Honore DE BALZAC

Human Comedy

EVGENIYA GRANDE

Father Goriot

Honore DE BALZAC

EVGENIYA GRANDE

Translation from French by Yu. Verkhovsky. OCR & SpellCheck: Zmiy

The story “Gobsek” (1830), the novels “Eugenia Grande” (1833) and “Père Goriot” (1834) by O. Balzac, which are part of the “Human Comedy” cycle, belong to the masterpieces of world literature. In all three works, the writer with enormous artistic power exposes the vices of bourgeois society and shows the harmful impact of money on the human personality and human relationships.

Your name, the name of the one whose portrait

the best decoration of this work, yes

will be here like a green branch

blessed box, torn

no one knows where, but undoubtedly

sanctified religion and renewed in

constant freshness by the pious

hands for storage at home.

De Balzac

There are houses in some provincial towns that, by their mere appearance, evoke sadness, similar to that evoked by the gloomiest monasteries, the grayest steppes or the most dismal ruins. In these houses there is something of the silence of the monastery, the desolation of the steppes and the decay of ruins. Life and movement in them are so calm that to a stranger they would have seemed uninhabited if he had not suddenly met his eyes with the dull and cold gaze of a motionless creature, whose semi-monastic face appeared above the window sill at the sound of unfamiliar steps. These characteristic features of melancholy mark the appearance of a dwelling located in the upper part of Saumur, at the end of a crooked street that rises up the mountain and leads to the castle. On this street, now sparsely populated, it is hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in places even during the day; It is remarkable for the sonority of its pavement made of small cobblestones, constantly dry and clean, the narrowness of the winding path, the silence of its houses belonging to the old city, above which the ancient city fortifications rise. Three centuries old, these buildings, although wooden, are still strong, and their heterogeneous appearance contributes to the originality that attracts the attention of lovers of antiquities and people of art to this part of Saumur. It is difficult to pass by these houses without admiring the huge oak beams, the ends of which, carved with intricate figures, crown the lower floor of most of these houses with black bas-reliefs. The cross-beams are covered with slate and appear in bluish stripes on the dilapidated walls of the building, topped by a wooden peaked roof, sagging with age, with rotten shingles, warped by the alternating action of rain and sun. Here and there you can see window sills, worn, darkened, with barely noticeable fine carvings, and it seems that they cannot withstand the weight of a dark clay pot with bushes of carnations or roses grown by some poor worker. Next, what will catch your eye is the pattern of huge nail heads driven into the gates, on which the genius of our ancestors inscribed family hieroglyphs, the meaning of which no one can guess. Either a Protestant expressed his confession of faith here, or some member of the League cursed Henry IV. A certain townsman carved here the heraldic signs of his eminent citizenship, his long-forgotten glorious title of merchant foreman. Here is the entire history of France. Side by side with the rickety house, the walls of which are covered with rough plaster, immortalizing the work of an artisan, rises the mansion of a nobleman, where, in the very middle of the stone arch of the gate, traces of the coat of arms, broken by the revolutions that have shaken the country since 1789, are still visible. On this street, the lower floors of merchant houses are not occupied by shops or warehouses; admirers of the Middle Ages can find here the storehouse of our fathers in all its frank simplicity. These low, spacious rooms, without shop windows, without elegant exhibitions, without painted glass, are devoid of any decoration, internal or external. The heavy entrance door is roughly upholstered in iron and consists of two parts: the upper one leans inward, forming a window, and the lower one, with a bell on a spring, opens and closes every now and then. Air and light penetrate into this semblance of a damp cave either through a transom cut out above the door, or through an opening between the arch and a low counter-high wall - there strong internal shutters are fixed in grooves, which are removed in the mornings and put on in the evenings. place and close it with iron bolts. Goods are displayed on this wall. And here they don’t show off. Depending on the type of trade, the samples consist of two or three tubs filled to the brim with salt and cod, several bales of sailing cloth, ropes, copper utensils suspended from the ceiling beams, hoops placed along the walls, several pieces of cloth on shelves . Sign in. A neat young girl, bursting with health, wearing a snow-white headscarf, with red hands, leaves her knitting and calls her mother or father. One of them comes out and sells what you need - for two sous or for twenty thousand goods, while remaining indifferent, kind or arrogant, depending on his character. You will see a merchant of oak boards sitting at his door and fiddling with his thumbs, talking with his neighbor, and in appearance he only has unsightly planks for barrels and two or three bundles of shingles; and on the landing stage his forestry yard supplies all the Angevin coopers; he calculated down to a single plank how many barrels he would handle if the grape harvest was good: the sun - and he is rich, rainy weather - he is ruined; on the same morning wine barrels cost eleven francs or fall to six livres. In this region, as in Touraine, the vicissitudes of the weather dominate commercial life. Grape growers, landowners, timber merchants, coopers, innkeepers, shipbuilders - all lie in wait for the sun's ray; when they go to bed in the evening, they tremble, lest they find out in the morning that it was freezing at night; they are afraid of rain, wind, drought and want moisture, warmth, clouds - whatever suits their needs. There is a continuous duel between heaven and earthly self-interest. The barometer alternately saddens, enlightens, and illuminates the faces with joy. From end to end of this street, the ancient Grand Rue de Saumur, the words “Golden day!” ”fly from porch to porch. And everyone answers to their neighbor. “Louis d'or are pouring from the sky,” realizing that it was a ray of sunshine or rain that arrived on time. In the summer on Saturdays, from noon onwards you won’t be able to buy a penny’s worth of goods from these honest merchants. Everyone has their own vineyard, their own farm, and every day they go out of town for two days. Here, when everything is calculated - buying, selling, profit - the traders have ten hours out of twelve left for picnics, for all sorts of gossip, and constant spying on each other. The housewife cannot buy a partridge without the neighbors then asking her husband if the bird was roasted successfully. A girl cannot stick her head out of the window without being seen from all sides by groups of idle people. Here, after all, everyone’s spiritual life is in plain sight, just like all the events taking place in these impenetrable, gloomy and silent houses. Almost the entire life of ordinary people is spent in the free air. Each family sits down on its porch, has breakfast, lunch, and quarrels. Anyone who walks down the street is looked at from head to toe. And in the old days, as soon as a stranger appeared in a provincial town, they began to ridicule him at every door. Hence the funny stories, hence the nickname mockingbirds given to the inhabitants of Angers, who were especially distinguished in these gossip.

The ancient mansions of the old town are located at the top of the street, once inhabited by local nobles. The gloomy house where the events described in this story took place was just one of these dwellings, a venerable fragment of a bygone century, when things and people were distinguished by that simplicity that French morals are losing every day. Walking along this picturesque street, where every winding awakens memories of antiquity, and the general impression evokes an involuntary sad reverie, you notice a rather dark vault, in the middle of which the door of Monsieur Grandet’s house is hidden. It is impossible to understand the full meaning of this phrase without knowing the biography of Mr. Grande.

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Honore DE BALZAC

Human Comedy

EVGENIYA GRANDE

Father Goriot

Honore DE BALZAC

EVGENIYA GRANDE

Translation from French by Yu. Verkhovsky. OCR & SpellCheck: Zmiy

The story “Gobsek” (1830), the novels “Eugenia Grande” (1833) and “Père Goriot” (1834) by O. Balzac, which are part of the “Human Comedy” cycle, belong to the masterpieces of world literature. In all three works, the writer with enormous artistic power exposes the vices of bourgeois society and shows the harmful impact of money on the human personality and human relationships.

Your name, the name of the one whose portrait

the best decoration of this work, yes

will be here like a green branch

blessed box, torn

no one knows where, but undoubtedly

sanctified religion and renewed in

constant freshness by the pious

hands for storage at home.

De Balzac

There are houses in some provincial towns that, by their mere appearance, evoke sadness, similar to that evoked by the gloomiest monasteries, the grayest steppes or the most dismal ruins. In these houses there is something of the silence of the monastery, the desolation of the steppes and the decay of ruins. Life and movement in them are so calm that to a stranger they would have seemed uninhabited if he had not suddenly met his eyes with the dull and cold gaze of a motionless creature, whose semi-monastic face appeared above the window sill at the sound of unfamiliar steps. These characteristic features of melancholy mark the appearance of a dwelling located in the upper part of Saumur, at the end of a crooked street that rises up the mountain and leads to the castle. On this street, now sparsely populated, it is hot in summer, cold in winter, dark in places even during the day; It is remarkable for the sonority of its pavement made of small cobblestones, constantly dry and clean, the narrowness of the winding path, the silence of its houses belonging to the old city, above which the ancient city fortifications rise. Three centuries old, these buildings, although wooden, are still strong, and their heterogeneous appearance contributes to the originality that attracts the attention of lovers of antiquities and people of art to this part of Saumur. It is difficult to pass by these houses without admiring the huge oak beams, the ends of which, carved with intricate figures, crown the lower floor of most of these houses with black bas-reliefs. The cross-beams are covered with slate and appear in bluish stripes on the dilapidated walls of the building, topped by a wooden peaked roof, sagging with age, with rotten shingles, warped by the alternating action of rain and sun. Here and there you can see window sills, worn, darkened, with barely noticeable fine carvings, and it seems that they cannot withstand the weight of a dark clay pot with bushes of carnations or roses grown by some poor worker. Next, what will catch your eye is the pattern of huge nail heads driven into the gates, on which the genius of our ancestors inscribed family hieroglyphs, the meaning of which no one can guess. Either a Protestant expressed his confession of faith here, or some member of the League cursed Henry IV. A certain townsman carved here the heraldic signs of his eminent citizenship, his long-forgotten glorious title of merchant foreman. Here is the entire history of France. Side by side with the rickety house, the walls of which are covered with rough plaster, immortalizing the work of an artisan, rises the mansion of a nobleman, where, in the very middle of the stone arch of the gate, traces of the coat of arms, broken by the revolutions that have shaken the country since 1789, are still visible. On this street, the lower floors of merchant houses are not occupied by shops or warehouses; admirers of the Middle Ages can find here the storehouse of our fathers in all its frank simplicity. These low, spacious rooms, without shop windows, without elegant exhibitions, without painted glass, are devoid of any decoration, internal or external. The heavy entrance door is roughly upholstered in iron and consists of two parts: the upper one leans inward, forming a window, and the lower one, with a bell on a spring, opens and closes every now and then. Air and light penetrate into this semblance of a damp cave either through a transom cut out above the door, or through an opening between the arch and a low counter-high wall - there strong internal shutters are fixed in grooves, which are removed in the mornings and put on in the evenings. place and close it with iron bolts. Goods are displayed on this wall. And here they don’t show off. Depending on the type of trade, the samples consist of two or three tubs filled to the brim with salt and cod, several bales of sailing cloth, ropes, copper utensils suspended from the ceiling beams, hoops placed along the walls, several pieces of cloth on shelves . Sign in. A neat young girl, bursting with health, wearing a snow-white headscarf, with red hands, leaves her knitting and calls her mother or father. One of them comes out and sells what you need - for two sous or for twenty thousand goods, while remaining indifferent, kind or arrogant, depending on their character. You will see a merchant of oak boards sitting at his door and fiddling with his thumbs, talking with his neighbor, and in appearance he only has unsightly planks for barrels and two or three bundles of shingles; and on the landing stage his forestry yard supplies all the Angevin coopers; he calculated down to a single plank how many barrels he would handle if the grape harvest was good: the sun - and he is rich, rainy weather - he is ruined; on the same morning wine barrels cost eleven francs or fall to six livres. In this region, as in Touraine, the vicissitudes of the weather dominate commercial life. Grape growers, landowners, timber merchants, coopers, innkeepers, shipbuilders - all lie in wait for the sun's ray; when they go to bed in the evening, they tremble, lest they find out in the morning that it was freezing at night; they are afraid of rain, wind, drought and want moisture, warmth, clouds - whatever suits their needs. There is a continuous duel between heaven and earthly self-interest. The barometer alternately saddens, enlightens, and illuminates the faces with joy. From end to end of this street, the ancient Grand Rue de Saumur, the words “Golden day!” ”fly from porch to porch. And everyone answers to their neighbor. “Louis d'or are pouring from the sky,” realizing that it was a ray of sunshine or rain that arrived on time. In the summer on Saturdays, from noon onwards you won’t be able to buy a penny’s worth of goods from these honest merchants. Everyone has their own vineyard, their own farm, and every day they go out of town for two days. Here, when everything is calculated - buying, selling, profit - the traders have ten hours out of twelve left for picnics, for all sorts of gossip, and constant spying on each other. The housewife cannot buy a partridge without the neighbors then asking her husband if the bird was roasted successfully. A girl cannot stick her head out of the window without being seen from all sides by groups of idle people. Here, after all, everyone’s spiritual life is in plain sight, just like all the events taking place in these impenetrable, gloomy and silent houses. Almost the entire life of ordinary people is spent in the free air. Each family sits down on its porch, has breakfast, lunch, and quarrels. Anyone who walks down the street is looked at from head to toe. And in the old days, as soon as a stranger appeared in a provincial town, they began to ridicule him at every door. Hence the funny stories, hence the nickname mockingbirds given to the inhabitants of Angers, who were especially distinguished in these gossip.

The ancient mansions of the old town are located at the top of the street, once inhabited by local nobles. The gloomy house where the events described in this story took place was just one of these dwellings, a venerable fragment of a bygone century, when things and people were distinguished by that simplicity that French morals are losing every day. Walking along this picturesque street, where every winding awakens memories of antiquity, and the general impression evokes an involuntary sad reverie, you notice a rather dark vault, in the middle of which the door of Monsieur Grandet’s house is hidden. It is impossible to understand the full meaning of this phrase without knowing the biography of Mr. Grande.

Monsieur Grandet enjoyed a special reputation in Saumur, which will not be fully understood by those who have not lived at least a short time in the province. M. Grandet, still called by some “Père Grandet,” although the number of such old men was noticeably decreasing, was in 1789 a simple cooper, but of great wealth, able to read, write and count. When the French Republic put the lands of the clergy on sale in the Saumur district, the cooper Grandet, who was then forty years old, had just married the daughter of a wealthy timber merchant. Having in hand his own cash and his wife's dowry, and only two thousand louis, Grandet went to the main city of the district, where, thanks to a bribe of two hundred doubloons offered by his father-in-law to the stern republican in charge of the sale of national property, he acquired for next to nothing, if not quite legally, then in a legal manner, the best vineyards in the area, an old abbey and several farms. The inhabitants of Saumur were little revolutionary, and Father Grandet was considered a brave man, a republican, a patriot, a smart head committed to new ideas, while the cooper was simply committed to the vineyards. He was elected a member of the administrative department of the Saumur district, and there his peace-loving influence was felt both politically and commercially. In politics, he patronized former people and resisted with all his might the sale of emigrants' estates; in commerce. - he supplied the Republican armies with a thousand or two thousand barrels of white wine and managed to get him to pay for them with magnificent meadows from the possessions of a nunnery, left for last sale. During the Consulate, the good-natured Grande became mayor, ruled well, and harvested grapes even better; during the Empire he had already become Monsieur Grandet. Napoleon did not like Republicans; He replaced Mr. Grandet, who was known as a man who sported a red cap, with a large landowner who bore a surname with the particle “de,” the future Baron of the Empire. M. Grandet parted with municipal honors without the slightest regret. He had already managed to lay excellent roads “for the benefit of the city” that led to his own possessions. Grande's house and estates, valued very favorably for him based on the land list, were subject to moderate taxes. Thanks to the incessant care of the owner, his vineyards became the “head of the region” - a technical expression denoting vineyards that produce wine of the highest quality. He could have asked for the Cross of the Legion of Honor. This happened in 1806. M. Grandet was at that time fifty-seven years old, and his wife about thirty-six. Their only daughter, the fruit of legitimate love, was then ten years old. M. Grandet, whom Providence undoubtedly wished to reward for his official disgrace, this year received three inheritances one after another: from Madame de la Godiniere, née de la Berteliere, mother of Madame Grandet; then - from the old man de la Berteliere, the father of the late mother-in-law; and also from Madame Gentillet, the maternal grandmother, three inheritances, the size of which was unknown to anyone. The stinginess of these three old men turned into such a strong passion that for a long time they kept their money in chests to admire it secretly. The old man de la Berteliere called any placing of money into circulation extravagance, finding more joy in the contemplation of gold than in income from usury. The city of Saumur allegedly determined Mr. Grandet's savings based on his real estate. At that time Grande acquired that high title which our mad passion for equality will never destroy: he became the first taxpayer of the district. He had a hundred acres of vineyard, which in good years gave him from seven hundred to eight hundred barrels of wine. He also owned thirteen farms, an old abbey, where, out of frugality, he plastered the windows, vaults and stained glass windows, which preserved them; and also - one hundred and twenty-seven arpans of meadows, where three thousand poplars, planted in 1793, grew and increased in volume. Finally, the house where he lived was his property. This was how the size of his fortune was determined, obvious to everyone. As for his capital, only two persons could have a vague idea of ​​​​their size: one of these persons was the notary Cruchot, M. Grandet's permanent attorney for the placement of his capital in the growth; the other was M. de Grassin, the richest Saumur banker, in whose operations and profits the winemaker had a share by secret agreement. Although old Cruchot and M. de Grassin knew how to keep a secret - this inspires trust in the provinces and reflects favorably on business - however, both of them very openly showed M. Grandet such great respect that observant people could guess the impressive size of the capital of the former the mayor due to the obsequious ingratiation of which he was the subject. In Saumur, everyone was sure that M. Grandet had a whole treasure hidden, that he had a cache full of louis d'or, and there at night he gave himself unspeakable pleasure, contemplating the pile of accumulated gold. The misers felt some kind of confidence in this, looking into the eyes of old Grandet, to whom the yellow metal seemed to transfer its colors. The look of a person accustomed to extracting huge profits from his capital, like the look of a sensualist, gambler or courtier, inevitably acquires some indefinable skills, expressing fugitive, greedy, mysterious movements of feelings that do not elude his fellow believers. This secret language forms, in a way, the Freemasonry of the passions. So, M. Grandet inspired everyone’s respect, like a man who never owed anyone anything, like an old cooper and an old winemaker, who determined with astronomical precision whether it was necessary to prepare a thousand barrels or only five hundred for the grape harvest; how a man who did not miss a single speculation, always had barrels for sale when the barrel was worth more than the wine itself, could hide all his new vintage wine in the cellars and wait for an opportunity to sell a barrel for two hundred francs, when small winemakers give up theirs for five gold. His famous collection of 1811, wisely hidden and slowly sold, brought him more than two hundred and forty thousand livres. In commerce, Mr. Grandet was like a tiger and a boa: he knew how to lie down, curl up into a ball, peer for a long time at his prey and rush at it; then he opened the mouth of his wallet, swallowed another share of the crown and calmly lay down, like a snake digesting food; He did all this dispassionately, coldly, methodically. When he walked through the streets, everyone looked at him with a feeling of respectful admiration and fear. Everyone in Saumur experienced the polite grip of his steel claws: such and such a notary Cruchot got money from him to buy an estate, but at eleven percent; to this M. de Grassin took into account the bill, but with a terrifying discount interest. Rarely were there days when the name of Mr. Grandet was not mentioned either in the market or in the evenings in the conversations of ordinary people. For others, the old winemaker's wealth served as a source of patriotic pride. And more than one merchant, more than one innkeeper used to say to visitors with some boastfulness:

- Yes, sir, here we have two or three million-dollar trading enterprises. And as for Mr. Grandet, he doesn’t even know how to account for his own money.

In 1816, the most skillful accountants of Saumur estimated the land holdings of old Grandet at almost four million; but since, according to the average calculation, he should have received one hundred thousand francs annually from his possessions during the period from 1793 to 1817, it could be assumed that he had in cash an amount almost equal to the value of his real estate. And when, after a game of Boston or some conversation about vineyards, the conversation came up about M. Grand, smart people said:

- Papa Grande?.. Papa Grande has six or seven million faithful.

-You are more dexterous than me. “I was never able to find out the total amount,” answered M. Cruchot or M. de Grassin, if they heard such a conversation.

When a visiting Parisian spoke of the Rothschilds or M. Lafitte, the Saumur residents asked if they were as rich as M. Grandet. If the Parisian answered positively with a disdainful smile, they looked at each other and shook their heads in disbelief. Such a huge fortune cast a golden veil over all the actions of this man. Previously, some of the oddities of his life gave rise to ridicule and jokes, but now the ridicule and jokes have dried up. Whatever Mr. Grandet did, his authority was unquestionable. His speech, clothes, gestures, the blinking of his eyes were the law for the entire neighborhood, where everyone, having previously studied him, as a naturalist studies the actions of instinct in animals, could know all the deep and silent wisdom of his most insignificant movements.

“It will be a harsh winter,” people said, “Père Grandet put on fur gloves.” The grapes need to be harvested.

- Papa Grande takes a lot of barrel boards - there will be wine this year.

Mr. Grandet never bought meat or bread. His sharecropping farmers brought him a sufficient supply of capons, chickens, eggs, butter and wheat every week. He had a mill; The tenant was obliged, in addition to the contractual payment, to come for a certain amount of grain, grind it and bring flour and bran. The huge Nanetta, his only servant, although she was no longer young, baked bread for the family every Saturday. Mr. Grandet negotiated with his tenants, gardeners, to supply him with vegetables. As for the fruits, he collected so much of them that he sent a significant part to sell to the market. For firewood, he cut dead wood in his hedges or used old, half-rotten stumps, uprooting them along the edges of his fields; his farmers brought him wood already cut to the city free of charge, out of courtesy they put it in the barn and received verbal gratitude. He spent money, as everyone knew, only on consecrated bread, on clothes for his wife and daughter and on paying for their chairs in church, on lighting, on Nanette’s salary, on tinning pots, on taxes, on repairs of buildings and expenses for his enterprises . He had six hundred arpans of wood, recently purchased; Grande entrusted his supervision to the neighbor's watchman, promising him a reward for this. Only after acquiring forest land did they begin to serve game to his table. He was extremely simple in his manners, spoke little and usually expressed his thoughts in short instructive phrases, pronouncing them in an insinuating voice. Since the Revolution, when Grandet had attracted attention, he began to stutter in the most tiresome manner whenever he had to speak for a long time or endure an argument. The tongue-tiedness, the incoherence of speech, the stream of words in which he drowned his thoughts, the obvious lack of logic attributed to lack of education - all this was emphasized by him and will be properly explained by some of the incidents of this story. However, four phrases, as precise as algebraic formulas, usually helped him think and resolve all sorts of difficulties in life and trade: “I don’t know. I can't. Don't want. Let's see". He never said yes or no and never wrote. If they told him anything, he listened calmly, supporting his chin with his right hand and resting his elbow on the palm of his left hand, and about each matter he formed an opinion that he never changed. He thought for a long time about even the smallest transactions. When, after a cunning conversation, the interlocutor, confident that he had him in his hands, revealed to him the secret of his intentions, Grande replied:

“I can’t decide anything until I consult with my wife.”

His wife, reduced by him to complete slavery, was the most convenient screen for him in business. He never visited anyone or invited anyone to his place, not wanting to have dinner parties; never made any noise and seemed to economize on everything, even on movements. He did not touch anything with strangers out of an ingrained respect for property. Nevertheless, despite the insinuation of his voice, despite his cautious demeanor, the expressions and habits of a cooper broke out in him, especially when he was at home, where he restrained himself less than in any other place. In appearance, Grandet was a man five feet tall, stocky, dense, with calves twelve inches in circumference, knobby joints and broad shoulders; his face was round, clumsy, pockmarked; the chin is straight, the lips are without any bend, and the teeth are very white; the expression of the eyes is calm and predatory, which people attribute to the basilisk; a forehead speckled with transverse wrinkles, not without characteristic bumps, hair - reddish with gray - gold and silver, as some of the youth said, not yet knowing what it meant to make fun of M. Grandet. On his nose, which was thick at the end, there was a bump with blood veins, which the people, not without reason, considered a sign of deceit. This face betrayed the dangerous cunning, cold honesty, and selfishness of a man accustomed to concentrating all his feelings on the pleasures of miserliness; only one creature was at least a little dear to him - his daughter Eugene, his only heir. His demeanor, his manners, his gait - everything in him testified to the self-confidence that the habit of success in all one’s undertakings gives. Mr. Grandet, seemingly of an accommodating and gentle disposition, was distinguished by an iron character. He was always dressed the same and in appearance was still the same as in 1791. His rough shoes were tied with leather laces; at all times of the year he wore felted woolen stockings, short trousers of thick brown cloth with silver buckles, a velvet double-breasted waistcoat with yellow and dark brown stripes, a spacious, always tightly buttoned long-skirted chestnut-colored frock coat, a black tie and a Quaker hat. The gloves, as strong as those worn by gendarmes, served him for twenty months, and in order not to get dirty, he put them on the brim of his hat with his usual movement, always in the same place. Saumur knew nothing more about this man.

Of all the town's inhabitants, only six enjoyed the right to visit Mr. Grande's house. The most significant of the first three was M. Cruchot's nephew. From the day of his appointment as chairman of the Saumur court of first instance, this young man added de Bonfon to the surname Cruchot and tried with all his might to ensure that Bonfon prevailed over Cruchot. He had already signed his name: K. de Bonfon. The stupid plaintiff, who called him “Mr. Cruchot,” soon realized at the court hearing about his mistake. The judge made peace with those who called him “Monsieur President,” and distinguished with the most favorable smiles the flatterers who called him “Monsieur de Bonnefon.” The chairman was thirty-three years old; he owned the Bonfon estate; (Boni fontis), which gave seven thousand livres of income; he was expecting an inheritance after his uncle, a notary, and after his other uncle, Abbot Cruchot, a high-ranking member of the chapter of Saint-Martin de Tours, both of whom were considered quite rich. These three Cruchots, supported by a fair number of relatives, connected with twenty families in the city, formed a kind of party, as the Medici once did in Florence; and like the Medici, Cruchot had his Pazzi. Madame de Grassin, the parent of a twenty-three-year-old son, religiously came to Madame Grandet to make her a game of cards, hoping to marry her dear Adolphe to Mademoiselle Eugenie. The banker de Grassin actively contributed to the machinations of his wife with constant services, which he secretly provided to the old miser, and always appeared on the battlefield on time. These three de Grassins also had their followers, their relatives, their loyal allies.

On Cruchot's side, the old abbot, Talleyrand of this family, relying on his notary brother, cheerfully challenged the position of the banker and tried to save a rich inheritance for his nephew, the chairman of the court. The secret battle between Cruchot and the Grassins, in which the prize was the hand of Eugenie Grandet, passionately occupied various circles of Saumur society. Will Mademoiselle Grandet marry Monsieur Chairman or Monsieur Adolphe de Grassin? Some resolved this problem in the sense that Mr. Grandet would not give up his daughter for either one or the other. The former cooper, consumed by ambition, they said, was looking for a son-in-law of some peer of France, whose three hundred thousand livres of income would force him to make peace with all the past, present and future barrels of the Grandet house. Others objected that the de Grassins were both of noble birth and very rich, that Adolphe was a very nice gentleman, and unless Eugenia was wooed by the nephew of the pope himself, such a union would have to satisfy a man who came from a low rank, a former cooper, whom all I saw Saumur with a skobel in his hands and, moreover, wearing a red cap at one time. The most judicious pointed out that for M. Cruchot de Bonnefon the doors of the house were open at all times, while his rival was received only on Sundays. Some argued that Madame de Grassin was more closely connected than Cruchot with the ladies of the Grandet family, had the opportunity to instill certain thoughts in them, and therefore would sooner or later achieve her goal. Others objected that Abbe Cruchot was the most insinuating man in the world and that a woman against a monk was an equal game. “Two boots are a pair,” said a certain Saumur wit.

Local old-timers, more knowledgeable, believed that Grandet was too cautious and would not let the wealth out of the hands of the family; Eugenie Grandet of Saumur would marry the son of Parisian Grandet, a wealthy wholesale wine merchant. To this both the Cruchotinists and the Grassenists responded:

“First of all, in thirty years the brothers haven’t seen each other twice. And then the Parisian Grande aims high for his son. He is the mayor of his district, a deputy, a colonel of the National Guard, and a member of the commercial court. He does not recognize the Saumur Grandets and intends to become related to the family of some duke by the grace of Napoleon.

What they didn’t say about the heiress of this fortune, she was judged and paraded for twenty leagues all around and even on stagecoaches from Angers to Blois inclusive! At the beginning of 1819, the Cruchotins clearly gained an advantage over the Grassenists. Just then the Froifon estate was put up for sale, remarkable for its park, delightful castle, farms, rivers, ponds, forests - an estate worth three million; the young Marquis de Froifon needed money and decided to sell his real estate. Notary Cruchot, Chairman Cruchot and Abbot Cruchot, with the help of their followers, managed to prevent the sale of the estate in small plots. The notary made a very profitable deal with the marquis, assuring him that while it would be necessary to conduct endless litigation with individual buyers before they paid for the plots, it would be much better to sell the entire estate to Mr. Grandet, a wealthy man and, moreover, ready to pay in cash. The beautiful marquisate of Froifon was carried into the throat of M. Grandet, who, to the great surprise of all Saumur, after the necessary formalities, taking into account interest, paid for the estate in cash. This event caused a stir in both Nantes and Orleans. Monsieur Grandet went to see his castle, taking advantage of the opportunity - in a cart that was returning there. Having cast a master's eye over his possessions, he returned to Saumur, confident that the money he had spent would yield five percent, and having set himself the bold idea of ​​rounding out the Marquisate of Froifon by annexing all his possessions. Then, in order to replenish his almost empty treasury, he decided to completely cut down his groves and forests, and also sell the poplars in his meadows.

Now it is easy to understand the full meaning of the words: “Mr. Grandet’s house” - a gloomy, cold, silent house, located in a high part of the city and covered with the ruins of the fortress wall. The two pillars and the deep arch under which the gate was located were, like the whole house, built of sandstone - a white stone that abounds on the Loire coast, so soft that its strength is barely enough to last an average of two hundred years. A number of irregular, oddly placed holes, a consequence of the changeable climate, gave the arch and doorposts of the entrance a worm-eaten appearance characteristic of French architecture, and a certain resemblance to a prison gate. Above the arch stood an oblong bas-relief made of strong stone, but the allegorical figures carved on it - the four seasons - had already weathered and completely blackened. A cornice protruded above the bas-relief, on which grew several plants that had accidentally found their way there - yellow wallflowers, dodder, bindweed, plantain and even a young cherry tree, already quite tall. The massive oak gate, dark, shriveled, cracked at all ends, dilapidated in appearance, was firmly supported by a system of bolts that made up symmetrical patterns. In the middle of the gate, in the gate, a small square hole was cut, covered with a fine grating with iron bars browned with rust, and it served, so to speak, as the basis for the existence of a door knocker, attached to it with a ring and striking the curved, flattened head of a large nail. This oblong hammer, one of those that our ancestors called “Jacmart,” looked like a bold exclamation mark; examining it carefully, an antiquarian would find in it some signs of the characteristic clownish physiognomy that he once portrayed; it was worn out from using the hammer for a long time. Looking through this lattice window, intended during the civil wars to recognize friends and enemies, the curious could see a dark greenish vault, and in the depths of the courtyard several dilapidated steps along which they ascended to the garden, picturesquely fenced with thick walls oozing with moisture and completely covered skinny bunches of greenery. These were the walls of the city fortifications, above which the gardens of several neighboring houses rose on earthen ramparts.

On the lower floor of the house, the most important room was the hall, the entrance to which was located under the arch of the gate. Few people understand the importance of the hall to the small families of Anjou, Touraine and Berry. The hall is at the same time an entrance hall, a living room, an office, a boudoir and a dining room, and is the main place of home life, its focus; the local barber came here twice a year to cut M. Grandet’s hair; farmers, a parish priest, a sub-prefect, and a miller's assistant were received here. This room, with two windows facing the street, had a plank floor; from top to bottom it was covered with gray panels with ancient ornaments; the ceiling consisted of exposed beams, also painted gray, with gaps filled with yellowed white tow. The mantel of the fireplace, made of rough-carved white stone, was decorated with an old brass clock inlaid with horn arabesques; there was also a greenish mirror on it, the edges of which were beveled to show its thickness; they were reflected as a light strip in an antique dressing table, set in a steel frame with gold notching. A pair of gilded copper girandoles, placed at the corners of the fireplace, had two purposes: if you remove the roses that served as rosettes, a large branch of which was attached to a stand of bluish marble, trimmed with old copper, then this stand could serve as a candlestick for small family receptions. Scenes from La Fontaine's fables were woven onto the upholstery of the antique-shaped chairs, but this had to be known in advance in order to make out their plots - it was so difficult to see the faded colors and images worn to holes. At the four corners of the hall there were corner cupboards like sideboards with greasy shelves on the sides. In the partition between the two windows there was an old card table, the top of which was a chessboard. Above the table hung an oval barometer with a black rim, decorated with bands of gilded wood, but so infested with flies that one could only guess at the gilding. On the wall opposite the fireplace were two portraits which were supposed to represent Madame Grandet's grandfather, old M. de la Berteliere, in the uniform of a lieutenant of the French Guards, and the late Madame Gentillet in the costume of a shepherdess. The two windows had red grodetour curtains, tied with silk cords with tassels at the ends. This luxurious furnishings, so little in keeping with Grandet's habits, was acquired by him along with the house, as well as a dressing table, a clock, furniture with tapestry upholstery and rosewood corner cabinets. At the window nearest the door was a straw chair with legs propped up so that Madame Grandet could see passers-by. A simple cherry wood work table occupied the entire niche of the window, and Eugenia Grande’s small chair stood close by. For fifteen years, from April to November, all the days of mother and daughter passed peacefully on this place in constant work; on the first of November they could move to their winter position - to the fireplace. Only from this day did Grande allow a fire to be built in the fireplace and order it to be extinguished on March 31st, not paying attention to the spring and autumn frosts. A foot warmer with hot coals from the kitchen stove, which Naneta the Hulk skillfully saved for her housewives, helped them endure the cold mornings or evenings in April and October. Mother and daughter sewed and mended linen for the whole family, both worked conscientiously all day long, like day laborers, and when Evgenia wanted to embroider a collar for her mother, she had to snatch time from the hours designated for sleep, deceiving her father, using secret candles. For a long time now, the miser had been paying out candles to his daughter and Nanetta, just as in the morning he distributed bread and food supplies for the day’s consumption.

The monumental collection of works by Honoré de Balzac, united by a common concept and title - “The Human Comedy”, consists of 98 novels and short stories and is a grandiose history of the morals of France in the second quarter of the 19th century. It is a kind of social epic in which Balzac described the life of society: the process of formation and enrichment of the French bourgeoisie, the penetration of upstarts and nouveau riche into the aristocratic environment of the Parisian high society, their way to the top, the life, customs and philosophy of people who profess faith in only one god - money. He gave a dramatic picture of human passions generated by wealth and poverty, the thirst for power and complete lawlessness and humiliation.

Most of the novels that Balzac intended from the very beginning for the "Human Comedy" were created between 1834 and the end of the 40s. However, when the plan was finally formed, it turned out that the earlier works were organic to the author’s general idea, and Balzac included them in the epic. Subordinated to a single “super-task” - to comprehensively cover the life of society of that time, to give an almost encyclopedic list of social types and characters - “The Human Comedy” has a clearly defined structure and consists of three cycles, representing, as it were, three interconnected levels of social and artistic-philosophical generalization of phenomena .

The first cycle and foundation of the epic is “ETUDES ON MORALS” - the stratification of society, given through the prism of the private life of contemporaries. These include the bulk of the novels written by Balzac, and he introduced six thematic sections for him:

“Scenes of Private Life” (“Gobsek”, “Colonel Chabert”, “Father Goriot”, “Marriage Contract”, “Mass of the Atheist”, etc.);

“Scenes of Provincial Life” (“Eugenie Grande”, “The Illustrious Gaudissard”, “The Old Maid”, etc.);

"Scenes of Parisian life" ("The History of the Greatness and Fall of Caesar"? Irotto", "The Banker's House of Nucingen", "The Splendor and Poverty of the Courtesans", "The Secrets of the Princess de Cadignan", "Cousin Betta" and "Cousin Pons", etc.) ;

“Scenes of Political Life” (“Episode of the Age of Terror”, “Dark Affair”, etc.);

"Scenes of Military Life" (Chuans");

“Scenes of village life” (“Village doctor”. Village priest”, etc.).

The second cycle, in which Balzac wanted to show the causes of phenomena, is called “PHILOSOPHICAL SKETCHES” and includes: “Shagreen Skin”, “Elixir of Longevity”, “An Unknown Masterpiece”, “The Search for the Absolute”, “Drama on the Seaside”, “The Reconciled Melmoth” and other works.

And finally, the third cycle - “ANALYTICAL SKETCHES” (“Physiology of Marriage”, “Minor Troubles of Married Life”, etc.). In it, the writer tries to determine the philosophical foundations of human existence and reveal the laws of social life. This is the external composition of the epic.

The list of works included in “The Human Comedy” alone speaks of the grandeur of the author’s plan. “My work,” Balzac wrote, “must incorporate all types of people, all social positions, it must embody all social changes, so that not a single life situation, not a single person, not a single character, male or female, -the views... did not remain forgotten."

Before us is a model of French society, almost creating the illusion of full-fledged reality. In all the novels, the same society is depicted, similar to real France, but not completely coinciding with it, since this is its artistic embodiment. The impression of an almost historical chronicle is reinforced by the second plan of the epic, where real historical figures of that era act: Napoleon, Talleyrand, Louis XUH, real marshals and ministers. Together with characters fictitious by the authors, corresponding to the typical characters of the time, they act out the performance of the “Human Comedy”.

The effect of historical authenticity of what is happening is reinforced by the abundance of details. Paris and provincial cities are given in a wide range of details, ranging from architectural features to the smallest details of the business life and life of heroes belonging to different social strata and classes. In a certain sense, the epic can serve as a guide for a historian studying that time.

The novels of the “Human Comedy” are united not only by the unity of the era, but also by Balzac’s method of transitional characters, both main and secondary. If one of the heroes of any novel falls ill, they invite the same doctor Bianchon; in case of financial difficulties, they turn to the moneylender Gobsek; on a morning walk in the Bois de Boulogne and in Parisian salons we meet the same people. In general, the division into secondary and main for the characters of The Human Comedy is quite arbitrary. If in one of the novels the character is on the periphery of the narrative, then in the other he and his story are brought to the fore (such metamorphoses occur, for example, with Gobseck and Nucingen).

One of the fundamentally important artistic techniques of the author of The Human Comedy is openness, the flow of one novel into another. The story of one person or family ends, but the overall fabric of life has no end, it is in constant motion. Therefore, in Balzac, the outcome of one plot becomes the beginning of a new one or echoes previous novels, and cross-cutting characters create the illusion of authenticity of what is happening and emphasize the basis of the plan. It is as follows: the main character of the “Human Comedy” is society, therefore private destinies are not interesting to Balzac in themselves - they are only details of the whole picture.

Since an epic of this type depicts life in constant development, it is fundamentally not completed, and could not be completed. That is why previously written novels (for example, “Shagreen Skin”) could be included in an epic, the idea of ​​which arose after their creation.

With this principle of constructing an epic, each novel included in it is at the same time an independent work and one of the fragments of the whole. Each novel is an autonomous artistic whole, existing within a single organism, which enhances its expressiveness and the drama of the events experienced by its characters.

The innovation of such a plan and the methods of its implementation (a realistic approach to depicting reality) sharply separates Balzac's work from his predecessors - the romantics. If the latter put the singular, the exceptional at the forefront, the author of The Human Comedy believed that the artist should reflect the typical. Find the general connection and meaning of phenomena. Unlike the romantics, Balzac does not look for his ideal outside of reality; he was the first to discover the seething of human passions and truly Shakespearean drama behind the everyday life of French bourgeois society. His Paris, populated by rich and poor, fighting for power, influence, money and simply for life itself, is a fascinating picture. Behind the private manifestations of life, starting from a poor man’s unpaid bill to his landlady and ending with the story of a moneylender who unjustly made his fortune, Balzac tries to see the whole picture. The general laws of life in bourgeois society, manifested through the struggle, destinies and characters of its characters.

As a writer and artist, Balzac was almost mesmerized by the drama of the picture that opened up to him, and as a moralist, he could not help but condemn the laws that were revealed to him during the study of reality. In Balzac’s “Human Comedy”, in addition to people, there is a powerful force at work that has subjugated not only private but also public life, politics, family, morality and art. And this is money. Everything can become the subject of monetary transactions, everything is subject to the law of purchase and sale. They give power, influence in society, the opportunity to satisfy ambitious plans, and simply waste your life. To enter the elite of such a society on an equal basis, to achieve its favor in practice means abandoning the basic commandments of morality and ethics. Keeping your spiritual world pure means giving up ambitious desires and success.

Almost every hero of Balzac's "Etudes on Morals" experiences this collision, common to the "Human Comedy", and almost everyone endures a small battle with himself. At the end of it, either the path is upward and souls sold to the devil, or downward - to the margins of public life and all the painful passions that accompany the humiliation of a person. Thus, the mores of society, the characters and destinies of its members are not only interconnected, but also interdependent, Balzac asserts in The Human Comedy. His characters - Rastignac, Nucingen, Gobsek - confirm this thesis.

There are not many decent ways out - honest poverty and the consolations that religion can give. True, it should be noted that in portraying the righteous, Balzac is less convincing than in those cases when he explores the contradictions of human nature and the situation of a difficult choice for his heroes. Loving relatives (as in the case of the aged and burnt-out Baron Hulot) and family sometimes become salvation, but they are also affected by corruption. In general, family plays a significant role in The Human Comedy. Unlike the romantics, who made the individual the main subject of artistic consideration, Balzac makes the family such. With an analysis of family life, he begins the study of the social organism. And with regret he is convinced that the breakdown of the family reflects the general ill-being of life. Along with single characters in The Human Comedy, we see dozens of different family dramas, reflecting different versions of the same tragic struggle for power and gold.

BALZAC "HUMAN COMEDY"
Balzac is as vast as the ocean. This is a whirlwind of genius, a storm of indignation and a hurricane of passions. He was born in the same year as Pushkin (1799) - just two weeks earlier - but outlived him by 13 years. Both geniuses dared to look into such depths of the human soul and human relationships that no one before them was capable of. Balzac was not afraid to challenge Dante himself, calling his epic, by analogy with the main creation of the great Florentine, “The Human Comedy.” However, with equal justification it can also be called “Inhuman,” because only titanium is capable of creating such a grandiose combustion.
“Human Comedy” is the general name given by the writer himself for an extensive cycle of his novels, novellas and short stories. Most of the works combined into the cycle were published long before Balzac found an acceptable unifying title for them. The writer himself spoke about his plan like this:
Calling “Human Comedy” a work begun almost thirteen years ago, I consider it necessary to explain its concept, tell about its origin, briefly outline the plan, and express all this as if I were not involved in it. "..."
The initial idea of ​​“The Human Comedy” appeared before me like a kind of dream, like one of those impossible plans that you cherish but cannot grasp; This is how the mocking chimera reveals its feminine face, but immediately, spreading its wings, flies away into the world of fantasy. However, this chimera, like many others, is embodied: it commands, it is endowed with unlimited power, and one has to obey it. The idea for this work was born from a comparison of humanity with the animal world. “...” In this respect, society is like Nature. After all, Society creates from man, according to the environment in which he acts, as many diverse species as exist in the animal world. The difference between a soldier, a worker, an official, a lawyer, a loafer, a scientist, a statesman, a merchant, a sailor, a poet, a poor man, a priest is as significant, although more difficult to grasp, as that which distinguishes a wolf, a lion, an ass, crow, shark, seal, sheep, etc. Therefore, there are and will always exist species in human society, just like species in the animal kingdom.
Essentially, the above fragment from the famous Preface to the “Human Comedy” expresses Balzac’s credo, which reveals the secret of his creative method. He systematized human types and characters, just as botanists and zoologists systematized the flora and fauna. At the same time, according to Balzac, “in the great stream of life, Animality bursts into Humanity.” Passion is all of humanity. Man, the writer believes, is neither good nor evil, but is simply born with instincts and inclinations. All that remains is to reproduce as accurately as possible the material that Nature itself gives us.
Contrary to traditional canons and even formal logical rules of classification, the writer distinguishes three “forms of being”: men, women and things, that is, people and “the material embodiment of their thinking.” But, apparently, it was precisely this “despite” that allowed Balzac to create a unique world of his novels and stories, which cannot be confused with anything else. And Balzac’s heroes also cannot be confused with anyone. “Three thousand people of a certain era” is how the writer himself characterized them, not without pride.
The “human comedy,” as Balzac conceived it, has a complex structure. First of all, it is divided into three parts of different sizes: “Etudes on Morals”, “Philosophical Etudes” and “Analytical Etudes”. Essentially, everything important and great (with a few exceptions) is concentrated in the first part. This includes such brilliant works by Balzac as “Gobseck”, “Père Goriot”, “Eugenie Grande”, “Lost Illusions”, “The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans”, etc. In turn, “Studies on Morals” are divided into “scenes” ": "Scenes of Private Life", "Scenes of Provincial Life", "Scenes of Parisian Life", "Scenes of Military Life" and "Scenes of Rural Life". Some cycles remained undeveloped: from “Analytical Etudes” Balzac managed to write only “The Physiology of Marriage”, and from “Scenes of Military Life” - the adventure novel “The Chouans”. But the writer made grandiose plans - to create a panorama of all the Napoleonic wars (imagine the multi-volume War and Peace, but written from the French point of view).
Balzac claimed the philosophical status of his great brainchild and even singled out a special “philosophical part” in it, which included, among others, the novels “Louis Lambert”, “The Quest for the Absolute”, “The Unknown Masterpiece”, “The Elixir of Longevity”, “Seraphita” and the most famous from “philosophical studies” – “Shagreen skin”. However, with all due respect to Balzac’s genius, it should be said quite definitely that the writer did not turn out to be a great philosopher in the proper sense of the word: his knowledge in this traditional sphere of spiritual life, although extensive, is very superficial and eclectic. There is nothing shameful here. Moreover, Balzac created his own philosophy, unlike any other - the philosophy of human passions and instincts.
Among the latter, the most important, according to Balzac's gradation, is, of course, the instinct of possession. Regardless of the specific forms in which it manifests itself: among politicians - in the thirst for power; for a businessman - in a thirst for profit; in a maniac - in a thirst for blood, violence, oppression; in a man - in the thirst of a woman (and vice versa). Of course, Balzac tapped the most sensitive chord of human motives and actions. This phenomenon in its various aspects is revealed in various works of the writer. But, as a rule, all aspects, as if in focus, are concentrated in any of them. Some are embodied in Balzac’s unique heroes, becoming their carriers and personifications. This is Gobsek - the main character of the story of the same name - one of the most famous works of world literature.
The name Gobsek is translated as Crookshanks, but it was in French vocalization that it became a common noun and symbolizes the thirst for profit for the sake of profit itself. Gobsek is a capitalist genius; he has an amazing instinct and ability to increase his capital, while mercilessly trampling human destinies and showing absolute cynicism and immorality. To the surprise of Balzac himself, this wizened old man turns out to be that fantastic figure who personifies the power of gold - this “spiritual essence of all current society.” However, without these qualities, capitalist relations cannot exist in principle - otherwise it will be a completely different system. Gobsek is a romantic of the capitalist element: what gives him true pleasure is not so much the receipt of profit itself, but the contemplation of the fall and distortion of human souls in all situations where he turns out to be the true ruler of people caught in the usurer’s net.
But Gobsek is also a victim of a society where cleanliness reigns: he does not know what a woman’s love is, he has no wife and children, he has no idea what it means to bring joy to others. Behind him stretches a trail of tears and grief, broken destinies and deaths. He is very rich, but he lives from hand to mouth and is ready to gnaw out the throat of anyone for the smallest coin. He is the walking embodiment of mindless stinginess. After the death of a moneylender, in the locked rooms of his two-story mansion, a mass of rotten things and rotten supplies are discovered: while engaging in colonial scams towards the end of his life, he received in the form of bribes not only money and jewelry, but all sorts of delicacies, which he did not touch, and locked everything up for safekeeping. a feast of worms and mold.
Balzac's story is not a textbook on political economy. The writer recreates the ruthless world of capitalist reality through realistically depicted characters and the situations in which they operate. But without portraits and canvases painted by the hand of a brilliant master, our understanding of the real world itself would be incomplete and poor. Here, for example, is a textbook description of Gobsek himself:
My moneylender's hair was completely straight, always neatly combed and heavily streaked with gray—ash-gray. The facial features, motionless, impassive, like Talleyrand's, seemed cast from bronze. His eyes, small and yellow, like those of a ferret, and almost without eyelashes, could not stand bright light, so he protected them with the large visor of a tattered cap. The sharp tip of the long nose, pitted with mountain ash, looked like a gimlet, and the lips were thin, like those of alchemists and ancient old men in the paintings of Rembrandt and Metsu. This man spoke quietly, softly, and never got excited. His age was a mystery “...” It was some kind of human-automatic machine that was wound up every day. If you touch a woodlice crawling on paper, it will instantly stop and freeze; Likewise, this man suddenly fell silent during a conversation, waiting until the noise of the carriage passing under the windows died down, since he did not want to strain his voice. Following the example of Fontenelle, he conserved vital energy, suppressing all human feelings in himself. And his life flowed as silently as sand trickling in an ancient hourglass. Sometimes his victims became indignant, raised a frantic cry, then suddenly there was dead silence, like in a kitchen when a duck is slaughtered in it.
A few touches to the characterization of one hero. And Balzac had thousands of them - several dozen in each novel. He wrote day and night. And yet he did not manage to create everything he had in mind. The Human Comedy remained unfinished. She also burned the author himself. In total, 144 works were planned, but 91 were not written. If you ask yourself the question: which figure in Western literature of the 19th century is the most large-scale, powerful and inaccessible, there will be no difficulty in answering. This is Balzac! Zola compared The Human Comedy to the Tower of Babel. The comparison is quite reasonable: indeed, there is something primordially chaotic and extremely grandiose in Balzac’s cyclopean creation. There is only one difference:
The Tower of Babel has collapsed, but the Human Comedy, built by the hands of a French genius, will stand forever.

"HUMAN COMEDY"

Balzac is as vast as the ocean. This is a whirlwind of genius, a storm of indignation and a hurricane of passions. He was born in the same year as Pushkin (1799) - just two weeks earlier - but outlived him by 13 years. Both geniuses dared to look into such depths of the human soul and human relationships that no one before them was capable of. Balzac was not afraid to challenge Dante himself, calling his epic, by analogy with the main creation of the great Florentine, “The Human Comedy.” However, with equal justification it can also be called “Inhuman,” because only titanium is capable of creating such a grandiose combustion.

“Human Comedy” is the general name given by the writer himself for an extensive cycle of his novels, novellas and short stories. Most of the works combined into the cycle were published long before Balzac found an acceptable unifying title for them. The writer himself spoke about his plan like this:

Calling “Human Comedy” a work begun almost thirteen years ago, I consider it necessary to explain its concept, tell about its origin, briefly outline the plan, and express all this as if I were not involved in it. "..."

The initial idea of ​​“The Human Comedy” appeared before me like a kind of dream, like one of those impossible plans that you cherish but cannot grasp; This is how the mocking chimera reveals its feminine face, but immediately, spreading its wings, flies away into the world of fantasy. However, this chimera, like many others, is embodied: it commands, it is endowed with unlimited power, and one has to obey it. The idea for this work was born from a comparison of humanity with the animal world. “...” In this respect, society is like Nature. After all, Society creates from man, according to the environment in which he acts, as many diverse species as exist in the animal world. The difference between a soldier, a worker, an official, a lawyer, a loafer, a scientist, a statesman, a merchant, a sailor, a poet, a poor man, a priest is as significant, although more difficult to grasp, as that which distinguishes a wolf, a lion, an ass, crow, shark, seal, sheep, etc. Therefore, there are and will always exist species in human society, just like species in the animal kingdom.

Essentially, the above fragment from the famous Preface to the “Human Comedy” expresses Balzac’s credo, which reveals the secret of his creative method. He systematized human types and characters, just as botanists and zoologists systematized the flora and fauna. At the same time, according to Balzac, “in the great stream of life, Animality bursts into Humanity.” Passion is all of humanity. Man, the writer believes, is neither good nor evil, but is simply born with instincts and inclinations. All that remains is to reproduce as accurately as possible the material that Nature itself gives us.

Contrary to traditional canons and even formal logical rules of classification, the writer distinguishes three “forms of being”: men, women and things, that is, people and “the material embodiment of their thinking.” But, apparently, it was precisely this “despite” that allowed Balzac to create a unique world of his novels and stories, which cannot be confused with anything else. And Balzac’s heroes also cannot be confused with anyone. “Three thousand people of a certain era” - this is how the writer himself characterized them, not without pride.

The “human comedy,” as Balzac conceived it, has a complex structure. First of all, it is divided into three parts of different sizes: “Etudes on Morals”, “Philosophical Etudes” and “Analytical Etudes”. Essentially, everything important and great (with a few exceptions) is concentrated in the first part. This includes such brilliant works by Balzac as “Gobseck”, “Père Goriot”, “Eugenie Grande”, “Lost Illusions”, “The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans”, etc. In turn, “Studies on Morals” are divided into “scenes” ": "Scenes of Private Life", "Scenes of Provincial Life", "Scenes of Parisian Life", "Scenes of Military Life" and "Scenes of Rural Life". Some cycles remained undeveloped: from the “Analytical Etudes” Balzac managed to write only “The Physiology of Marriage”, and from “Scenes of Military Life” - the adventure novel “The Chouans”. But the writer made grandiose plans - to create a panorama of all the Napoleonic wars (imagine the multi-volume War and Peace, but written from the French point of view).

Balzac claimed the philosophical status of his great brainchild and even singled out a special “philosophical part” in it, which included, among others, the novels “Louis Lambert”, “The Quest for the Absolute”, “The Unknown Masterpiece”, “The Elixir of Longevity”, “Seraphita” and the most famous from “philosophical studies” - “Shagreen skin”. However, with all due respect to Balzac’s genius, it should be said quite definitely that the writer did not turn out to be a great philosopher in the proper sense of the word: his knowledge in this traditional sphere of spiritual life, although extensive, is very superficial and eclectic. There is nothing shameful here. Moreover, Balzac created his own philosophy, unlike any other - the philosophy of human passions and instincts.

Among the latter, the most important, according to Balzac's gradation, is, of course, the instinct of possession. Regardless of the specific forms in which it manifests itself: among politicians - in the thirst for power; for a businessman - in a thirst for profit; in a maniac - in a thirst for blood, violence, oppression; in a man - in the thirst of a woman (and vice versa). Of course, Balzac tapped the most sensitive string of human motives and actions. This phenomenon in its various aspects is revealed in various works of the writer. But, as a rule, all aspects, as if in focus, are concentrated in any of them. Some are embodied in Balzac’s unique heroes, becoming their carriers and personifications. This is Gobsek - the main character of the story of the same name - one of the most famous works of world literature.

The name Gobsek is translated as Crookshanks, but it was in French vocalization that it became a common noun and symbolizes the thirst for profit for the sake of profit itself. Gobsek is a capitalist genius; he has an amazing instinct and ability to increase his capital, while mercilessly trampling human destinies and showing absolute cynicism and immorality. To the surprise of Balzac himself, this wizened old man turns out to be that fantastic figure who personifies the power of gold - this “spiritual essence of all current society.” However, without these qualities, capitalist relations cannot exist in principle - otherwise it will be a completely different system. Gobsek is a romantic of the capitalist element: what gives him true pleasure is not so much the receipt of profit itself, but the contemplation of the fall and distortion of human souls in all situations where he turns out to be the true ruler of people caught in the usurer’s net.

But Gobsek is also a victim of a society where cleanliness reigns: he does not know what a woman’s love is, he has no wife and children, he has no idea what it is to bring joy to others. Behind him stretches a trail of tears and grief, broken destinies and deaths. He is very rich, but lives from hand to mouth and is ready to gnaw at anyone's throat for the smallest coin. He is the walking embodiment of mindless stinginess. After the death of a moneylender, in the locked rooms of his two-story mansion, a mass of rotten things and rotten supplies are discovered: while engaging in colonial scams towards the end of his life, he received in the form of bribes not only money and jewelry, but all sorts of delicacies, which he did not touch, but locked everything up for safekeeping. a feast of worms and mold.

Balzac's story is not a textbook on political economy. The writer recreates the ruthless world of capitalist reality through realistically depicted characters and the situations in which they operate. But without portraits and canvases painted by the hand of a brilliant master, our understanding of the real world itself would be incomplete and poor. Here, for example, is a textbook description of Gobsek himself:

My moneylender's hair was completely straight, always neatly combed and heavily streaked with gray - ash-gray. The facial features, motionless, impassive, like Talleyrand's, seemed cast from bronze. His eyes, small and yellow, like those of a ferret, and almost without eyelashes, could not stand bright light, so he protected them with the large visor of a tattered cap. The sharp tip of the long nose, pitted with mountain ash, looked like a gimlet, and the lips were thin, like those of alchemists and ancient old men in the paintings of Rembrandt and Metsu. This man spoke quietly, softly, and never got excited. His age was a mystery “...” It was some kind of human-automatic machine that was wound up every day. If you touch a woodlice crawling on paper, it will instantly stop and freeze; Likewise, this man suddenly fell silent during a conversation, waiting until the noise of the carriage passing under the windows died down, since he did not want to strain his voice. Following the example of Fontenelle, he conserved his vital energy, suppressing all human feelings in himself. And his life flowed as silently as sand trickling in an ancient hourglass. Sometimes his victims became indignant, raised a frantic cry, then suddenly there was dead silence, like in a kitchen when a duck is slaughtered in it.

A few touches to the characterization of one hero. And Balzac had thousands of them - several dozen in each novel. He wrote day and night. And yet he did not have time to create everything he had planned. The Human Comedy remained unfinished. She also burned the author himself. In total, 144 works were planned, but 91 were not written. If you ask yourself the question: which figure in Western literature of the 19th century is the most large-scale, powerful and inaccessible, there will be no difficulty in answering. This is Balzac! Zola compared The Human Comedy to the Tower of Babel. The comparison is quite reasonable: indeed, there is something primordially chaotic and extremely grandiose in Balzac’s cyclopean creation. There is only one difference:

The Tower of Babel has collapsed, but the Human Comedy, built by the hands of a French genius, will stand forever.

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