Balzac is considered the founding father of such a trend as realism in the literary art of European countries. The year 1831 can be considered a landmark for the creative life of the prose writer, because it was during this period that a global idea came to mind - to create an epic called "The Human Comedy". This is not just a work, it is a large-scale literary work, which is nothing more than a picture of the mores of the period in which the writer lived. This is a kind of artistic chronicle - an essay about post-revolutionary French history, art, everyday life and philosophy. The entire subsequent life of the prose writer will be devoted to the implementation of the aforementioned global concept. As a result, the epic creation, titled by the author of "The Human Comedy" (slightly ironic, isn't it?), Will include three parts:

• Studies describing manners (called "Studies on Manners", in fact);
• Reflections of the writer of a philosophical nature (entitled, respectively, "Philosophical studies");
• And finally, the part called “Analytical Studies”.

"Shagreen skin" is included in the part with the philosophical reflections of the author. The central theme of Balzac's work concerns the problems of the life of a naive, unspoiled person in a society teeming with vices and sins. It is curious that the idea of \u200b\u200bthe epic begins with "Shagreen Skin", since the author prints a fragment of the novel back in 1830.

The writer entered literary history as an innovator. During the period when the writer was just beginning his career, romanticism prevailed in France. As for the novel, at the time when Balzac was working, this genre was divided into several conventional subspecies:

• The first was called a personality novel (where the central character was a strong personality endowed with adventurous character traits);
• The second was a historical novel (dominated by the texts of Walter Scott).

The French writer-innovator, the author of the novel we are interested in, does not work either within the framework of personality novels or in the field of historical novels. The author's goal is to demonstrate to the reader the actions of the “individualized type”. That is, we are not talking about some outstanding, heroic personality, but about a character - the bearer of the typical features of a certain (in this case, bourgeois) society.

"Shagreen Skin" is one of the most famous novels by the titan of French prose Honore de Balzac. The work was published in two volumes in August 1831 and later included in the grand cycle The Human Comedy. The author has placed "Shagreen Skin" in the second section titled "Philosophical Studies".

The reader was already partially familiar with "Shagreen Skin" before the release of the official two-volume edition. Selected episodes of the novel are first published in the magazines "Caricature", "Revue de Monde", "Revue de Paris". Fans liked Balzac's realistic fantasy. "Shagreen Skin" was a crazy success and was reprinted seven times only 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, true love and its ability to transform the world around lovers. The scene of action for "Shagreen Skin" is the brilliant, insatiable, greedy Paris, which most vividly manifests its vicious features in a secular society.

The protagonist of the novel is a young provincial, writer, seeker Raphael de Valentin. Along with Valentin, Balzac introduces already familiar characters into the figurative structure. One of them is the adventurer Eugene de Rastignac. He has appeared more than once on the pages of the novels of The Human Comedy (somewhere in the main, somewhere in a secondary role). So, Rastignac is a soloist in "Father Goriot", is included in the figurative structure of "Scenes of Political Life", "Mysteries of the Princess de Cadignan", "House of Nusingen", "Brett's Cousin" and "Captain from Arsi".

Another star of the "Human Comedy" is the banker Tayfer, who is also "the killer drowning in gold." The image of Tayfer is colorfully displayed on the pages of the novels "Father 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 around Paris. Once this city seemed to him a valley of joy and inexhaustible possibilities, but today it is only a reminder of his life defeat. Having experienced happiness and finding it, disillusioned 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 fish out an unidentified human corpse. 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.

Walking along the Parisian streets for the last time, our hero wandered into a shop of antiquities. 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 pebbled skin (approx. - soft rough skin (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: “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's here. With every desire I will wane like your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. May it be so".

Until now, no one dared to become the owner of this shagreen patch and secretly sign an agreement that suspiciously resembles a deal with the devil. However, what is there to lose to a destitute poor man who just wanted to end his life ?!

Raphael gets shagreen skin and immediately says two wishes. The first is that the old shopkeeper should fall in love with the dancer, the second is that he, Raphael, take part in the orgy that night.

Before the eyes, the skin shrinks noticeably to such a size that it can be put in a pocket. So far, 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 a friend of 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 Tayfer. Here Raphael meets various representatives of Parisian society: corrupt artists, bored scientists, tight wallets, elite prostitutes and many others.

Together with Rafael de Valentin, we are carried away 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 his love, which his sensual son so needed. De Valentin Sr. was a buyer of foreign lands that were available as a result of successful military campaigns. However, the golden age of Napoleonic conquests is passing. Things are starting to go badly for the Valentinovs. The head of the family dies, and the son has no choice but to quickly sell the land to pay off the creditors.

Raphael has a modest amount at his disposal, which he decides to stretch over several years. This should be enough for the time until he becomes famous. Valentin wants to be a great writer, he feels talent in himself, and therefore rents an attic in a cheap Paris hotel and starts working day and night on his literary brainchild.

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

Soon Valentin was fortunate enough to meet just such a woman. Her name was Countess Theodora. This twenty-two-year-old beauty was the owner of eighty thousandth income. All Paris unsuccessfully wooed her and Valentin was no exception. At first, Theodora shows favor to the new boyfriend, but it soon turns out that she is not driven by amorous feelings, but by calculation - the countess needs the protection of Valentin's distant relative, Duke de Navarren. The offended young man reveals his feelings to the tormentor, but she declares that she will never fall below her level. Only the duke will become her husband.

The fiasco of love makes Valentin close again with his adventurous friend Eugene de Rastignac (it was he who introduced Raphael to the Countess). Friends begin to revel, play cards, having won a large sum of money, they squander it uncontrollably. And when only nothing remained of the substantial gain, Valentin realized that he was at a social day, his life was over. Then he went out into the street and decided to throw himself off the bridge.

But, as you know, this did not happen, because on his way he met a shop of antiquities ... The narrator pauses the narration. He completely forgot about the magic shagreen, fulfilling wishes. We need to test it in practice! Valentin takes out a piece of skin and makes a wish - to receive 120 thousand annual income. The next day, Raphael is informed that his distant relative has passed away. He left Raphael a huge fortune, which totals exactly 120 thousand a year. Taking out a piece of shagreen, the newly-made rich man understood that the magic works, the shagreen has decreased, which means that the term of his earthly existence has decreased.

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 is the constant control of his own desires. As soon as Raphael utters the phrase “I want” or “I want”, the shagreen flap immediately decreases.

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

Raphael watches the discharged audience, a string of ladies' shoulders, gloves, men's tailcoats and collars. He meets Countess Theodora, as brilliant as ever. Only she no longer causes his former admiration in him. She is as artificial and impersonal as all high society.

One lady attracts Valentin's attention. What was Raphael's surprise when Pauline turned out to be this secular beauty. The same Pauline, with whom he spent long evenings in his wretched attic. It turns out that the girl became the heiress of a huge fortune. Returning home, Valentin wished Pauline to fall in love with him. Shagreen again shrunk treacherously. 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 the shagreen. But neither the zoologist, nor the mechanic, nor the chemist find a way to destroy the outlandish artifact. The life with which Valentin once wanted to voluntarily part, now seems to him the greatest treasure, because he loves and is loved.

Raphael's health begins to fail, doctors detect signs of consumption in him and throw up their hands - his days are numbered. Everyone, except Polina, turns out to be indifferent to the doomed to death. In order not to torment himself, Raphael runs away from the bride, and when after a while their meeting still takes place, he is unable to resist the beauty of his beloved. Shouting out, "I wish you, Pauline!", Valentin falls dead ...

... And Polina remains to live. True, nothing is known about her further fate.

« Sh agrene leather " (fr. La Peau de Chagrin), 1830-1831) is a novel by Honore de Balzac. Dedicated to the problem of the collision of an inexperienced person with a society teeming 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 so that you will be the winner? What if this time Fate smiles at you? What if you become the only one who will manage to outwit the forces of evil? .. This is what the hero of the novel “Shagreen Skin” thought.

The novel consists of three chapters and an epilogue:

Mascot

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

Possessing me, you will possess everything, but your life will belong to me. It is so pleasing to God. Desire - and your desires will be fulfilled. However, match your desires with your life. She's here. With every desire I will wane like your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. God will hear you. May it be so!

A woman without a heart

Raphael tells the story of his life.

The hero was brought up in severity. His father was a nobleman from the south of France. At the end of the reign of Louis XVI, he arrived in Paris, where he quickly made a 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 land on the border of the empire, which now belonged to other countries. The long trial, in which he involved his son, the future doctor of law, ended in 1825, when Monsieur de Villel "dug up" an imperial decree on the loss of rights. My father died ten months later. Raphael sold all the property and was left with 1120 francs.

He decides to live a quiet life in the attic of a beggarly hotel in a remote quarter of Paris. The owner of the hotel, Mrs. Gaudin, in India has disappeared without a trace of her husband-baron. She believes that someday he will return, fabulously rich. Polina - her daughter - falls in love with Raphael, but he does not know about it. He completely devotes his life to working on two things: a comedy and the scientific treatise "Theory of Will".

One day he meets a 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 does not love anyone and does not even want to hear about marriage. Raphael falls in love, starts spending all the money on courtship. Theodora is unaware of his poverty. Rastignac introduces Raphael to Fino - a man who offers to write a fake memoir of his grandmother, offering big money. Raphael agrees. He begins to lead a broken life: leaves the hotel, rents and furnishes the house; every day he is in society ... but he still loves Theodora. Head over heels in debt, he goes to a gambling house, where once Rastignac was lucky enough to win 27,000 francs, loses the last Napoleon and wants to drown himself.

This is where the story ends.

Raphael recalls the pebbled leather in his pocket. Jokingly, in order to prove his power to Emile, he asks for two hundred thousand francs of income. Along the way, they take a measurement - they put the skin on a napkin, and Emil draws ink around the edges of the talisman. Everyone goes to sleep. The next morning, the lawyer Cardo comes and announces that Raphael's rich uncle died in Calcutta, who had no other heirs. Raphael jumps up, checks the skin with a napkin. The skin has shrunk! He is terrified. Emil declares that Raphael can grant any wish. All half-seriously, half-jokingly make requests. Raphael doesn't listen to anyone. He is rich, but at the same time he is almost dead. The talisman works!

And gonia

Early December. Raphael lives in a luxurious house. Everything is arranged so as not to speak words wish, want and so on. On the wall in front of him there is always a shagreen in a frame, circled in ink.

A former teacher, Mr. Porrique, comes to Raphael, an influential man. He asks to procure an inspector's position for him at a provincial college. Rafael accidentally says in a conversation: "I sincerely wish ...". The skin tightens, he screams with fury at Porik; his life hangs in the balance.

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

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

Polina notices Raphael's symptoms of consumption. He calls Horace Bianchon - his friend, a young doctor - he convenes a council. Each doctor expresses his scientific theory, they all unanimously advise to go to the water, put leeches on the stomach and breathe fresh air. However, they cannot determine the cause of his illness. Raphael leaves for Aix, where he is mistreated. They avoid him and say almost to his face that "since a person is so sick, he should not go to the water." Facing the cruelty of secular treatment led to a duel with one of the brave brave men. Raphael killed his opponent, and the skin tightened 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. At the sight of her, he lights up with desire, 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 life to her beloved. The life of the protagonist ends.

E pilog

In the epilogue, Balzac makes it clear that he does not want to describe the further earthly path of Polina. In a symbolic description, he calls her either a flower blooming in flames, or an angel who comes in a dream, or the ghost of a Lady, depicted by Antoine de la Sal. This ghost, as it were, wants to protect his country from the invasion of modernity. Talking about Theodore, Balzac notes that she is everywhere, as she personifies a secular society.

Honore de Balzac. Pebbled leather - summary updated: December 20, 2016 by the author: website

Several decades before Wilde, Honore de Balzac published the philosophical parable "Shagreen Skin". It tells the story of a young aristocrat who took possession of a piece of leather covered with old letters, which has the magical ability to do whatever the owner wishes. However, at the same time, it shrinks more and more: each fulfilled desire brings the fatal end closer. And at the moment when almost the whole world lies at the hero's feet, waiting for his orders, it turns out that this is a worthless accomplishment. Only a tiny piece of the omnipotent talisman remained, and the hero now "could do everything - and did not want anything."

Balzac told a sad story about the corruption of an easily seduced soul. In many ways, his story echoes in Wilde's pages, but the very idea of \u200b\u200bretribution takes on a more complex meaning.

This is not retribution for the thoughtless thirst for wealth, which was synonymous with power, and therefore, its human solvency for Raphael de Valentin. Rather, one should speak of the collapse of an extremely attractive, but still at the basis of its false idea, of a daring impulse, not supported by moral firmness. Then other literary parallels immediately arise: not Balzac, but Goethe, his "Faust", in the first place. I'd like to identify Dorian with the doctor-warlock from an old legend. And Lord Henry will appear as Mephistopheles, while Sybil Vane can be perceived as the new Gretchen. Basil Holward will become the Guardian Angel.

But this is too straightforward interpretation. And in fact, it is not entirely accurate. It is known how the idea of \u200b\u200bthe novel arose - not from reading, but from direct impressions. Once in the studio of a painter friend, Wilde found a model who seemed to him to be perfect. And he exclaimed: "What a pity that he cannot avoid old age with all its ugliness!" The artist noticed that he was ready to rewrite the portrait he had begun at least every year, if nature was satisfied with the fact that her destructive work would be reflected on the canvas, but not on the living appearance of this extraordinary young man. Then Wilde's fantasy came into its own. The plot took shape as if by itself.

This does not mean that Wilde did not at all think about his predecessors. But really, the meaning of the novel is not limited to a refutation of that “deeply selfish thought” that captivated the owner of the shagreen leather Raphael. He is different when compared with the idea that completely owns Faust, who does not want to remain an earthworm and longs - although he cannot - equal the gods who rule the future of humanity.

Wilde's heroes have no such claims. They always only would like to keep youth and beauty lasting - contrary to the ruthless law of nature. And this would least of all be a boon for humanity. Dorian, and even more so Lord Henry, is egocentrism personified. They are simply unable to think about others. Both are quite clear that the idea that inspired them is unreal, but they rebel against this very ephemerality, or, at least, do not want to take it into account. There is only the cult of youth, sophistication, art, impeccable artistic flair, and it does not matter that real life is infinitely far from the artificial paradise that they set out to create for themselves. That in this Eden the criteria of morality are, as it were, canceled. That he is, in essence, only a chimera.

Once this chimera had undeniable power over Wilde. He, too, wanted to taste all the fruits that grew under the sun, and did not care about the cost of such knowledge. But there was still a significant difference between him and his characters. Yes, the writer, like his heroes, was convinced that "the purpose of life is not to act, but to simply exist." However, expressing this idea in one essay, he immediately clarified: "And not only to exist, but to change." With this amendment, the idea itself becomes completely different from how both Dorian and Lord Henry understand it. After all, they would like imperishable and frozen beauty, and the portrait was to serve as its embodiment. But he turned out to be a mirror of the changes that Dorian so feared. And could not escape.

As he could not avoid the need to judge what is happening on ethical criteria, no matter how much talk about their uselessness. The murder of the artist remains murder, and the blame for the death of Sibylla remains the blame, no matter how, with the help of Lord Henry, Dorian tried to prove to himself that by these actions he only protected the beautiful from the encroachments of the rough prose of life. And ultimately the results, which turned out to be catastrophic, depended on his choice.

Dorian strove for perfection, but did not achieve. His bankruptcy is interpreted as the collapse of the self-lover. And as a payback for apostasy from the ideal, expressed in the unity of beauty and truth. One is impossible without the other - Wilde's novel speaks of just that.

So, in the novel "The Picture of Dorian Gray", Henry Wotton appears before us as a "demon tempter". He is a lord, an aristocrat, a man of an extraordinary mind, an author of elegant and cynical statements, an esthete, a hedonist. In the mouth of this character, under the direct "guidance" of which Dorian Gray took the path of vice, the author put a lot of paradoxical judgments. Such judgments were characteristic of Wilde himself. More than once he shocked the secular public with bold experiments on all kinds of common truths.

Lord Henry enchanted Dorian with his graceful but cynical aphorisms: “New hedonism is what our generation needs. It would be tragic if you did not have time to take everything from life, because youth is short "," The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it "," People who are not selfish are always colorless. They lack individuality. "

Having assimilated the philosophy of "new hedonism", in pursuit of pleasures, for new impressions, Dorian loses any idea of \u200b\u200bgood and evil, tramples on Christian morality. His soul is becoming more and more corrupted. He begins to have a corrupting influence on others.

Finally, Dorian commits a crime: he kills the artist Basil Hallward, then forces the chemist Alan Campbell to destroy the corpse. Subsequently, Alan Campbell commits suicide. Selfish thirst for pleasure turns into inhumanity and crime.

The artist Basil Holward appears before us as a "guardian angel" in the novel. In the portrait of Dorian, Basil put his love for him. Basil's absence of a fundamental difference between art and reality leads to the creation of such a life-like portrait that its revival is only the last step in the wrong direction. Such art naturally, according to Wilde, leads to the death of the artist himself.

Referring to Honore de Balzac's novel "Shagreen Skin", we can conclude that in the image of the "demon-tempter" we are an antiquary, and Pauline appears as a "guardian angel".

The image of the antiquarian can be compared with the image of Gobsek (the first version of the story was created a year earlier, "Shagreen Skin"), and we have the right to consider the antiquary as a development of the image of Gobsek. The contrast between senile decrepitude, physical helplessness and the immense power that the possession of material treasures gives them, emphasizes one of the central themes of Balzac's work - the theme of the power of money. People around see Gobsek and the antiquarian in a halo of a kind of grandeur, on them - reflections of gold with its "limitless possibilities."

The antiquary, like Gobsek, belongs to the type of philosophizing money-grubber, but is even more alienated from the worldly sphere, placed above human feelings and worries. In his face "you would read ... the bright calmness of God who sees everything, or the proud strength of a man who saw everything." He did not harbor any illusions and did not experience sorrows, because he did not know any joys.

In the episode with the antiquarian, the lexical means were selected by Balzac with extreme care: the antiquary introduces the theme of pebbled leather into the novel, and his image should not be out of harmony with the image of the magic talisman. The author's descriptions and the perception of the antiquarian by Raphael emotionally coincide, emphasizing the full significance of the main theme of the novel. Raphael was struck by the gloomy irony of the imperious face of the old man. The antiquary knew the "great secret of life", which he revealed to Raphael. “A person exhausts himself by two actions he performs without accountability - because of them, the sources of his being dry up. All forms of these two causes of death are reduced to two verbs - to wish and to be able ... Desire burns us, and ability destroys ... ".

The most important principles of life are taken here only in their destructive sense. Balzac brilliantly grasped the essence of the bourgeois individual, who is captured by the idea of \u200b\u200ba merciless struggle for existence, the pursuit of pleasures, life that wears out and devastates a person. Desire and ability - these two forms of life are realized in the practice of bourgeois society outside of any moral laws and social principles, guided only by unrestrained egoism, equally dangerous and destructive for the individual and for society.

But between these two concepts, the antiquarian also calls the formula available to the sages. It is to know, it is the thought that kills desire. The owner of an antique shop once walked "through the universe, like in his own garden", lived under all reigns, signed contracts in all European capitals and walked through the mountains of Asia and America. Finally, he "got everything because he was able to neglect everything." But he never experienced what people call sorrow, love, ambition, vicissitudes, grief - for me these are just ideas that I turn into a dream ... instead of letting them devour my life ... I amuse myself with them as if they are novels that I read with my inner vision. "

One cannot ignore the following circumstance: the year of publication of "Shagreen Skin" - 1831 - is also the year of the end of "Faust". Undoubtedly, when Balzac made the life of Raphael dependent on the cruel condition of the fulfillment of his desires with shagreen skin, he had associations with Goethe's "Faust".

The first appearance of the antiquarian brought to mind the image of Mephistopheles: "The painter ... could have turned this face into the beautiful face of the eternal father or into the sarcastic mask of Mephistopheles, for sublime power was imprinted on his forehead, and an ominous mockery on his lips." This rapprochement will turn out to be stable: when in the theater Favard Raphael again meets an old man who has abandoned his wisdom, he will again be struck by the similarity "between an antique dealer and the ideal head of Goethe's Mephistopheles, as the painters paint her."

The image of the “guardian angel” in the novel is Pauline Godin.

Freed from everyday motives, created by an "unknown painter" from shades of blazing fire, a female image appears, like a "flower blooming in flame." "An unearthly creature, all - spirit, all love ..." Like a word that you are looking for in vain, it "hovers somewhere in the memory ..." Maybe the ghost of the medieval Beautiful Lady, who appeared to "defend her country from the invasion of modernity"? She smiles, she disappears - "an unfinished, unexpected phenomenon, arising too soon or too late to become a beautiful diamond." As an ideal, as a symbol of perfect beauty, purity, harmony, it is unattainable.

Pauline Gaudin, the daughter of the owner of a modest boarding house, Raphael is attracted by the best aspects of his nature. Choosing Polina - noble, hardworking, full of touching sincerity and kindness - means abandoning the convulsive pursuit of wealth, accepting a calm, serene existence, happiness, but without vivid passions and burning pleasures. "Flemish", motionless, "simplified" life will give its joys - the joys of a family hearth, a quiet measured life. But to remain in a patriarchal little world where humble poverty and unclouded purity "refreshing the soul" reign, to remain, having lost the opportunity to be happy in the sense generally accepted in Raphael's entourage - this thought outrages his selfish soul. “Poverty spoke in me the language of selfishness and constantly stretched out an iron hand between this good creature and me.” The image of Polina in the novel is the image of femininity, virtue, a woman with a soft and gentle disposition.

Thus, having analyzed the images of the "tempting demon" and the "guardian angel" in both novels, we can see vivid literary parallels between the images of "demons" - Henry Wotton and the antiquary, and between the images of "angels" - Basil Holward and Pauline Gaudin.

Honore Balzac (1799-1850), along with Stendhal, belongs to the classical stage of 19th century realism. Balzac was able to most fully express the spirit of the XIX century; according to the English writer Oscar Wilde, master of paradoxes, the 19th century, "as we know it, was largely invented by Balzac." Wilde means that Balzac possessed the most powerful literary imagination after Shakespeare, and in his work he was able to create a self-sufficient, self-developing, universal model of the world, more precisely, French society of the first half of the 19th century. The main creation of Balzac is "The Human Comedy". It unites all the works of the mature stage of his work, everything he wrote after 1830. The idea to combine his separately published novels, novellas, short stories into a single cycle of works first arose in Balzac in 1833, and initially he planned to name the gigantic work "Social Studies" - a title that emphasizes the similarity of the principles of Balzac as an artist with the methodology of science of his time. However, by 1839 he settled on a different title - "The Human Comedy", which expresses both the author's attitude to the morals of his century, and the writer's audacity of Balzac, who dreamed that his work would become for modernity what Dante's "Divine Comedy" was for the Middle Ages ... In 1842, the "Preface to" The Human Comedy "was written, in which Balzac outlined his creative principles, characterized the ideas underlying the compositional structure and figurative typification of the" Human Comedy ". By 1844, the author's catalog and the final plan, which included titles of 144 works, of which Balzac managed to write 96. This is the largest literary work of the 19th century, for a long time, especially in Marxist criticism, which has become the standard of literary creativity. Cementing the giant building of the "Human Comedy" is the personality of the author and the unity of style caused by it; characters and the unity of the problematics of his works.

The novel "Shagreen leather" (1831) is based on the same conflict as Stendhal's Red and Black: a young man's clash with his time. Since this novel belongs to the section of the "Human Comedy" called "Philosophical Studies", this conflict is resolved here in the most abstract, abstract form, moreover, in this novel, the connection between early realism and the previous literature of romanticism is more clearly manifested than in Stendhal's. This is one of the most colorful novels by Balzac, with a dynamic, whimsical composition, with a flowery, descriptive style, with fantastic fantasy.

The main character of "Shagreen Skin" is Raphael de Valentin. The reader gets to know him at the moment when he, exhausted by humiliating poverty, is ready to commit suicide by throwing himself into the cold waters of the Seine. On the verge of suicide, he is stopped by chance. In the shop of an old antique dealer, he becomes the owner of a magic talisman - shagreen leather that fulfills all the wishes of the owner. However, as desires are fulfilled, the talisman decreases in size, and with it the life of the owner is shortened. Raphael has nothing to lose - he accepts the gift of an antiquarian, not really believing in the magic of a talisman, and begins to waste his life in desires of all the pleasures of youth. When he realizes that shagreen skin is really shrinking, he forbids himself to desire anything at all, but late - at the top of wealth, when he is passionately in love, and without shagreen skin, charming Polina, he dies in the arms of his beloved. The mystical, fantastic element in the novel emphasizes its connection with the aesthetics of romanticism, but the very nature of the problems and the way they are presented in the novel are characteristic of realistic literature.

Raphael de Valentin by origin and upbringing is a refined aristocrat, but his family lost everything during the revolution, and the action in the novel takes place in 1829, at the end of the era of the Restoration. Balzac emphasizes that in post-revolutionary French society, ambitious desires naturally arise in a young man, and Raphael is overwhelmed by the desires of fame, wealth, love of beautiful women. The author does not question the legitimacy and value of all these aspirations, but takes them for granted; the center of the novel's problematic is shifted to the philosophical plane: what is the price that a person will have to pay for the realization of his desires? The problem of a career is posed in "Shagreen Skin" in its most general form - boiling of pride, belief in one's own destiny, in one's genius make Raphael experience two paths to fame. The first is hard work in complete poverty: Raphael proudly recounts how for three years he lived on three hundred and sixty-five francs a year, working on works that were supposed to glorify him. Purely realistic details appear in the novel when Raphael describes his life in a poor attic "for three sous - bread, two - milk, three - sausages; you will not die of hunger, and the spirit is in a state of special clarity." But passions carry him away from the clear path of a scientist into the abyss: love for a "woman without a heart", Countess Theodora, who embodies a secular society in the novel, pushes Raphael to the gambling table, to insane spending, and the logic of "penal servitude" leaves him with the last option - suicide ...

The sage antiquarian, handing over the shagreen skin to Raphael, explains to him that from now on his life is only a delayed suicide. The hero has to comprehend the ratio of two verbs that govern not just human careers, but all human life. These are verbs want and be able: "Want burns us and be able - destroys, but to know gives our weak body the opportunity to remain in a calm state forever. "Here is the symbolism of the talisman - in shagreen skin they are connected be able and want, but for his power the only possible price is laid - human life.

In 1831 G.B. publishes "Shagreen Skin" which, according to him, was supposed to formulate the present century, our life, our egoism. Philosophical formulas are revealed in the novel by the example of the fate of the protagonist Raphael de Valentin, who was faced with the dilemma of “desire” and “can”. Infected with the disease of time, Raphael, who at first chose the thorny path of a scientist-toiler, abandons it in the name of splendor and luxury. Having suffered a complete fiasco in his ambitious aspirations, rejected by a woman whom he was attracted to, deprived of elementary means of subsistence, the hero was ready to commit suicide. It was at this moment that life brings him to a mysterious old man, an antique dealer, who presents Raphael with an omnipotent talisman - shagreen leather, for the owner of which can and desire are united. However, the payback for all instantly fulfilling desires is life, which diminishes along with an unstoppably shrinking piece of pebbled skin. You can get out of this magic circle in one way - by suppressing all desires in yourself.

This is how two systems, two types of being are revealed: 1) a life full of aspirations and passions that kill a person with their excess.

2) and an ascetic life, the only satisfaction of which is in passive omniscience and potential omnipotence.

If the reasoning of the old antiquarian contains a philosophical justification and acceptance of the second type of being, then the apology of the first is the passionate monologue of the courtesan Akilina (in the scene of an orgy at Tayfer). Letting both sides speak, B. in the course of the novel reveals both the weakness and the strength of both ways. Embodied in real life of the hero., At first almost ruined himself in the stream of passions, and then slowly dying in an existence devoid of any emotions.

Raphael could do everything, but he did nothing. The reason for this is the hero's selfishness. Having wished to have millions and having received them, Raphael, once possessed by great designs and noble aspirations, is instantly transformed. He is consumed by a deeply selfish thought.

With the story of Raphael, one of the central themes is affirmed in the balzac's work - the theme of a talented but poor young man who loses the illusion of youth in a collision with a soulless society of nobles. Also, there are outlined such topics as: "insolent wealth turning into crime" (Tayfer), "the brilliance and poverty of courtesans" (the fate of Akalina) and others.

The novel outlines many types that would later be developed by the writer: notaries looking for new clients; soulless aristocrats; scientists, doctors, village workers ...

Already in the CC, the peculiarities of Balzac's fantasy are determined. All events in the novel are strictly motivated by coincidence of circumstances (Raphael, who has just wished for an orgy, receives it from the Tyfer; at the feast, the hero accidentally meets a notary, who has been looking for him for two weeks in order to hand over the inheritance).

The French word Le chagrin itself can be translated as "shagreen", but it has a homonym, almost known to Balzac: Le chagrin - "sorrow, grief". And this is important: the fantastic, omnipotent shagreen skin, giving the hero a deliverance from poverty, in fact, was the cause of even greater grief. She destroyed the desire to enjoy life, the feelings of a person, leaving him only selfishness, generated as long as possible to prolong his life slipping through his fingers, and, finally, the owner himself.

Thus, a deep realistic generalization was hidden behind the allegories of Balzac's philosophical novel.

Compositionally the novel "Shagreen Skin" is divided into three equal parts. Each of them is a constituent element of one large work and, at the same time, acts as an independent, complete story. In "Talisman" the plot of the whole novel is outlined and at the same time the story of the miraculous salvation from the death of Raphael de Valentin is given. In "A Woman Without a Heart" the conflict of the work is revealed and narrates about unrequited love and an attempt to take his place in society with the same hero. The title of the third part of the novel, "Agony", speaks for itself: it is the culmination, and the denouement, and a touching story about unfortunate lovers, separated by an evil chance and death.

Genre originality the novel "Shagreen Skin" consists of the peculiarities of the construction of its three parts. "Talisman" combines features of realism and fantasy, being, in fact, a dark romantic fairy tale in the Hoffmann style. The first part of the novel raises the themes of life and death, games (for money), art, love, freedom. "A woman without a heart" is an extremely realistic story, imbued with a special, Balzac's psychology. Here we are talking about true and false - feelings, literary creativity, life. "Agony" is a classic tragedy, in which there is a place for strong feelings, and all-consuming happiness, and endless grief that ends in death in the arms of a beautiful beloved.

The epilogue of the novel draws a line under the two main female images of the work: pure, gentle, sublime, sincerely loving Polina, symbolically dissolved in the beauty of the world around us, and the cruel, cold, selfish Theodora, who is a generalized symbol of a soulless and calculating society.