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    The Purse
    The Purse
    The Purse
    Ebook65 pages53 minutes

    The Purse

    By Honore de Balzac

    3.5/5

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    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArchive Classics
    Release dateJul 1, 2000
    The Purse
    Author

    Honore de Balzac

    Honoré de Balzac (geb. 20. Mai 1799 in Tours; gest. 18. August 1850 in Paris) war ein französischer Schriftsteller. In den Literaturgeschichten wird er, obwohl er eigentlich zur Generation der Romantiker zählt, mit dem 17 Jahre älteren Stendhal und dem 22 Jahre jüngeren Flaubert als Dreigestirn der großen Realisten gesehen. Sein Hauptwerk ist der rund 88 Titel umfassende, aber unvollendete Romanzyklus La Comédie humaine (dt.: Die menschliche Komödie), dessen Romane und Erzählungen ein Gesamtbild der Gesellschaft im Frankreich seiner Zeit zu zeichnen versuchen.

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    Reviews for The Purse

    3.5/5

    17 ratings3 reviews

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    • 5/5
      The Purse is a brief novella (less than 34 pages) that falls within the larger context of Balzac’s La Comédie humaine (The Human Comedy). Briefly, this series is devoted to Parisian life during the 19th century: social realism. Balzac was one of the first to use this method in fiction. In, The Purse, Balzac looks at how we perceive others and the criteria we use to do so. Paranoia comes into play. The fear of communing and being associated with the wrong crowd is dominant. Money influences most actions, including love. Despite the fact this novella is part of a larger collection; it holds its own independently. Yet, it is better understood in relation to the author’s larger body of work. If you wish to get an overall sense of Balzac’s texts, read Cousin Bette. Otherwise, take the time to indulge yourself in the brilliant Balzac collection, The Purse, included.
    • 3/5
      Nice to read a short story from Balzac's "Scenes from Private Life" which doesn't end in misery!
    • 4/5
      Another entry from the Scenes From Private Life section of Balzac's Human Comedy, The Purse follows the emotional struggles of a young artist who falls (literally, it seems) for a young attractive neighbor, but finds himself torn by guilt and suspicion. Elements of class bias and the presumptive judging of people's appearances cloud the mind of the up-and-coming painter as he puzzles over why the target of his affection and her mother live in what appears to be thinly-disguised poverty. A pseudo-detective fable reminiscent of O. Henry's Gift of the Magi, The Purse also contains other common themes present throughout Balzac's Human Comedy, including love, emotion, artists, and historical context - in this case, the aftermath of Napoleon's reign.

    Book preview

    The Purse - Honore de Balzac

    The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Purse, by Honore de Balzac

    This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

    Title: The Purse

    Author: Honore de Balzac

    Translator: Clara Bell

    Release Date: February, 1998 [Etext #1196]

    Posting Date: February 20, 2010

    Language: English

    *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE PURSE ***

    Produced by Dagny

    THE PURSE

    By Honore De Balzac

    Translated by Clara Bell

    To Sofka

    "Have you observed, mademoiselle, that the painters and sculptors of the Middle Ages, when they placed two figures in adoration, one on each side of a fair Saint, never failed to give them a family likeness? When you here see your name among those that are dear to me, and under whose auspices I place my works, remember that touching harmony, and you will see in this not so much an act of homage as an expression of the brotherly affection of your devoted servant,

    DE BALZAC.

    THE PURSE

    For souls to whom effusiveness is easy there is a delicious hour that falls when it is not yet night, but is no longer day; the twilight gleam throws softened lights or tricksy reflections on every object, and favors a dreamy mood which vaguely weds itself to the play of light and shade. The silence which generally prevails at that time makes it particularly dear to artists, who grow contemplative, stand a few paces back from the pictures on which they can no longer work, and pass judgement on them, rapt by the subject whose most recondite meaning then flashes on the inner eye of genius. He who has never stood pensive by a friend's side in such an hour of poetic dreaming can hardly understand its inexpressible soothingness. Favored by the clear-obscure, the material skill employed by art to produce illusion entirely disappears. If the work is a picture, the figures represented seem to speak and walk; the shade is shadow, the light is day; the flesh lives, eyes move, blood flows in their veins, and stuffs have a changing sheen. Imagination helps the realism of every detail, and only sees the beauties of the work. At that hour illusion reigns despotically; perhaps it wakes at nightfall! Is not illusion a sort of night to the mind, which we people with dreams? Illusion then unfolds its wings, it bears the soul aloft to the world of fancies, a world full of voluptuous imaginings, where the artist forgets the real world, yesterday and the morrow, the future—everything down to its miseries, the good and the evil alike.

    At this magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in art nothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which helped him to work at a large high painting, now nearly finished. Criticising himself, honestly admiring himself, floating on the current of his thoughts, he then lost himself in one of those meditative moods which ravish and elevate the soul, soothe it, and comfort it. His reverie had no doubt lasted a long time. Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from his perch, or whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself to be on the floor—the event did not allow of his remembering exactly the cause of his accident—he fell, his head struck a footstool, he lost consciousness and lay motionless during a space of time of which he knew not the length.

    A sweet voice roused him from the stunned condition into which he had sunk. When he opened his eyes the flash of a bright light made him close them again immediately; but through the mist that veiled his senses he heard the whispering of two women, and felt two young, two timid hands on which his head was resting. He soon recovered consciousness, and by the light of an old-fashioned Argand lamp he could make out the most charming girl's face he had ever seen, one of those heads which are often supposed to be a freak of the brush, but which to him suddenly realized the theories of the ideal beauty which every artist creates for himself and whence his art proceeds. The features of the unknown belonged, so to say, to the refined and delicate type of Prudhon's school, but had also the poetic sentiment

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