic monologue—a heterogeneous group of plays that have in common their refusal to be put on stage. It is in this tradition that Ibsen placed Peer Gynt, which became an important precursor for the veritable explosion of closet dramas at the turn of the century, with Strindberg’s A Dream Play being probably the best-known example.
3. Peer Gynt himself is a liar, a character who creates his own version of reality, his own fantastic world in defiance of all common sense and realism. The most theatrical scene is the one with the trolls; reality and fantasy are so blurred that one simply doesn’t know the difference between them anymore. The troll world itself functions by imposing a different character on reality, by masking and deceiving the senses; in fact, the trolls want to operate on Gynt’s eye so that their temporary charade will become permanent, so that he will see the world their way forever. This is the moment, however, when Gynt runs, because he does not want to accept any fabrication of reality except his own. Just as he had refused the realism of his mother, who wants him to become a good citizen, so he refuses the permanent fantasy of the trolls and chooses his own path, tells his own lies, fashions himself as best as he can until he returns to Norway to die.
4. One consequence of Ibsen’s liberation from the stage was that he could write a play that moved freely from the Norwegian mountains to Morocco, developing a plot closer to that of an epic or a novel, one that follows the travels and adventures of a single character across different locales, spanning his entire lifetime from teenage boy to old man. Such dramatic structures would become common for later playwrights...
5. ACT FIRST
6. ASE - Ah, you’re big and strong enough, You should be a staff and pillar For your mother’s frail old age,— You should keep the farm-work going...
7. PEER - [Hotly.] I will be a king, a kaiser!
8. A MAN [In conversation as they pass.] - His father was drunken, his mother is weak.
9. ASLAK THE SMITH [To some other young men, passing along the road.] - Just look at Peer Gynt there, the drunken swine——!
10. HIS FATHER - You’re a nincompoop!

11. ACT SECOND
12. SOLVEIG [To ÅSE.] - Say on; tell me more.
13. SCENE THIRD
14. PEER - In quagmire and filth knee-deep!
15. PEER - You shall eat all you want, till you’re ready to burst.
16. THE OLD MAN - True enough; in that and in more we’re alike. Yet morning is morning, and even is even.
17. THE OLD MAN - The cow gives cakes and the bullock mead...
18. PEER [Pushing the things away from him.] The devil fly off with your home-brewed drinks.
19. THE IMPS - Come brownies! Come nixies! Bite him behind!
20. HELGA - Let go; there’s the basket of food.

21. ACT THIRD
22. PEER - Lies! ’Tis an old tree and nothing more. Lies! It was never a steel-clad churl; It’s only a fir-tree with fissured bark.— It is heavy labour this hewing timber; But the devil and all when you hew and dream too.—
23. PEER - Can shut out cantankerous hobgoblin-thoughts?
24. ÅSE - Alas, Peer, the end is nearing; I have but a short time left.
25. ÅSE - Ay, Peer; all will soon be o’er.— When you see that my eyes are glazing, You must close them carefully. And then you must see to my coffin; And be sure it’s a fine one, dear. Ah no, by-the-bye——
26. ÅSE - Has he cakes as well, Peer?
PEER - Cakes? Ay, a heaped-up dish. And the dean’s wife is getting ready Your coffee and your dessert.
27. ACT FOURTH
28. PEER - I was a brisk and handsome lad, And she to whom my heart was given, She was of royal family——
29. Omitted.
30. To be continued.
31. PEER - …And the soul, moreover, is not, Looked at properly, the main thing. It’s the heart that really matters.
32. PEER - Oh, stuff! The prophet’s not old at all, you goose! Do you think all this is a sign of age?
33. PEER - Not yet——. Crazy? Heaven forbid! [A commotion. The Minister HUSSEIN forces his way through the crowd.]
HUSSEIN - They tell me a Kaiser has come to-day. [To PEER GYNT.] It is you?

1. ACT FIFTH - PEER GYNT, a vigorous old man, grizzled hair and beard, is standing aft on the poop. He is dressed half sailor-fashion, with a pea-jacket and long boots. His clothing is rather the worse for wear; he himself is weather-beaten, and has a somewhat harder expression.The CAPTAIN is standing beside the steersman at the wheel.The crew are forward.
2. THE PASSENGER - It’s just a hypothesis. But when one is placed with one foot in the grave, One grows soft-hearted and open-handed——
3. THE PASSENGER - I heard you shout.— It’s pleasant finding you again. Well? So my prophecy came true!
4. PEER - If the luck goes against you, at least you’ve the honour Of a life carried through in accordance with principle.— Though fate to the end may be never so biting— Still old Peer Gynt will pursue his own way, And remain what he is: poor, but virtuous ever.
5. THE MAN IN MOURNING - That’s the end of the ditty; it’s over and done.
PEER - All the ditties end just alike; And they’re all old together; I knew ’em as a boy.
A LAD OF TWENTY [With a casting-ladle.] - Just look what a rare thing I’ve been buying! In this Peer Gynt cast his silver buttons.
6. THE MAN IN GREY - Oh, rubbish; blood’s never so thin as all that; One cannot but feel one’s akin to Peer Gynt.
7. Peer briefly discusses “the knowledge that lay the pyramid’s foundation.
8. THE THREAD-BALLS [On the ground.] - We are thoughts; Thou shouldst have thought us;—
9. THE BUTTON-MOULDER - Why that is precisely the rub, my man; You’re no sinner at all in the higher sense...
10. THE BUTTON-MOULDER - Here it is, empty and scoured. Your grave is dug ready, your coffin bespoke. The worms in your body will live at their ease...

11. THE BUTTON-MOULDER - But what else? Come now, be reasonable. You know you’re not airy enough for heaven...
12. THE BUTTON-MOULDER - Bless me, my dear Peer, there is surely no need To get so wrought up about trifles like this. Yourself you never have been at all;— Then what does it matter, your dying right out?
13. Suggests that Plato died, Socrates died, Aristotle died, so if we have to die, it is okay.
14. PEER - Love, power, and glory at once I renounced...
15. THE OLD MAN - Oh, come now, the Prince can’t complain of the word. And if he could manage by hook or by crook——
16. PEER - My man, you have got on the wrong scent entirely; I’m myself, as the saying goes, fairly cleaned out...
17. THE BUTTON-MOULDER - You seem bent on beginning all over again——
18. Peer - But then there’s a proverb of well-tried validity Which says that as long as there’s life there is hope.
19. THE LEAN ONE - But the retrospect o’er recollection’s domain Would be, both for heart and for intellect...
20. THE LEAN ONE - That depends; the door, at least, stands ajar for them. Remember, in two ways a man can be Himself—there’s a right and wrong side to the jacket.

21. PEER - Do you think that I haven’t been whistling and shouting As hard as I could?
22. PEER - Ay, everything’s over. The owl smells the daylight. Just list to the hooting!
23. PEER - And that wailing sound——? THE BUTTON-MOULDER - But a woman singing.
24. PEER - Set my house in order? It’s there! Away! Get you gone! Though your ladle were huge as a coffin, It were too small, I tell you, for me and my sins.
25. PEER - Then tell what thou knowest! Where was I, as myself, as the whole man, the true man? Where was I, with God’s signal upon my brow?
SOLVEIG - In my faith, in my hope, and in my love.
26. The end.


Rosmersholm, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. The action takes place at Rosmersholm, an old family estate near a small coastal town in Western Norway.
2. Rebecca - They cling long to their dead here at Rosmersholm.
3. Rebecca - Oh, Mrs Helseth! You will try to find something special for supper please, won't you?
4. Kroll - Now that is the most incredible thing of all. All her life she has shared my opinions and agreed with my views - in big things as well as small.
5. Rosmer - My dear fellow, you know very well how little understanding I have of politics...
6. Rosmer - You are heartily welcome here now. Of that you may be sure.
7. Rosmer - Don't you think it's nice and comfortable out here?
Kroll - Yes, it certainly is nice and comfortable - and peaceful.
8. Kroll - Well, yes. But we two are pretty well agreed. On the big questions, at any rate.
9. Rosmer - That is precisely what makes me define the true aim of democracy.
Kroll - What is that?
Rosmer - To make all my countrymen noblemen.
Kroll - By what means?
Rosmer - By liberating their minds and purifying their wills, I should say.
10. Rosmer - There was no escaping my duty. In the present struggle men are growing evil.

11. Rosmer - Kroll! Things must not end like this between us.
12. Rebecca - As long as he doesn't meet the White Horse, that's all.
I don't think anything of the sort. But there are so many kinds of White Horses in the world.
13. Omitted.
14. Kroll - Today I see things in an altogether different light from yesterday.
15. Rosmer - But, Kroll...you are like a different person today.
16. Kroll - Can you remember if you had any books in the house at the time dealing with the institution of marriage, giving the modern, advanced view?



Rosmersholm, by Henrik Ibsen:
1. Rosmer - My dear Kroll, ask about whatever you like. I have nothing to hide.
2. Kroll - That’s exactly why. I know how easily you are influenced by those you associate with.
3. Kroll - Listen. Whatever went on here in secret when Beata was still alive…and whatever is still going on here…I don’t want to inquire any further.
4. Kroll - What I say is this: if this madness must go on, then in Heaven’s name go ahead and think whatever you like…about anything under the sun.
5. Kroll - But see that you keep your opinions to yourself. After all, it’s a purely personal affair.
6. Rosmer - And have you returned to the Church yourself then, of late?
Mortensgaard - We needn’t go into that.
7. Mortensgaard - Even if you were to scrutinize your own conduct as thoroughly as you once scrutinized mine?
8. Rosmer - You say that so strangely. What are you getting at?
9. Mortensgaard - Yes, there is one thing. Just one. But that could be bad enough if any of those malicious people on the other side got wind of it.
10. Rosmer - You know of course that my wife had a mental breakdown at that time.
Mortensgaard - She begins by saying more or less that she is living in fear and trembling; there are so many wicked people in the district, she says; and all these people think about is what harm they can do you.

11. Rosmer - Who brought you the letter?
Mortensgaard - I promised not to tell. It was brought to me one evening after dark.
12. Rosmer - I had good grounds for keeping the relations between us concealed. It was a dangerous secret.
13. Rebecca - Oh, why must we worry about what others think? We know, you and I, that we have no reason to feel guilty.
14. Rebecca - Surely you are not beginning to doubt that she was very nearly insane?
15. Rosmer - What I mean is…where are we to look for the immediate cause that tipped her sick mind over into madness?
16. Rebecca - Oh but that’s a dangerous thing to do…turning this morbid affair over and over in your mind.
17. Rosmer - She must have noticed how happy I began to feel after you had come to live here.
18. Rosmer - She must have been going about here…sick with passion…never saying a word…watching us…noticing everything…and misinterpreting everything.
19. Indicates that Beata died by suicide.
20. Rosmer - Oh, how do I what I would or wouldn’t do? I can think of nothing but this one thing…this one irrevocable thing.

21. Rosmer - How do you ever suppose I could put all this behind me?
Rebecca - By forming new associations. Yes, new associations with the world outside. Living, working, doing things. Not sitting here brooding and stewing over insoluble problems.
22. Rebecca - I still think our friendship can endure…whatever happens.
23. Rosmer - I mean that that kind of relationship…doesn’t it go best with the sort of life that’s lived quietly, serenely, happily…
24. Rosmer - But the sort of life I see opening up in front of me is one of strife and unrest and strong passion. Nobody is going to decide my life for me...
25. To be continued.
26. Rosmer - Inexperience and lack of judgment…
27. Rebecca - Now you ought to go out for a walk in the fresh air, my dear Johannes. A good long walk, you should make it.
28. Rebecca - Then we had best make the most of our time.
29. Kroll - That shows you how uncertain he is in his judgment when it concerns his fellow men and their practical affairs.
30. Rebecca - But between you and full and complete freedom was this grim, insurmountable barrier.

31. Rosmer - And the poor sick creature went be believed it, all this web of lies and deceit.
32. Rosmer - How could you…how could you play such a horrible game?
33. Rebecca - Forgive me, Mr Kroll…but that’s something that concerns nobody but me. That’s something I shall settle with myself.
34. Rebecca - Rosmersholm has broken me. Completely and utterly broken me.
35. Rosmer - But I don’t understand you, Rebecca. You yourself…and the way you behaved…it’s all a complete mystery to me.
36. Rebecca - Once I dared tackle anything that came my way; now that time is gone. I have lost the power to act, Johannes.
37. Rebecca illustrates the benefits of living in peace and solitude.
38. Rebecca - It is the Rosmer philosophy of life...or in any case your philosophy...that has infected my will.
And made it stick. Made it a slave to laws that had meant nothing to me before.
39. Rebecca - You need have no doubts about that. The Rosmer philosophy of life ennobles all right. But...but...but...
40. To be continued.
41. Rebecca - But I am in the power of the Rosmersholm view of life now. Where I have sinned…it is right that I should atone.
42. The end.

1. Demoiselle Esther, seems to have rendered you the same services; but, for some years, you lived without receiving anything from her.
2. Some laws are more abstract and imaginary, and some natural laws are more concrete.
3. The magistrate said, "I have the right to question you." Lucien answered, "And I have the right not to reply."
4. He spoke to me mechanically, like I was not a human being.
5. The magistrate said, "Let us try to find the moral in all this."

12:00am - 1:00am
1. When a prisoner's behaviour is considered uncertain, he is kept under observation by an officer or guard. The staff does its best to remove anything (clothing, furniture) that the prisoner could use to harm himself.
2. The staff were able to detect signs of depression in inmates.


Sarrasine
By Honore de Balzac


1. A beautiful woman, the light quiverings of her body, voluptuous movements, make her very attractive to men.
2. A movement of their eyebrows, the slightest play of the eye, the curling of the lip, instils a sort of terror in those whose lives and happiness depend upon their favor. A maiden inexperienced in love may allow herself to be seduced; but in dealing with women of this sort, a man must be able, like M. de Jaucourt, to restrain himself.
3. Filippo, Marianina’s brother, inherited, as did his sister, the Countess’ marvelous beauty. To tell the whole story in a word, that young man was a living image of Antinous, with somewhat slighter proportions. But how well such a slender and delicate figure accords with youth, when an olive complexion, heavy eyebrows, and the gleam of a velvety eye promise virile passions, noble ideas for the future! If Filippo remained in the hearts of young women as a type of manly beauty, he likewise remained in the memory of all mothers as the best match in France.
4. The countess would try to draw nearer to him without apparently intending to join him; then, assuming a manner and an expression of affection...
5. I had brought that young woman to Madame de Lanty’s ball. As it was her first visit to that house, I forgave her her stifled laugh; but I hastily made an imperious sign which abashed her and inspired respect for her neighbor.
6. Ernest-Jean Sarrasine...his was the childhood of a man of talent. He would not study except as his inclination led him, often rebelled, and sometimes remained for whole hours at a time buried in tangled meditations, engaged now in watching his comrades at play, now in forming mental pictures of Homer’s heroes.
7. She was a woman, but she had the knees of a child.
8. He was so completely intoxicated that he no longer saw theatre, audience, or actors, no longer heard the music. Nay, more, there was no space between him and La Zambinella; he possessed her; his eyes, fixed steadfastly upon her, took possession of her. An almost diabolical power enabled him to feel the breath of that voice...
9. In the evening, installed at an early hour in his box, alone, reclining on a sofa, he made for himself, like a Turk drunk with opium, a happiness as fruitful, as lavish, as he wished.
10. He rushed from his box, after a sign of intelligence to La Zambinella, who lowered her voluptuous eyelids modestly, like a woman overjoyed to be understood at last.
11. Tightly fitting white stockings with green clocks, short skirts, and the pointed, high-heeled slippers of Louis XV.‘s time contributed somewhat,
12. “‘I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,’ she replied. ‘I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.’"
13. “‘I am not strong enough to stand all this dissipation,’ she replied. ‘I have to be very careful; but I feel so happy with you! Except for you, I should not have remained to this supper; a night like this takes away all my freshness.’"
14. “‘I ought to kill you!’ shouted Sarrasine, drawing his sword in an outburst of rage. ‘But,’ he continued, with cold disdain, ‘if I searched your whole being with this blade, should I find there any sentiment to blot out, anything with which to satisfy my thirst for vengeance? You are nothing! If you were a man or a woman, I would kill you, but—’
15. "Am I not human? Do I not have the right to emotions and desires like everyone else?"



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