Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 16, 2025
Can it be said that the apothecary in the "Cousine Bette," or the Baron Hulot, or the Cousine Bette herself is inferior to anything the brain of man has ever conceived?
Nearly as great was the actress's success at the same theatre in 1849, when she played the principal role in Clairville's Madame Marneffe a version of Cousin Bette, but very much modified, since Bette is eliminated altogether, and Valerie Marneffe, instead of being a depraved creature, is merely a clever woman of the world, who avenges her father's ruin on the Baron Hulot and Crevel, they being mainly responsible for it.
The "Scenes de la Vie de Province," to which belong among others "Eugenie Grandet" , "Le Lys dans la Vallee" , "L'Illustre Gaudissart" , "Pierrette" , and "Le Cure de Tours" , typify a period of combat; while "Scenes de la Vie Parisienne," which contain "La Duchesse de Langeais" , "Cesar Birotteau" , "La Cousine Bette" , "Le Cousin Pons" , "Facino Cane" , "La Maison de Nucingen" , and several less-known novels, show the effect of Parisian life in forming or modifying character.
They don't seem to realize that there is more spiritual revelation in that one reply of old Hulot, in Balzac's Cousine Bette, 'Can't I take the little girl along? than in all their doctoral theses. We must expect of them no idealistic straining toward the infinite.
Some of her capital and some of his own, probably the sum accruing from the sale of Les Jardies, at present definitive, had been invested in North Railway Shares. Besides, not a few of his paintings and antique pieces of furniture had been paid for with advances from her strong-box. The two works that issued from his new effort of creation were Cousin Bette and Cousin Pons.
Where is she now, that flower of northern snow, once seen for a season in Paris? Has she returned to her native northern solitudes, great gulfs of sea water, mountain rock, and pine? Balzac's genius is in his titles as heaven is in its stars: "Melmoth Reconcilié," "Jesus-Christ en Flandres," "Le Revers d'un Grand Homme," "La Cousine Bette."
He was in no humor even for his meerschaum, consoler; the yellow-papered fictions on the shelves above his head seemed stale and profitless he opened a volume of Balzac, but his uncle's wife's golden curls danced and trembled in a glittering haze, alike upon the metaphysical diablerie of the Peau de Chagrin, and the hideous social horrors of "Cousine Bette."
The latter, after wasting in riotous living the money she had procured him by her forgeries, fled and left her to bear the brunt of her shame. The most repugnant detail of this unfortunate woman's case Balzac utilized not long afterwards in his Cousin Bette.
"Why not make lit' fire and bu'n junk, killee allee same?" "He has me there, Herrick," said Mr Brooke. "Takee plisoner to mandalin. Mandalin man put on heavy chain, kick flow in boat, put in plison, no give to eat, and then choppee off allee head. Makee hurt gleat deal mo'. Velly solly for plisoner. Bette' make big fi' and bu'n allee now." Mr Brooke smiled and looked at me, and I laughed.
Though intensely tragic, it is not as horrible or revolting as its pendant, the gloomy "Cousine Bette"; and Balzac has portrayed admirably the simple old man with his fondness for good dinners; "the poor relation oppressed by humiliations and injuries, pardoning all, and only revenging himself by doing kindnesses."
Word Of The Day
Others Looking