« Shagreen leather" - one of the most famous novels titan of French prose Honore de Balzac. The work was published in two volumes in August 1831 and was later included in the grandiose cycle “The Human Comedy”. The author placed “Shagreen Skin” in the second section called “Philosophical Studies.”

The reader was already partially familiar with Shagreen Skin before the release of the official two-volume edition. Individual episodes of the novel are first published in the magazines “Caricature”, “Revue de De Monde”, “Revue de Paris”. Fans liked Balzac's realistic fantasy. “Shagreen Skin” was a huge success and was reprinted seven times during the writer’s lifetime.

This novel captivates with a dynamic, intriguing plot and at the same time makes you think about the magnitude and versatility of such concepts as life and death, truth and lies, wealth and poverty, real love and her ability to transform the world around lovers. The setting for “Shagreen Skin” is brilliant, insatiable, greedy Paris, which most clearly manifests its vicious traits in secular society.

Main character novel - a young provincial, writer, seeker Raphael de Valentin. Along with Valentin, Balzac introduces already familiar characters into the figurative structure of the work. One of them is the adventurer Eugene de Rastignac. He appeared more than once on the pages of novels " Human Comedy"(somewhere in the main, somewhere in minor role). Thus, Rastignac solos in “Père Goriot” and is included in the figurative structure of “Scenes” political life", "The Secrets of the Princess de Cadignan", "The Banking House of Nucingen", "Bretta's Cousin" and "The Captain from Arcee".

Another star of “The Human Comedy” is the banker Taillefer, also known as the “murderer drowning in gold.” The image of Taillefer is colorfully depicted on the pages of the novels “Père Goriot” and “The Red Hotel”.

The compositional and semantic structure of the novel is represented by three equal parts - “Talisman”, “Woman without a Heart” and “Agony”.

Part one: "Talisman"

A young man named Raphael de Valentin wanders through Paris. Once this city seemed to him a valley of joy and inexhaustible possibilities, but today it is only a reminder of his failure in life. Having experienced happiness and found it, being disappointed and losing everything, Raphael de Valentin made a firm decision to die. This night he will be thrown into the Seine from the Royal Bridge, and tomorrow afternoon the townspeople will catch him unidentified corpse person. He does not hope for their participation and does not rely on pity. People are deaf to everything that does not concern themselves. Raphael understood this truth perfectly.

IN last time Walking through the streets of Paris, our hero wandered into an antiquities shop. Its owner, a dry, wrinkled old man with an ominously crooked grin, showed the late guest the most valuable product in his shop. It was a piece of shagreen leather (approx. - soft rough leather (lamb, goat, horse, etc.). The flap was small - the size of an average fox.

According to the old owner, this is not just shagreen, but a powerful magical artifact that can change the fate of its owner. On the reverse side there was an inscription in Sanskrit, the ancient message said: “By possessing me, you will possess everything, but your life will belong to me... Wish and your desires will be fulfilled. However, balance your desires with your life. She is here. With every wish, I will decrease, as if your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. Let it be so".

Until now, no one has dared to become the owner of this piece of shagreen and secretly sign an agreement that suspiciously resembles a deal with the devil. However, what does a destitute poor man who just wanted to give up his life have to lose?!

Raphael acquires shagreen skin and immediately makes two wishes. The first is for the old shopkeeper to fall in love with the dancer, the second for him, Raphael, to take part in the bacchanalia that night.
Before your eyes, the skin noticeably shrinks to such a size that you can put it in your pocket. For now, this only amuses our hero. He says goodbye to the old man and goes out into the night.

Before Valentin had time to cross the Pont des Arts, he met his friend Emil, who offered him a job in his newspaper. It was decided to celebrate the joyful event at a party in the house of the banker Taillefer. Here Raphael meets various representatives of Parisian society: corrupt artists, bored scientists, tight wallets, elite prostitutes and many others.

Together with Raphael de Valentin, we are carried back many years ago, when he was still a very young boy and knew how to dream. Valentin remembers his father - a tough and stern man. He never showed the love that his sensual son so needed. De Valentin the elder was a buyer of foreign lands that became available as a result of successful military campaigns. However, the golden age of Napoleonic conquests is passing. Things are starting to go bad for the Valentens. The head of the family dies, and the son has no choice but to quickly sell off the land to pay off creditors.

Rafael has a modest amount left at his disposal, which he decides to spread over several years. This should be enough for as long as he becomes famous. Valentin wants to be a great writer, he feels talent in himself, and therefore rents an attic in a cheap Parisian hotel and begins to work day and night on his literary brainchild.

The owner of the hotel, Madame Gaudin, turned out to be a very kind and sweet woman, but her daughter Polina was especially good. Valentin likes young Gaudin, he happily spends time in her company, but the woman of his dreams is different - this socialite With excellent manners, brilliant outfits and solid capital, which gives its owner a certain charm.

Soon Valentin was lucky enough to meet just such a woman. Her name was Countess Theodora. This twenty-two-year-old beauty had an income of eighty thousand. The whole of Paris unsuccessfully wooed her, and Valentin was no exception. At first, Theodora shows favor towards her new boyfriend, but it soon becomes clear that she is not driven by an amorous feeling, but by calculation - the countess needs the protection of Valentin's distant relative, Duke de Navarrene. The insulted young man reveals his feelings to the tormentor, but she declares that she will never sink below her level. Only the Duke will become her husband.

A love fiasco forces Valentin to once again become close to his adventurous friend Eugene de Rastignac (it was he who introduced Raphael to the countess). Friends begin to party, play cards, win a large sum money, they squander it uncontrollably. And when nothing remained of the solid winnings, Valentin realized that he was on the social day, his life is over. Then he went outside and decided to throw himself off the bridge.

But, as we know, this did not happen, because on his way he met an antiquities shop... The narrator pauses the narration. He completely forgot about the magical shagreen that grants wishes. We need to check it out! Valentin takes out a piece of skin and makes a wish - to receive 120 thousand in annual income. The next day, Raphael is informed that he has died. distant relative. He left Raphael a huge fortune, which amounts to exactly 120 thousand a year. Taking out a piece of shagreen, the newly rich man realized that the magic was working, the shagreen had shrunk, which meant his earthly existence had shortened.

Now Raphael de Valentin no longer has to huddle in a dark, damp attic, he lives in a spacious, richly furnished house. True, his real life- This constant control own desires. As soon as Raphael utters the phrase “I want” or “I wish,” the piece of shagreen immediately shrinks.

One day Rafael goes to the theater. There he meets a wizened old man with a beautiful dancer on his arm. This is the same shopkeeper! But how the old man has changed, his face is still covered with wrinkles, but his eyes glow like young guy. What is the reason? – Rafael is surprised. It's all about love! - the old man explains, - A single hour of true love is worth more than a long life.

Raphael watches the dressed-up audience, a string of ladies' shoulders, gloves, men's tailcoats and collars. He meets Countess Theodora, as brilliant as ever. Only she no longer evokes his former admiration. She is as artificial and faceless as all high society society.

One lady attracts Valentin's attention. What a surprise Raphael was when this social beauty turned out to be Polina. The same Polina with whom he spent long evenings in his wretched attic. It turns out that the girl became the heir to a huge fortune. Returning home, Valentin wished that Polina would fall in love with him. Shagreen shrank treacherously again. In a fit of anger, Raphael throws her into the well - come what may!

Raphael de Valentin's last wish

Young people begin to live in perfect harmony, make plans for the future and literally bathe in each other’s love. One day the gardener brings a piece of leather - he accidentally fished it out of the well. Valentin rushes to the best Parisian scientists with a plea to destroy shagreen. But neither the zoologist, nor the mechanic, nor the chemist find a way to destroy the outlandish artifact. The life that Valentin once wanted to part with voluntarily now seems to him to be his greatest treasure, because he loves and is loved.

Rafael's health begins to fail, doctors discover signs of consumption in him and shrug their shoulders - his days are numbered. Everyone except Polina turns out to be indifferent to the man doomed to death. In order not to torment himself, Rafael runs away from the bride, and when after a while their meeting does take place, he is unable to resist the beauty of his beloved. Shouting out, “I wish you, Polina!”, Valentin falls dead...

...And Polina remains to live. The truth about her future fate nothing is known.

Honoré de Balzac's novel “Shagreen Skin”: summary

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« Shagren skin"(French La Peau de Chagrin), 1830-1831) - novel by Honoré de Balzac. Dedicated to the problem of the collision of an inexperienced person with a society infested with vices.

A deal with the devil - this question has interested more than one writer and not one of them has already answered it. What if everything can be turned around so that you end up winning? What if Fate smiles on you this time? What if you become the only one who manages to outwit the forces of evil?.. So thought the hero of the novel “Shagreen Skin”.

The novel consists of three chapters and an epilogue:

Mascot

The young man, Raphael de Valentin, is poor. Education has given him little; he is unable to provide for himself. He wants to commit suicide, and, waiting for the right moment (he decides to die at night, throwing himself from a bridge into the Seine), he enters an antiquities shop, where the old owner shows him an amazing talisman - shagreen leather. On the back of the talisman there are embossed signs in “Sanskrit” (in fact, it is an Arabic text, but in the original and in the translations it is Sanskrit that is mentioned); translation reads:

Possessing me, you will possess everything, but your life will belong to me. God wants it that way. Wish and your wishes will be fulfilled. However, balance your desires with your life. She is here. With every wish, I will decrease, as if your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. God will hear you. Let it be so!

A woman without a heart

Rafael tells the story of his life.

The hero was brought up in strictness. His father was a nobleman from the south of France. At the end of the reign of Louis XVI he came to Paris, where he quickly made his fortune. The revolution ruined him. However, during the Empire he again achieved fame and fortune thanks to his wife's dowry. The fall of Napoleon was a tragedy for him, because he was buying up lands on the border of the empire, which were now transferred to other countries. A long trial, in which he also involved his son, a future doctor of law, ended in 1825, when M. de Villele “unearthed” the imperial decree on the loss of rights. Ten months later, the father died. Raphael sold all his property and was left with 1120 francs.

He decides to live quiet life in the attic of a miserable hotel in a remote quarter of Paris. The owner of the hotel, Madame Godin, has a baron husband who has gone missing in India. She believes that someday he will return, fabulously rich. Polina, her daughter, falls in love with Rafael, but he has no idea about it. He completely devotes his life to working on two things: a comedy and a scientific treatise “The Theory of the Will”.

One day he meets young Rastignac on the street. He offers him a way to quickly get rich through marriage. There is one woman in the world - Theodora - fabulously beautiful and rich. But she doesn’t love anyone and doesn’t even want to hear about marriage. Rafael falls in love and begins to spend all his money on courtship. Theodora does not suspect his poverty. Rastignac introduces Raphael to Fino, a man who offers to write a forged memoir for his grandmother, offering a lot of money. Rafael agrees. He begins to lead a broken life: he leaves the hotel, rents and furnishes a house; every day he is in society... but he still loves Theodora. Deeply in debt, he goes to the gambling house where Rastignac was once lucky enough to win 27,000 francs, loses the last Napoleon and wants to drown himself.

This is where the story ends.

Raphael remembers the shagreen leather in his pocket. As a joke, to prove his power to Emil, he asks for two hundred thousand francs in income. Along the way, they take measurements - put the skin on a napkin, and Emil traces the edges of the talisman with ink. Everyone falls asleep. The next morning, the lawyer Cardo comes and announces that Raphael’s rich uncle, who had no other heirs, died in Calcutta. Raphael jumps up and checks his skin with the napkin. The skin shrank! He's terrified. Emil states that Raphael can make any wish come true. Everyone makes requests half seriously, half jokingly. Rafael doesn't listen to anyone. He is rich, but at the same time almost dead. The talisman works!

And persecution

Beginning of December. Rafael lives in luxury home. Everything is arranged so that no words are spoken. Wish, Want etc. On the wall in front of him there is always a framed piece of shagreen, outlined in ink.

To Raphael - to an influential person- comes former teacher, Mr. Porrique. He asks to obtain for him a position as an inspector at a provincial college. Rafael accidentally says in a conversation: “I sincerely wish...”. The skin tightens and he screams furiously at Porika; his life hangs by a thread.

Rafael goes to the theater and meets Polina there. She is rich - her father has returned, and with a large fortune. They meet in Madame Gaudin's former hotel, in that same old attic. Rafael is in love. Polina admits that she has always loved him. They decide to get married. Arriving home, Rafael finds a way to deal with the shagreen: he throws the skin into the well.

End of February. Rafael and Polina live together. One morning a gardener comes, having caught shagreen from the well. She became very small. Rafael is in despair. He goes to see the learned men, but everything is useless: the naturalist Lavril gives him a whole lecture on the origin of donkey skin, but he can’t stretch it; mechanic Tablet puts it in a hydraulic press, which breaks; the chemist Baron Jafe cannot break it down with any substances.

Polina notices signs of consumption in Rafael. He calls Horace Bianchon, his friend, a young doctor, who convenes a consultation. Each doctor expresses his scientific theory, they all unanimously advise going to the water, placing leeches on your stomach and breathing fresh air. However, they cannot determine the cause of his illness. Raphael leaves for Aix, where he is treated poorly. They avoid him and declare almost to his face that “since a person is so sick, he should not go to the water.” A confrontation with the cruelty of secular treatment led to a duel with one of the brave brave men. Raphael killed his opponent, and the skin shrank again. Convinced that he is dying, he returns to Paris, where he continues to hide from Polina, putting himself into a state of artificial sleep in order to last longer, but she finds him. When he sees her, he lights up with desire and rushes at her. The girl runs away in horror, and Rafael finds Polina half-naked - she scratched her chest and tried to strangle herself with a shawl. The girl thought that if she died, she would leave her lover alive. The life of the main character is cut short.

E pilog

In the epilogue, Balzac makes it clear that he does not want to describe Polina’s further earthly path. In a symbolic description, he calls her either a flower blooming in a flame, or an angel coming in a dream, or the ghost of a Lady, depicted by Antoine de la Salle. This ghost seems to want to protect his country from the invasion of modernity. Speaking about Theodora, Balzac notes that she is everywhere, as she personifies secular society.

At the end of October, a young man, Raphael de Valentin, entered the building of the Palais Royal, in whose gaze the players noticed some kind of terrible secret, his facial features expressed the impassivity of a suicide and a thousand disappointed hopes. Lost, Valentin squandered his last Napoleon and began to wander the streets of Paris in a daze. His mind was consumed by a single thought - to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine from the Royal Bridge. The thought that during the day he would become the prey of the boatmen, which would be valued at fifty francs, disgusted him. He decided to die at night, “to leave an unidentified corpse to society, which despised the greatness of his soul.” Walking carelessly, he began to look at the Louvre, the Academy, the towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady, the towers of the Palace of Justice, the Pont des Arts. To wait until nightfall, he headed to the antiquities shop to ask the price for works of art. There a thin old man appeared before him with an ominous sneer at thin lips. The insightful old man guessed about the mental torment young man and proposed to make him more powerful than the monarch. He handed him a piece of shagreen, on which the following words were engraved in Sanskrit: “By possessing me, you will possess everything, but your life will belong to me. Wish - and your desires will be fulfilled. With every desire, I will fade like your days.. ."

Raphael entered into an agreement with the old man, whose whole life consisted of conserving his strength unspent in passions, and wished that, if his fate did not change at the most, short term to make the old man fall in love with the dancer. On the Pont des Arts, Valentin accidentally met his friends, who, considering him an outstanding person, offered him a job in a newspaper in order to create an opposition “capable of satisfying the dissatisfied without special harm for the national government of the citizen king" (Louis Philippe). Friends took Raphael to a dinner party at the newspaper's founding house in the house of the richest banker Taillefer. The audience gathered that evening in luxurious mansion, was truly monstrous: “Young writers without style stood next to young writers without ideas, prose writers, greedy for poetic beauty, stood next to prosaic poets. There were two or three scientists created in order to dilute the atmosphere of conversation with nitrogen, and several vaudevillians , ready at any moment to sparkle with ephemeral sparkles, which, like the sparks of a diamond, do not shine or warm.” After a sumptuous dinner, the public was offered the most beautiful courtesans, subtle imitations of “innocent timid maidens.” The courtesans Aquilina and Euphrasia, in a conversation with Raphael and Emil, argue that it is better to die young than to be abandoned when their beauty fades.

Woman without a heart

Rafael tells Emil about the reasons for his mental anguish and suffering. From childhood, Raphael's father subjected his son to strict discipline. Until he was twenty-one, he was under the firm hand of his parent; the young man was naive and thirsty for love. Once at a ball, he decided to play with his father’s money and won an impressive amount of money for him, however, ashamed of his action, he hid this fact. Soon his father began to give him money for maintenance and share his plans. Raphael's father fought for ten years with Prussian and Bavarian diplomats, seeking recognition of rights to foreign land holdings. His future depended on this process, to which Raphael was actively involved. When the decree of loss of rights was promulgated, Raphael sold the lands, leaving only the island, which had no value, where his mother's grave was located. A long reckoning with creditors began, which brought my father to the grave. The young man decided to stretch the remaining funds over three years, and settled in a cheap hotel, studying scientific work- “The Theory of Will”. He lived from hand to mouth, but the work of thought, pursuits, seemed to him the most beautiful work in life. The owner of the hotel, Madame Gaudin, took care of Raphael like a mother, and her daughter Polina provided him with many services, which he could not refuse. After a while, he began to give lessons to Polina, the girl turned out to be extremely capable and smart. Having plunged headlong into science, Raphael continued to dream of beautiful lady, luxurious, noble and rich. In Polina he saw the embodiment of all his desires, but she lacked the salon polish. “...a woman, be as attractive as beautiful Elena, this Galatea of ​​Homer, cannot win my heart if she is even the slightest bit dirty.”

One winter, Rastignac brought him into the house “where all of Paris visited” and introduced him to the charming Countess Theodora, the owner of eighty thousand livres of income. The Countess was a lady of about twenty-two, enjoyed an impeccable reputation, had a marriage behind her, but did not have a lover, the most enterprising red tape in Paris suffered a fiasco in the struggle for the right to possess her. Raphael fell madly in love with Theodora, she was the embodiment of those dreams that made his heart tremble. Parting with him, she asked him to visit her. Returning home and feeling the contrast of the situation, Raphael cursed his “honest, respectable poverty” and decided to seduce Theodora, who was the last lottery ticket, on which his fate depended. What kind of sacrifices did the poor seducer make: he incredibly managed to get to her house on foot in the rain and maintain a presentable appearance; He used his last money to take her home when they returned from the theater. In order to provide himself with a decent wardrobe, he had to enter into an agreement to write false memoirs, which were to be published under the name of another person. One day she sent him a note by messenger and asked him to come. Appearing at her call, Raphael learned that she needed the protection of his influential relative, the Duke de Navarrene. The madman in love was only a means to realize a mysterious business that he never knew about. Raphael was tormented by the thought that the reason for the countess's loneliness could be a physical disability. To dispel his doubts, he decided to hide in her bedroom. Having left the guests, Theodora entered her apartment and seemed to take off her usual mask of politeness and friendliness. Raphael did not find any flaws in her, and calmed down; falling asleep, she said: “Oh my God!” The delighted Raphael made a lot of guesses, suggesting what such an exclamation could mean: “Her exclamation, either meaningless, or deep, or accidental, or significant, could express happiness, grief, bodily pain, and concern.” . As it turned out later, she only remembered that she had forgotten to tell her broker to exchange the five percent rent for a three percent one. When Raphael revealed to her his poverty and all-consuming passion for her, she replied that she would not belong to anyone and would agree to marry only the Duke. Raphael left the countess forever and moved to Rastignac.

Rastignac, having played in a gambling house with their joint money, won twenty-seven thousand francs. From that day on, the friends went on a rampage. When the funds were wasted, Valentin decided that he was a “social zero” and decided to die.

The narrative returns to the moment when Raphael is in Taillefer's mansion. He takes a piece of shagreen leather from his pocket and expresses a desire to become the owner of two hundred thousand in annual income. The next morning, notary Cardo informs the public that Raphael has become the rightful heir of Major O'Flaherty, who died the day before. The newly rich man looked at the shagreen and noticed that it had decreased in size. He was overwhelmed by the ghostly chill of death, now “he could do everything - and no longer wanted anything.”

Agony

One December day, an old man came to the luxurious mansion of the Marquis de Valentin, under whose leadership Raphael-Mr. Porrique once studied. The old devoted servant Jonathan tells the teacher that his master leads a reclusive life and suppresses all desires. The venerable old man came to ask the marquis to ask the minister to reinstate him, Porrique, as an inspector at a provincial college. Raphael, tired of the old man's long outpourings, accidentally said that he sincerely wished that he could achieve reinstatement. Realizing what was said, the Marquis became furious; when he looked at the shagreen, it noticeably decreased. In the theater he once met a dry old man with young eyes, while in his gaze now only echoes of outdated passions were read. The old man was leading Raphael’s acquaintance, the dancer Euphrasia, by the arm. To the questioning glance of the Marquis, the old man replied that now he was happy as a young man, and that he misunderstood existence: “All life is in a single hour of love.” Looking at the audience, Raphael fixed his gaze on Theodora, who was sitting with another admirer, still just as beautiful and cold. On the next chair with Raphael sat a beautiful stranger, attracting the admiring glances of all the men present. It was Polina. Her father, who at one time commanded a squadron of mounted grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, was captured by the Cossacks; According to rumors, he managed to escape and reach India. When he returned, he made his daughter the heiress of a million-dollar fortune. They agreed to meet at the Saint-Quentin Hotel, their former home, which kept the memories of their poverty; Polina wanted to hand over the papers that Raphael bequeathed to her when he moved.

Finding himself at home, Rafael looked longingly at the talisman and wished that Polina would love him. The next morning he was filled with joy - the talisman had not decreased, which means the contract was broken.

Having met, the young people realized that they loved each other with all their hearts and nothing would interfere with their happiness. When Rafael is in Once again looked at the shagreen, he noticed that it had shrunk again, and in a fit of anger he threw it into the well. “What will be will be,” the exhausted Rafael decided and began to live in perfect harmony with Polina. One February day, the gardener brought the Marquis a strange find, “the dimensions of which now did not exceed six square inches.”

From now on, Raphael decided to seek a means of salvation from scientists in order to stretch the shagreen and prolong his life. The first person he went to was Mr. Lavril, the “priest of zoology.” When asked how to stop skin narrowing, Lavril replied: “Science is vast, but human life is very short. Therefore, we do not pretend to know all natural phenomena.”

The second person the Marquis turned to was the professor of mechanics, Tablet. An attempt to stop the narrowing of the shagreen by applying a hydraulic press to it was unsuccessful. Shagreen remained safe and sound. The amazed German hit the skin with a blacksmith's hammer, but there was no trace of damage left on it. The apprentice threw the skin into a coal firebox, but even from it the shagreen was taken out completely unharmed.

The chemist Jafe broke a razor while trying to cut the skin, tried to cut it with an electric current, exposed it to a voltaic column - all to no avail.

Now Valentin no longer believed in anything, began to look for damage to his body and called the doctors. For a long time he began to notice signs of consumption, now it became obvious to both him and Polina. The doctors came to the following conclusion: “a blow was needed to break the window, but who delivered it?” They attributed it to leeches, diet and climate change. Raphael smiled sarcastically in response to these recommendations.

A month later he went to the waters of Aix. Here he encountered the rude coldness and neglect of those around him. They avoided him and declared almost to his face that “since a person is so sick, he should not go to the water.” A confrontation with the cruelty of secular treatment led to a duel with one of the brave brave men. Raphael killed his opponent, and the skin shrank again.

After leaving the waters, he settled in the rural hut of Mont-Dore. The people with whom he lived deeply sympathized with him, and pity is “the most difficult feeling to endure from other people.” Soon Jonathan came for him and took his master home. He threw Polina's letters to him, in which she poured out her love for him, into the fireplace. The opium solution prepared by Bianchon put Raphael into artificial sleep for several days. The old servant decided to follow Bianchon's advice and entertain his master. He called full house friends, a magnificent feast was planned, but Valentin, who saw this spectacle, became furious with anger. After drinking a portion of sleeping pills, he fell back into sleep. Polina woke him up, he began to beg her to leave him, showed a piece of skin that had become the size of a “periwinkle leaf”, she began to examine the talisman, and he, seeing how beautiful she was, could not control himself. “Polina, come here! Pauline!" - he shouted, and the talisman in her hand began to shrink. Polina decided to tear her chest and strangle herself with a shawl in order to die. She decided that if she killed herself, he would live. Raphael, seeing all this, became drunk with passion, rushed to her and died immediately.

Epilogue

What happened to Polina?

On the steamship "City of Angers" a young man and beautiful woman admired the figure in the fog over the Loire. “This light creature, now an undine, now a sylph, hovered in the air - so the word that you are looking for in vain hovers somewhere in your memory, but you cannot catch it. You would think that this is the ghost of the Lady depicted by Antoine de la Salle, wants to protect her country from the invasion of modernity."

The legend of shagreen leather came to us from the darkness of centuries. Its essence is that with each of our desires (a desire is a thought that generates an action), we spend a part of ourselves; This means that the more desires, the sooner our life decreases.

Reverse logic: the more measured and inactive we live, the more likely we are to live a long time.

This image is the fruit of worldly wisdom, and a typical case when the visible is taken for the real. After all, everything is so obvious! Youth is taken as the starting point - the time of the most violent and uncontrollable desires. The more you “allowed” yourself in your youth (burning the candle at both ends at once), the less remains for the rest of your life. And in all cases, life goes downhill, downhill.

If the same scheme is expanded wider - from birth to death - it becomes even more convincing. Starting his journey from practically nothing (well, what is a fertilized egg? Without a microscope it’s hard to even believe in it), a person develops, gains strength, reaches a peak in his youth - and then slowly slides down to turn into practically nothing in feeble old age.

“The first step of a child is the first step towards death.”

True, this scheme contradicts the second law of thermodynamics, because it is not clear where the incredible growth energy comes from at the first stage. The child eats a lot, and yet the food energy is not enough to satisfy and compensate for growth. But today we see this contradiction, but before we simply did not notice it.

And the second contradiction is about the essence of desires. From the principle of shagreen skin it follows that one must avoid desires, strong feelings. Peace is an ideal. The less contacts with the outside world, the more balanced the inner world, the better...

But desire (we repeat) is a thought that gives rise to action! That action that alone can accumulate energy potential and create energy surplus value, and thereby maintain energy potential at the same level.

Let us recall one more circumstance: the energy potential of a newborn is so great that it is almost impossible to surpass it. This means we can take it as the maximum. Optimal maximum. The maximum is within the limits of what is permitted.

This is a measure. And a landmark. A guide for life.

So the task of each of us has become clear: to use our energy potential in such a way, to correct it with additional energy so that its level does not deviate far from the original one. And since the energy potential is either consumed or accumulated, this line should resemble a sine wave. A sinusoid that rolls within the boundaries of what is permitted, each time with its peak trying to reach the standard - the level of the energy potential of a newborn. (And reaches out! - in moments of inspiration.)

Such a life schedule cannot but cause mistrust. How! And a newborn, a young man in the prime of life, and an old man have the same level of energy potential?..

Imagine - yes. Just energy potential in at different ages differently expresses himself. It provides growth to a newborn, the ability to act to transform the world to a young man, and wisdom to an old man. Intellectual effort is as energy-intensive as the emotion of a young man. The height to which a young man soars in a burst of inspiration is also accessible to an old man who slowly climbs to it through the steps of reason. Of course, our old man should be practically healthy.

- “SHAGREEN SKIN”, Russia, SPiEF (Lenfilm)/LENFILM, 1992, color, 39 min. Experimental fiction film. Cast: Olga Kondina, Andrei Khramtsov, Andrei Slavini, Natalya Fisson (see FISSON Natalya Vladimirovna), Sergei Shcherbin. Director: Igor... ... Encyclopedia of Cinema

This term has other meanings, see Shagreen skin (meanings). Shagreen leather La Peau de Chagrin The title of the novel cannot be accurately translated. In French, chagrin means both a type of leather and sadness. It could be translated as... Wikipedia

SHAGREEN LEATHER- 1992, 39 min., color, “Lenfilm”, PiEF. Genre: experimental film. dir. Igor Bezrukov, screenplay Igor Bezrukov, opera. Valery Revich, comp. Yuri Khanin. Cast: Olga Kondina, Andrei Khramtsov, Andrei Slavini, Natalia Fisson, Sergei Shcherbin... Lenfilm. Annotated Film Catalog (1918-2003)

Shagreen leather (French Peau de chagrin, chagrin): Shagreen leather (material), or shagreen (French chagrin) soft rough leather (goat, lamb, horse); also leather embossing technology, used in the processing of leather with... ... Wikipedia

Shagreen leather La Peau de Chagrin Genre: Romance

This term has other meanings, see Shagreen skin (meanings). Shagreen leather La peau de chagrin ... Wikipedia

- “Shagreen Bone” Yu. Hanon at the door Mariinsky Theater Shagreen Coast ... Wikipedia

- “Shagreen Bone” by Y. Khanon at the doors of the Mariinsky Theater Shagreen Bone Genre avant-garde Director Igor Bezrukov Producer Alexey Grokhotov ... Wikipedia

- “Shagreen Bone” by Y. Khanon at the doors of the Mariinsky Theater ... Wikipedia

LEATHER, leather, women's 1. The outer cover of animal (sometimes plant) organisms. The skin was cracked from the cold. All the skin wrinkled. Snakes change their skin. Peel the skin from the apple. 2. Tanned animal skin, freed from wool. Pork suitcase... ... Dictionary Ushakova

Books

• Shagreen leather, Balzac Honore de. "Shagreen Skin" is one of the most striking works that make up the "Human Comedy". Open the book and you will see an unusual epigraph - a writhing black line. This is the line the hero drew...
• Shagreen skin, Honore de Balzac. The book includes short stories, stories and novels of the writer, included in the cycles “Scenes of Political Life” and “Philosophical Studies” of the voluminous “Human Comedy”. Central to the volume is...