Lost Illusions is one of the longest novels in Honore de Balzac's Comedy Humane. For many, including Marcel Proust, this book is also Balzac's best novel. It was published in three parts between 1836 and 1843: Two Poets, A Provincial Celebrity in Paris, and The Sorrows of an Inventor. Dedicated to Victor Hugo, the novel covers wide range moral and ethical problems and is part of Scenes of Provincial Life. Balzac was inspired to write the novel by his own experience as a writer; he uses Lucien de Rubempre, a young and vain provincial, as the main character. Lucien goes through misfortunes and hardships resulting from unforgivable mistakes, turning now into a hero, now into an anti-hero with an ever-increasing contradiction with two virtuous circles: Lucien's family and the d'Artez circle, consisting of truly great people, faces the literary world and journalism and with all the pitfalls and currents of these worlds, and plays a fatal role not only in his own fate, but also in the fate of his family and loved ones. The novel consists of three parts, the action of which takes place during the Restoration: Two poets This is the most short part, describing life in Angoulême. David Sechard, the son of a printer, is devoted to a deep friendship with nineteen-year-old Lucien Chardon de Rubempre, a handsome young poet. David's father (a typical miser who creates obstacles for his son) sells him his printing house on very unfavorable terms. Having no inclination for commerce, David somehow makes ends meet by continuing his father’s business. Some time after purchasing the printing house, he marries Lucien's sister, Eva Chardon, a beautiful and intelligent girl. Lucien meets an elderly noblewoman, Louise de Bargeton, writes several sonnets for her, and she sees him as a talented poet, imagining herself as Laura and him as Petrarch. Louise introduces the poet to the nobility of Angoulême and falls in love with him. This love between a talented and inexperienced young man and married woman, who is older than him in age, appears in a completely medieval spirit of a chivalric romance, where the hero, having believed in illusions, more or less consciously, gradually loses them. This is the meaning of the title of the novel, Lost Illusions. In the end, Lucien flees with his patroness to Paris to further his career. Provincial Celebrity in Paris This is the longest of the three parts of the novel. Lucien, who arrives in Paris, appears rather wretched compared to the elegance of the Parisians. Poor and unfamiliar with the mores of the capital, he covers himself with ridicule at the opera, dressing up too pretentiously and tastelessly, and Madame de Bargeton immediately refuses him, not wanting to spoil her reputation. His attempts to publish his books ended in failure. He meets Daniel d'Artez, a liberal philosopher who has gathered around him a society of young people of different political views and professions who share friendship and a completely ascetic life in the service of art or science. Lucien has been participating in the Circle for some time. But, too impatient to labor for a long time on one literary work, he succumbs to the temptation of journalism and instant success. Lucien signs his articles as Rubempre (the maiden name of his mother, the last representative of the ancient noble family). He falls in love with the young actress Coralie and leads a life of luxury. His ambitions led him to become interested in politics, he goes over to the side of the royalists, leaving the liberal newspaper and hoping for a royal decree granting him the title of nobility. This is a very wrong thing to do in the world of journalism: old friends vehemently criticize him, and new colleagues do not support him. He causes the death of Coralie, who, due to need, is forced to turn to her old patron Camuso for help. Lucien, having no means of subsistence, persecuted by creditors, enemies and former friends, returns on foot to Angoulême to ask for help from David (in whose name he secretly wrote out bills for three thousand francs). The Sufferings of an Inventor (first published under the title Eve and David) David, uninterested in business, is close to ruin. However, he manages to survive thanks to his devotion and love for his wife, Eva, Lucien's beautiful sister. He is looking for a secret way to produce paper, lower price but better quality. After many experiments, David managed to find the method that he had been looking for for a long time, but the Cuente brothers, owners of another printing house competing with David, meanwhile managed to ruin him with the help of their spy Cerise, who worked as a typesetter in David's printing house, and the solicitor Petit Clos). David is arrested and sent to prison. Lucien, feeling responsible for his son-in-law's troubles, decides to commit suicide. But before he throws himself into the river, he meets a mysterious Spanish abbot, Carlos Herrera, who notices him and prevents him from drowning. He offers the poet money, success and revenge on the condition that he blindly obey. Lucien accepts the deal and immediately sends the necessary amount to David so that he can get out of prison, and he leaves for Paris with a strange priest. David enters into an unfavorable agreement with the Cuente brothers for the use of his invention, which never brought him the desired wealth. Eva and David buy an estate in the countryside, in the village of Marsak, and live simply but happily, raising two sons and a daughter.

TO VICTOR HUGO

You, according to the happy lot of the Raphaels and Pitts, barely emerged from adolescence, were already a great poet; You, like Chateaubriand, like all true talents, rebelled against the envious people hiding behind the columns of the Newspaper or hiding in its basements. I would therefore like your victorious name to contribute to the victory of the work that I dedicate to you and which, according to some, is not only a feat of courage, but also a true story. Wouldn't journalists, like marquises, financiers, doctors, prosecutors, be worthy of the pen of Moliere and his theater? Why not Human Comedy, which castigat ridendo mores, not to neglect one of the social forces, if the Parisian Press does not neglect any?

I am happy, dear sir, to take this opportunity to bring you a tribute of my sincere admiration and friendship.

De Balzac

Part one

TWO POETS

At the time to which this story begins, Stanhope's printing press and ink rollers had not yet appeared in small provincial printing houses. Despite the fact that Angouleme's main trade was associated with Parisian printing houses, they still worked here on wooden machines, which enriched the language with a now forgotten expression: bring the machine to a creak. In the local backward printing house there were still leather matzos soaked in paint, with which the presser applied paint to the printing form. The retractable board, where the typed form is placed, on which a sheet of paper is placed, was carved from stone and lived up to its name marble. The voracious mechanical presses of our days have so completely displaced from memory that mechanism to which, despite its imperfections, we owe the wonderful editions of Elzevir, Plantin, Aldov and Didot, that we have to mention the old printing equipment, which aroused superstitious love in Jerome-Nicolas Séchard, because it plays a role in this big story about small things.

Seshar was formerly an apprentice maker - Bear, as typographic workers who type type are called in their jargon. This is, obviously, the name given to the squeezers because they, like bears in a cage, mark time in one place, swinging from the kipsey to the machine and from the machine to the kipsey. The bears christened the typesetters in retaliation Monkeys for the fact that typesetters, with pure monkey agility, catch letters from one hundred and fifty-two branches of the typesetting desk where the type lies. At the terrible time of 1793, Sechard was about fifty years old and married. Age and marital status saved him from a general recruitment when almost all the workers took up arms. The old pressmaker found himself alone in the printing house, the owner of which, in other words, Simpleton, died, leaving a childless widow. The enterprise seemed to be in danger of immediate ruin: the hermit Bear could not transform into a Monkey, because, being a printer, he never learned to read and write. Despite his ignorance, one of the representatives of the people, hastening to spread the remarkable decrees of the Convention, issued the printer a patent as a master of printing and obliged him to work for the needs of the state. Having received this dangerous patent, citizen Séchard compensated the owner’s widow for losses by giving her his wife’s savings, and thereby purchased printing house equipment at half price. But that was not the point. It was necessary to print republican decrees competently and without delay. Under such difficult circumstances, Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard was lucky enough to meet a Marseilles nobleman who did not want to emigrate, lest he lose his land, or remain in plain sight, lest he lose his head, and was forced to earn a piece of bread by any kind of work. So, the Comte de Macomb donned the modest jacket of a provincial factor: he typed the text and kept the proofs of the decrees that threatened death to the citizens who sheltered the aristocrats. The Bear, who became a Simpleton, printed decrees, posted them around the city, and both of them remained safe and sound. In 1795, when the storm of terror had passed, Nicolas Sechar was forced to look for another jack of all trades, capable of combining the duties of a typesetter, proofreader and factor. One abbot, who refused to take the oath and later, during the Restoration, became a bishop, took the place of Comte de Maukomb and worked in the printing house until the day when the first consul restored Catholicism. The count and the bishop then met in the House of Peers and sat there on the same bench. Although Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard was no more literate in 1802 than in 1793, by that time he had not a small amount and could pay the factor. The apprentice, who looked so carelessly into the future, became a thunderstorm for his Monkeys and Bears. Stinginess begins where poverty ends. As soon as the squeezer sensed an opportunity to get rich, self-interest awakened in him practical intelligence, greedy, suspicious and insightful. His everyday experience triumphed over theory. He achieved the ability to determine by eye the cost of a printed page or sheet. He proved to ignorant customers that typesetting in bold type was more expensive than typesetting in light type; if we were talking about petit, he assured that it was much more difficult to type in this font. The most important part of letterpress printing was typesetting, of which Sechard understood nothing, and he was so afraid of losing money that when concluding deals, he always tried to secure a huge profit for himself. If his typesetters worked by the hour, he didn’t take his eyes off them. If he happened to learn about the difficult situation of some manufacturer, he bought paper from him for next to nothing and hid it in his cellars. By this time, Séchard was already the owner of the house, which had housed a printing house since time immemorial. He was lucky in everything: he remained a widower and had only one son. He placed him in the city lyceum, not so much to educate him as to prepare his successor; he treated him harshly, wanting to extend the term of his paternal power, and during the holidays he forced his son to work at the typesetting desk, saying that the young man should learn to earn a living and in the future to thank his poor father, who worked tirelessly for his education. Having said goodbye to the abbot, Sechar appointed in his place one of the four typesetters, whom the future bishop spoke of as an honest and intelligent man. Therefore, the old man could calmly wait for the day when his son would become the head of the enterprise and it would blossom in his young and skillful hands. David Sechar brilliantly graduated from the Angoulême Lyceum. Although Father Seshar, the former Bear, an illiterate, rootless upstart, deeply despised science, he nevertheless sent his son to Paris to study the highest art of typography; but, sending his son to the city which he called workers' paradise, the old man so convinced him not to count on his parents’ wallet and so persistently recommended saving more money that, apparently, he considered his son’s stay in land of wisdom only a means to achieve your goal. David, studying a trade in Paris, completed his education along the way. The metranpage of Dido's printing house became a scientist. At the end of 1819, David Sechar left Paris, where his life did not cost a centime to his father, who now called his son home to hand him the reins of government. The printing house of Nicolas Sechard printed court announcements in the newspaper, at that time the only one in the department, and also fulfilled orders from the prefecture and the bishop's office, and such clients promised prosperity to the energetic young man.

Human Comedy: Etudes of Morals (Scenes of Provincial Life) - 6

TO VICTOR HUGO

You, by the happy lot of the Raphaels and Pitts, barely emerged from adolescence,
were already a great poet; You, like Chateaubriand, like all true talents,
rebelled against the envious people lurking behind the columns of the Newspaper or
hiding in its basements. I would therefore like your victorious name
contributed to the victory of the work, which I dedicate to you and which, according to
in the opinion of some, is not only a feat of courage, but also a truthful
history. Are journalists, like marquises, financiers, doctors, prosecutors,
would not be worthy of the pen of Moliere and his theater? Why not Human
comedy that castigat ridendo mores 1, do not neglect one of
social forces, if the Parisian Press does not neglect a single one?
I am happy, dear sir, to take this opportunity to bring you tribute
my sincere admiration and friendship.
De Balzac
/ 1 Corrects morals with laughter (lat.).

Part one

TWO POETS

In those times to which the beginning of this story dates, the printing press
Wallhopes and paint rollers have not yet appeared in small
provincial printing houses. Despite the fact that Angoulême is its main
trade was connected with Parisian printing houses, they still worked here
on wooden machines, which enriched the language with the now forgotten expression: bring
the machine is creaking. In the local backward printing house there were still
leather matzos soaked in paint, with which the presser applied paint to
printed form. Pull-out board where the typed form is placed,
on which a sheet of paper is superimposed, was carved from stone and justified its
name marble. Power-hungry mechanical machines these days are so
replaced from memory the mechanism that, despite its imperfections,
we owe the excellent publications of Elzevirs, Plantens, Aldovs and Didots, which
we have to mention the old printing equipment, which caused
Jerome-Nicolas Sécharé superstitious love, for it plays a certain role in this
big story about small things.
Seshar was formerly an apprentice squeezer - Bear, as in his
In jargon, typographic workers who type type are called typographers. So,
Apparently, they are nicknamed the squeezers because they are like bears in a cage,
marking time in one place, swaying from the kipsey to the machine and from the machine to
I'm kicking. The bears, in retaliation, dubbed the typesetters Monkeys because
typesetters with pure monkey agility catch letters from a hundred
fifty-two branches of the typesetting desk where the type is kept. In a terrible time
1793 Sechard was about fifty years old and married.

“Lost Illusions” is one of the central and most significant works"The Human Comedy". Together with the novels “Père Goriot” and “The Splendor and Poverty of the Courtesans,” the novel “Lost Illusions” forms a kind of trilogy, being its middle link.

“The connections that exist between the provinces and Paris, its sinister attractiveness,” wrote Balzac in the preface to the first part of the novel, “showed the author a young man of the 19th century in a new light: he thought of a terrible ulcer this century, about journalism, which devours so many human lives, so many beautiful thoughts and has such a disastrous effect on the humble foundations of provincial life.”

TO VICTOR HUGO You, according to the happy lot of the Raphaels and Pitts, barely emerged from adolescence, were already a great poet; You, like Chateaubriand, like all true talents, rebelled against the envious people hiding behind the columns of the Newspaper or hiding in its basements. I would therefore like your victorious name to contribute to the victory of the work that I dedicate to you and which, according to some, is not only a feat of courage, but also a true story. Wouldn't journalists, like marquises, financiers, doctors, prosecutors, be worthy of the pen of Moliere and his theater? Why should not the Human Comedy, which castigat ridendo mores, neglect one of the social forces, if the Parisian Press does not neglect any? I am happy, dear sir, to take this opportunity to bring you a tribute of my sincere admiration and friendship. De Balzac

Part one

TWO POETS

At the time to which this story begins, Stanhope's printing press and ink rollers had not yet appeared in small provincial printing houses. Despite the fact that Angouleme's main trade was associated with Parisian printing houses, they still worked here on wooden machines, which enriched the language with a now forgotten expression: bring the machine to a creak. In the local backward printing house there were still leather matzos soaked in paint, with which the press operator applied paint to the printing plate. The sliding board, where the typed form is placed, on which a sheet of paper is placed, was carved from stone and lived up to its name marble. The voracious mechanical presses of our days have so completely displaced from memory that mechanism to which, despite its imperfections, we owe the wonderful editions of Elzevir, Plantin, Aldov and Didot, that we have to mention the old printing equipment, which aroused superstitious love in Jerome-Nicolas Séchard, because it plays a role in this big story about small things.

Séshar was formerly an apprentice maker - Bear, as the typographic workers who set the font call the makers in their jargon. This is, obviously, the name given to the squeezers because they, like bears in a cage, mark time in one place, swinging from the kipsey to the machine and from the machine to the kipsey. The bears, in retaliation, dubbed the typesetters Monkeys because the typesetters, with purely monkey-like agility, catch letters from one hundred and fifty-two branches of the typesetting desk where the type is located. At the terrible time of 1793, Sechard was about fifty years old and married. His age and marital status saved him from the general recruitment, when almost all the workers took up arms. The old pressmaker found himself alone in the printing house, the owner of which, in other words, the Simpleton, died, leaving a childless widow. The enterprise seemed to be in danger of immediate ruin: the hermit Bear could not transform into a Monkey, because, being a printer, he never learned to read and write. Despite his ignorance, one of the representatives of the people, hastening to spread the remarkable decrees of the Convention, issued the printer a patent as a master of printing and obliged him to work for the needs of the state. Having received this dangerous patent, citizen Séchard compensated the owner’s widow for losses by giving her his wife’s savings, and thereby acquired printing house equipment at half price. But that was not the point. It was necessary to print republican decrees competently and without delay. Under such difficult circumstances, Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard was lucky enough to meet a Marseilles nobleman who did not want to emigrate, so as not to lose his land, nor remain in sight, so as not to lose his head, and was forced to get a piece of bread by any work. So, the Comte de Macomb donned the modest jacket of a provincial factor: he typed the text and kept the proofs of the decrees that threatened death to the citizens who sheltered the aristocrats. The Bear, who became a Simpleton, printed decrees, posted them around the city, and both of them remained safe and sound. In 1795, when the storm of terror had passed, Nicolas Sechar was forced to look for another jack of all trades , capable of combining the duties of a typesetter, proofreader and factor. One abbot, who refused to take the oath and later, during the Restoration, became a bishop, took the place of Comte de Maukomb and worked in the printing house until the day when the first consul restored Catholicism. The count and the bishop then met in the House of Peers and sat there on the same bench. Although in 1802 Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard was no more literate than in 1793, by that time he had saved quite a bit and was able to pay the factor. The apprentice, who looked so carelessly into the future, became a thunderstorm for his Monkeys and Bears. Stinginess begins where poverty ends. As soon as the squeezer sensed an opportunity to get rich, self-interest awakened in him practical intelligence, greedy, suspicious and insightful. His everyday experience triumphed over theory. He achieved the ability to determine by eye the cost of a printed page or sheet. He proved to ignorant customers that typesetting in bold type was more expensive than typesetting in light type; if we were talking about petit, he assured that it was much more difficult to type in this font. The most important part of letterpress printing was typesetting, of which Sechard understood nothing, and he was so afraid of losing money that when concluding deals, he always tried to secure a huge profit for himself. If his typesetters worked by the hour, he did not take his eyes off them. If he happened to learn about the difficult situation of some manufacturer, he bought paper from him for next to nothing and hid it in his cellars. By this time, Séchard was already the owner of the house, which had housed a printing house since time immemorial. He was lucky in everything: he remained a widower and had only one son. He placed him in the city lyceum, not so much to educate him as to prepare his successor; he treated him harshly, wanting to extend the term of his paternal power, and during the holidays he forced his son to work at the typesetting desk, saying that the young man should learn to earn a living and in the future to thank his poor father, who worked tirelessly for his education. Having said goodbye to the abbot, Sechar appointed in his place one of the four typesetters, whom the future bishop spoke of as an honest and intelligent man. Therefore, the old man could calmly wait for the day when his son would become the head of the enterprise and it would blossom in his young and skillful hands. David Sechar brilliantly graduated from the Angoulême Lyceum. Although Father Seshar, the former Bear, an illiterate, rootless upstart, deeply despised science, he nevertheless sent his son to Paris to study the highest art of typography; but, sending his son to the city, which he called a workers' paradise, the old man so convinced him not to count on his parents' wallet and so persistently recommended saving more money that, apparently, he considered his son's stay in land of wisdom only a means to achieve your goal. David, studying a trade in Paris, completed his education along the way. The metranpage of Dido's printing house became a scientist. At the end of 1819, David Sechar left Paris, where his life did not cost a centime to his father, who now called his son home to hand him the reins of government. The printing house of Nicolas Sechard printed court announcements in the newspaper, at that time the only one in the department, and also fulfilled orders from the prefecture and the bishop's office, and such clients promised prosperity to the energetic young man.

It was then that the Cuente brothers, owners of a paper mill, bought a second patent for the right to open a printing house in Angoulême; until then, due to the machinations of the old man Séchard and the military upheavals that caused complete stagnation in industry during the Empire, there was no demand for this patent; Because of this same stagnation, Seshar did not acquire it at the time, and the old man’s stinginess caused the ruin of the ancient printing house. Upon learning of this purchase, Séchard was delighted, realizing that the struggle that would inevitably arise between his enterprise and that of Cuente would fall heavily on his son, and not on him. “I couldn’t stand it,” he thought, “but the guy who studied with Messrs. Didot can still compete with Cuente.” The seventy-year-old man sighed for the time when he could live for his own pleasure. He had little understanding of the intricacies of printing, but was known as a great expert in the art, which the workers jokingly called pianography, and this art was highly revered by the divine author of Pantagruel, being attacked by the so-called temperance societies, from day to day more and more falls into oblivion. Jerome-Nicolas Séchard, obedient to the fate predetermined by his name, suffered from an unquenchable thirst. For many years, his wife kept within proper limits this passion for grape juice - an attraction so natural for Bears that Mr. Chateaubriand noticed this property even in real bears in America; However, philosophers have noticed that in old age the habits of youth appear with renewed vigor. Sechar confirmed this observation: the older he got, the more he liked to drink. This passion left marks on his bearish face that gave it its originality. His nose took on the size and shape of a capital A - the size of the triple canon. The veined cheeks began to look like grape leaves, dotted with warts, purple, purple and often all the colors of the rainbow. Just like a monstrous truffle among the autumn grape leaves! Covered with shaggy eyebrows, like bushes covered with snow, small gray eyes he shone cunningly from greed, which killed all feelings in him, even the feeling of fatherhood, and retained insight even when he was drunk. The bald head, with a bald spot on the crown, crowned with graying but still curly hair, conjured up images of the Franciscans from La Fontaine's tales. He was squat and pot-bellied, like ancient lamps, in which more oil burns than wick, for excesses, no matter how they manifest themselves, affect a person in the direction most characteristic of him: from drunkenness, as from mental work, the fat becomes fat , skinny is skinny. For thirty years Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard never parted with the famous municipal cocked hat, which at that time was still seen in other provinces on the head of the city drummer. His vest and trousers were made of greenish velvet. He wore an old brown frock coat, striped paper stockings and shoes with silver buckles. Such an outfit, which revealed a commoner as a bourgeois, was so consistent with his vices and habits, so mercilessly exposed his whole life, that it seemed that the old man was born dressed: without these vestments you could not imagine him, like an onion without a peel. If the old printer had not long ago discovered the full depth of his blind greed, his mere renunciation of business would have been enough to judge his character. Despite the knowledge that his son should have learned from Didot's high school, he had long been planning to develop a more profitable business. The father's benefit was not the son's benefit. But in business for the old man there was neither a son nor a father. If before he looked at David as his only child, later his son became for him simply a buyer whose interests were opposite to his interests: he wanted to sell at a high price. David must have sought to buy cheaply; therefore, the son turned into an opponent who had to be defeated. This transformation of feelings into personal interest, which usually proceeds slowly, complexly and hypocritically among well-bred people, occurred rapidly and directly in the old Bear, who set an example of how crafty drunkography can triumph over learned typography. When his son arrived, the old man surrounded him with that calculating courtesy with which clever people surround their victims: he courted him as a lover courtes his beloved; he supported him by the arm, pointed out where to step so as not to get his feet dirty; he ordered to put a hot water bottle in his bed, light the fireplace, and prepare dinner. The next day, trying to get his son drunk at a hearty dinner, Jerome-Nicolas Sechard, very tipsy, said: “Shall we talk about business?”, - and this phrase sounded so ridiculous between bouts of hiccups that David asked to postpone business conversations until the next day. The Old Bear was too skillful at taking advantage of his intoxication to refuse the long-awaited duel. Enough! - he said. He has been dragging his feet for fifty years and does not want to burden himself a single hour longer. Tomorrow his son should become a Simpleton.

Here, perhaps, it is appropriate to say a few words about the enterprise itself. Since the end of the reign of Louis XIV, the printing house has been located in that part of the Rue de Beaulieu where it opens onto the Place Murier. Therefore, the house has long been adapted to the needs of printing production. The vast workshop, which occupied the entire ground floor, was illuminated from the street through a dilapidated glass door and a wide window facing the courtyard. You could also get to the owner’s office through the entrance. But in the provinces, the printing business invariably arouses such keen curiosity that customers preferred to enter the workshop directly from the street through a glass door made in the facade, although they had to go down several steps, since the floor of the workshop was below the level of the pavement. Out of amazement, the curious usually did not take into account the inconveniences of the printing house. If, while making their way through its narrow passages, they happened to gaze at the vaults formed by sheets of paper stretched on strings near the ceiling, they would bump into the typesetting counters or hit their hats on the iron struts supporting the machines. If they happened to look at the typesetter who was reading the original, deftly catching letters from one hundred and fifty-two drawers of the cash register, inserting veneer, re-reading the typed line, they stumbled upon piles of moistened paper, crushed by stones, or hit their side against the corner of the press; all this to the great pleasure of the Monkeys and Bears. There was no case that anyone managed to reach without incident the two large cells located in the depths of this cave and representing two ugly ledges from the side of the courtyard, in one of which the factor sat, and in the other the owner of the printing house himself. The vines, gracefully twining around the walls of the building, acquired, taking into account the fame of the owner, a particularly attractive local color. In the depths of the courtyard, clinging to the wall of a neighboring house, huddled a dilapidated outbuilding where paper was wetted and prepared for printing. There was a stone sink with a drain, where the forms, or, in common parlance, printing boards, were washed before and after printing; From there, water, black from printing ink, flowed into the ditch and mixed there with kitchen slop, confusing the peasants who flocked to the city on market days with its color. “Well, how does the devil himself wash himself in this house?” - they used to say. The extension had a kitchen on one side and a woodshed on the other. On the second floor of this house, with an attic of two closets, there were three rooms. The first of them, located above the entryway and equally long, except for the dilapidated staircase, was illuminated from the street through a narrow window, and from the courtyard through a dormer window and served both as an entrance hall and a dining room. Unpretentiously whitewashed with lime, it showed with brutal frankness an example of merchant stinginess; the dirty floor had never been washed: the furnishings consisted of three nasty chairs, a round table and a sideboard that stood in the space between the doors that led to the bedroom and living room; the windows and doors were darkened with dirt; the room was usually littered with piles of prints and blank paper; Often on these piles one could see bottles, plates with roasts or sweets from the table of Jerome-Nicolas Séchard. The bedroom, the window of which, framed with lead, overlooked the courtyard, was covered with shabby carpets, such as in the provinces decorate the walls of buildings on the day of Corpus Christi. There stood a wide bed with columns and a canopy, with embroidered valances and a crimson bedspread, two worm-eaten armchairs, two soft walnut chairs covered with hand-embroidered embroidery, an old desk and a clock on the fireplace. This room, breathing patriarchal complacency and maintained in brown tones, was furnished by Monsieur Rouzaud, predecessor and owner of Jerome-Nicolas Séchard. The living room, decorated in a new taste by Madame Séchard, revealed a terrifying wooden paneling of the walls, painted blue, like in a hairdresser's; the upper part of the walls was covered with paper wallpaper, on which scenes from the life of the East were depicted in dark brown paint on a white field; the furnishings consisted of six chairs upholstered in blue morocco, with backs in the shape of a lyre. The two windows, roughly arched and overlooking the Place Murier, were without curtains; there were no candelabra, no clocks, no mirror on the mantelpiece. Madame Séchard died at the height of her passion for decorating the house, and Bear, not seeing any benefit in the vain sophistication, abandoned this idea. It was here, pede titubante, that Jerome-Nicolas Séchard brought his son and pointed out to him the inventory of printing property lying on the round table, compiled by the factor under his leadership.

Read, son,” said Jérôme-Nicolas Sechard, turning his drunken gaze from the paper to his son and from his son to the paper. - You will see that I am handing you not a printing house, but a treasure.

- “Three wooden machines with iron spacers, with a cast-iron plate for rubbing paints...”

“My improvement,” said old Seshar, interrupting his son.

- “... with all the equipment, kipseys, matzos, workbenches and so on... one thousand six hundred francs! not machines! And they’re not worth a hundred crowns, unless they’re useful for heating stoves...

Wooden pieces?! - cried old Seshar. - Pieces of wood?.. Take the inventory and let's go down! Let's see if your locksmith's rubbish is capable of working like these good, tried and tested old machines. And then you won’t dare to blaspheme honest machines, because they are running, like your mail coaches, and will serve you all your life, without ruining them for repairs. De-re-vyashki! Yes, these pieces of wood will feed you! De-re-vyashki! Your father worked for them for a quarter of a century. They brought you into the public too.

The father ran headlong down the well-worn, rickety, shaky stairs and did not stumble; he opened the door leading from the hallway to the printing house, rushed to the nearest machine, like the others, secretly oiled and cleaned for this occasion, and pointed to the strong oak stands, polished to a shine by the student.

Not a machine, but a sight for sore eyes! - he said.

An invitation card for a wedding was being printed. Old Bear lowered the racket onto the deckle and the deckle onto the marble, which he rolled under the machine; he pulled out the kuku, unwound the string to move the marble into place, lifted the deckle and rashet with the agility of a young Bear. The machine in his hands made such a funny creak that you could have mistaken it for the rattling of glass under the wing of a bird hitting the window in flight.

Is there really at least one English machine that works like that? - the father said to his amazed son.

Old man Seshar ran from the first machine to the second, from the second to the third, and in turn did the same thing on each of them with equal dexterity. His eyes, dimmed by wine, did not miss some spot on the last machine, left due to the negligence of the student; the drunkard, cursing loudly, began to polish the machine with the skirt of his coat, like a horse dealer who, before selling a horse, cleans it with a hair comb.

With these three machines, David, you will earn nine thousand a year even without the factor. As your future companion, I do not allow you to replace them with damned metal machines that wear out the type. You made a fuss there in Paris - what a miracle, to say the least! - around the invention of your damned Englishman, an enemy of France, who only thought about the benefits for the wordsmiths. Ah, you're raving about wallhopes! Thank you for your wallhops! Two thousand five hundred francs each! Yes, it’s almost twice as expensive as all my three treasures combined. In addition, they are not elastic enough and knock down the letters. I'm not as learned as you, but remember this: wallhopes are death to fonts. My three machines will serve you without failure; print cleanly, and the people of Angoulême won’t ask for more from you. Whether you print on iron, on wood, on gold or silver, they won’t pay you an extra liara.

Did I really suggest these verses to you? - she asked.

The imaginary doubt inspired by the coquetry of a woman who liked to play with fire brought tears to Lucien's eyes; she reassured him by kissing his forehead for the first time. Decidedly Lucien was a great man, and she wished to engage in his education; she already dreamed of teaching him Italian and German, giving gloss to his manners; she sought reasons to keep him with her constantly, to the chagrin of annoying admirers. How interesting her life had become! For the sake of her poet, she again turned to music and opened up the world of sounds to him; she played for him some beautiful Beethoven pieces and delighted him; happy with his joy, noticing that he was literally exhausted, she said slyly:

What other happiness do we need?

The poet was stupid to answer:

Finally, it came to the point that Louise last week invited Lucien to dine with her, the three of them with Mr. De Bargeton. Despite this precaution, the whole city learned about the event and considered it so incredible that everyone asked himself: “Is it really true?” The noise was terrible. It seemed to many that society was on the eve of destruction. Others shouted:

These are the fruits of liberal teachings!

The jealous du Châtelet, meanwhile, discovered that Madame Charlotte, the nurse for women in labor, was none other than Madame Chardon, the mother, as he put it, Chateaubriand from Humeau. This expression was picked up as a joke. Madame de Chandour was the first to run to Madame de Bargeton.

Have you heard, dear Nais, what all Angoulême is talking about? - she said. “After all, the same Mrs. Charlotte who hosted my daughter-in-law two months ago is the mother of this clicker!”

“My dear,” said Madame de Bargeton, assuming a completely regal appearance, “there is no trickery here!” She's a pharmacist's widow, isn't she? A sad fate for the damsel de Rubempre! Imagine that you and I would find ourselves without a single penny... What would we live on? How would you feed your children?

The equanimity of Madame de Bargeton stopped the cries of the Angoulême nobility. Sublime souls are always inclined to elevate misfortune into a virtue. Moreover, in the persistence to do good, when it is charged with a crime, there lurks an irresistible temptation: in innocence there is the sharpness of vice. In the evening, Madame de Bargeton's salon was full of her friends who had gathered to scold her. She showed all the causticism of her mind: she said that if the nobility cannot give either Moliere, or Racine, or Rousseau, or Voltaire, or Massillon, or Beaumarchais, or Diderot, it is necessary to put up with upholsterers, watchmakers, cutlers, whose children become great people. She said that genius is always noble. She fluffed up the nobles because they did not understand well what their true benefits were. In short, she talked a lot of nonsense, and less naive people would have guessed what was the reason for it, but those present only paid tribute to the originality of her mind. So, she averted the storm with cannon shots. When Lucien, first invited to her evening, entered the old, faded drawing room, where they were playing whist at four tables, he was given a flattering reception by Madame de Bargeton, and she, like a queen accustomed to command, introduced him to her guests. She named the manager of indirect taxes Mr. Chatelet and embarrassed him extremely by making it clear that she knew about the illegal origin of the particle du. From that evening Lucien was forcibly introduced into the society of Madame de Bargeton, but he was accepted as a poisonous substance, and everyone vowed to expel him, using insolence as an antidote. Despite the victory, the rule of Nais was shaken: freethinkers appeared and attempted to rebel. At the instigation of Mr. Chatelet, the insidious Amelie, also known as Madame de Chandur, decided to erect an altar opposite the altar and began to host her on Wednesdays. But Madame de Bargeton’s salon was open every evening, and the people who visited it were so rigid, so accustomed to looking at the same wallpaper, playing the same backgammon, seeing the same servants, the same candelabra, putting on raincoats, galoshes, hats all in the same hallway that loved the steps of the stairs no less than the mistress of the house.

“They will tolerate even a goldfinch from the sacred grove,” said Alexandre de Brebian, having exhausted the joke.

Finally, the chairman of the Agricultural Society calmed the excitement with an instructive remark.

Before the revolution, he said, the most eminent nobles received Duclos, Grimm, Crebillon, people without position, like this poet from Umo, but they did not receive tax collectors, which, in essence, is Monsieur Chatelet.

Du Châtelet paid for Chardon; everywhere he received an icy reception. Feeling the general hostility, the manager of indirect taxes, who had sworn from the time when Madame de Bargeton called him Chatelet, to achieve her favor, entered into the interests of the mistress of the house; he supported the young poet, declaring that they were friends. This great diplomat, whom Napoleon so recklessly neglected, treated Lucien kindly, calling himself his friend. To introduce the poet into society, he gave a dinner, which was attended by the prefect, the chief administrator of state revenues, the head of the garrison, the director of the maritime school, the chairman of the court - in short, all the authorities. The poor poet was so honored that anyone other than a young man of twenty-one, of course, would have suspected foolishness in such generous praise! Over dessert, Chatelet asked his rival to read the ode “The Dying Sardanapalus” - his last masterpiece. After listening to the ode, the director of the college, a man indifferent to everything, clapped his hands and announced that Jean-Baptiste Rousseau could not have composed better. Baron Sixtus Châtelet reasoned that sooner or later the poet would wither away in the hothouse atmosphere of praise or, intoxicated by premature fame, allow himself some daring trick and, naturally, again fall into insignificance. In anticipation of the death of the genius, he seemed to sacrifice his own claims to Madame de Bargeton, but, like a clever rogue, he drew up a plan of action and vigilantly watched every step of the lovers, lying in wait for the opportunity to destroy Lucien. From that time on, throughout Angoulême and throughout the entire region, a silent rumor spread about the existence of a great man in Angoumois. Everyone sang the praises of Madame de Bargeton for her care of this eaglet. But as soon as her behavior was approved, she wanted to achieve full recognition. She trumpeted throughout the department that she was offering an evening of ice cream, cake and tea - a great innovation in a city where tea was sold only in pharmacies as a remedy for indigestion. The flower of the aristocracy was invited to listen to the great work that Lucien was to read. Louise hid from her friend the difficulty with which she had overcome all the obstacles, but she dropped a few words about the conspiracy formed against him by the world; for she did not want to leave the young man ignorant of the dangers that inevitably await brilliant people in a field fraught with obstacles insurmountable for the faint-hearted. She used the victory for edification. With white marble hands she pointed out to him Glory, bought at the price of continuous suffering, she told him that it was inevitable for a poet to ascend to the pyre of martyrdom, she oiled her best tartines and flavored them with the most magnificent expressions. It was an imitation of improvisations that sufficiently spoiled the novel Corinna. Louise, admiring her own eloquence, fell even more in love with Benjamin, who inspired her; she advised him to boldly renounce his father, accept the noble name of de Rubempre, and neglect the noise that would arise on this occasion, for the king, of course, would legitimize the change of name. She is related to the Marquise d'Espard, née de Blamont-Chevry, a lady extremely influential in court circles. Louise undertakes to seek this favor. At the words "king", "Marquise d'Espard", "court" Lucien lit up like fireworks, and the necessity of this baptism was demonstrated.

“Dear boy,” said Louise with a gentle mockery, “the sooner this is accomplished, the sooner it will be recognized.”

She uncovered successively, one by one, all layers of society and, together with the poet, counted the steps through which he would immediately step over, having made this wise decision. In an instant, she forced Lucien to renounce the plebeian ideas of unrealistic equality in the spirit of 1793, she awakened in him a thirst for honor, cooled by the cold reasoning of David. She pointed to high society as the only arena of his activity. The frantic liberal became a monarchist in petto: Lucien tasted the fruit of aristocratic luxury and glory. He vowed to lay a crown at the feet of his lady, albeit a bloody one; he will conquer it at any cost, quibuscumque viis. As proof of his courage, he told about his hardships, which he hid from Louise, obedient to unaccountable timidity, the companion of his first love, which does not allow the young man to boast of his merits, for it is nicer for him to know that his soul, kept incognito, was appreciated. He described the oppression of poverty, endured with pride, work with David, nights devoted to science. His youthful ardor reminded Madame de Bargeton of the twenty-six-year-old Colonel de Cant-Croix, and her gaze became clouded. Noticing that weakness was taking over his majestic beloved, Lucien took her hand - and he was allowed to take it - and kissed it with the fervor of a poet, a youth, a lover. Louise condescended to allow the pharmacist's son to touch her forehead and kiss it with his trembling lips.

Child! Child! If they saw us, they would laugh at me,” she said, waking up from a delightful stupor.

That evening Madame de Bargeton's mode of thinking produced great havoc in what she called Lucien's prejudices. To listen to her, for brilliant people there are no brothers, no sisters, no father, no mother; the great creations that they are called to create require from them a certain selfishness, obliging them to sacrifice everything to their greatness. If their loved ones at first suffer from the onerous tribute exacted by the titans of the mind, they will later be rewarded a hundredfold for all the sacrifices made in the early days of the struggle for the disputed throne, and they will share with him the fruits of victory. A genius is responsible only to himself; he is the only judge of his actions, for he alone knows their root purpose; he must rise above the laws, for he is called upon to transform them; and whoever has become the ruler of his age can take everything, put everything at stake, for everything belongs to him. She remembered the life story of Bernard de Palissy, Louis XI, Fox, Napoleon, Christopher Columbus, Caesar, all these famous players, at first burdened with debts, needy, misunderstood, considered madmen, bad sons, bad fathers, bad brothers, but later became the pride of the family , homeland, the whole world. These reasonings answered Lucien’s secret vices and corrupted his soul even more: for in the fervor of his desires he a priori justified all means. But not to win means to offend His Majesty the Society. Have you failed? And by doing so, haven’t you dealt a mortal blow to all the bourgeois virtues, this foundation of society, which with horror expels the Maries sitting among the ruins? Lucien did not realize that he stood at the crossroads between the shame of hard labor and the laurels of genius; he hovered over the Sinai of the prophets, not seeing the Dead Sea, the terrible shroud of Gomorrah.

Louise so skillfully freed the mind and heart of her poet from the shrouds with which provincial life had wrapped them that Lucien wanted to test Madame de Bargeton, to find out whether he could take possession of this high prey, whether a shameful refusal awaited him. The evening party provided him with the opportunity to carry out this test. Ambition was mixed with his love. He thirsted for love and fame - a double desire, quite natural in a young man who needs to satisfy his heart and end poverty. By now inviting all its offspring to a common feast, the Society awakens ambition in them already at the dawn of their lives. It deprives youth of its charm and corrupts its good impulses, introducing calculation into them. Poetry would like things to be different; but reality too often refutes the fiction that one would like to believe, and one cannot afford to portray a young man of the 19th century as different from what he really is. It seemed to Lucien that his calculations were prompted by good feelings and friendship with David.

Lucien composed a whole message to his Louise, because he felt bolder with a pen in his hand than with a confession on his lips. On twelve pages, rewritten three times, he told her about his father’s talents, about his lost hopes and his terrible poverty. He portrayed his dear sister as an angel, David - the future Cuvier, a great man, a friend who replaced his father and brother; he would have been unworthy of Louise's love, his first glory, if he had not asked her to treat David the way she treated him. It’s better to give up everything than to betray David Seshar; he wants David to witness his success. He wrote one of those crazy letters in which young people respond to refusal by threatening to fire a pistol, in which childish casuistry is used and the reckless logic of a beautiful soul speaks - charming idle talk interspersed with naive confessions that escaped from the heart against the will of the writer, which, by the way, That's how women like it. Having handed the letter to the maid, Lucien spent the day reading the proofs, observing the work, putting in order minor matters at the printing house and did not say a word about it to David. As long as the heart has not emerged from its infantile state, the wondrous gift of restraint is inherent in young men. And who knows if Lucien was not afraid of Phocion’s ax, which David wielded perfectly? Perhaps he was afraid of the clarity of his gaze, penetrating into the depths of his soul. After reading Chenier's poems, the secret of his heart fell from his lips, alarmed by the reproach that he felt like a doctor's finger touching a wound.

Imagine now what thoughts worried Lucien while he was descending from Angoulême to Humeau. Was the noble lady angry? Will she invite David to her place? Will the ambitious man end up relegated to his slum on the outskirts of Umo? Although, before kissing Louise on the forehead, Lucien could have measured the distance separating the queen from her favorite, he still did not think that David was not able to instantly overcome such a distance when

Lost illusions

Honore de Balzac
Lost illusions
BALZAC'S NOVEL "LOST ILLUSIONS"
"Gentlemen, bourgeois individualists, we must tell you that your talk about absolute freedom is nothing but hypocrisy. In a society based on the power of money, in a society where the masses of workers are begging and a handful of rich people are parasites, there can be no real and actual “freedom.” Are you free from your bourgeois publisher, Mr. Writer" from your bourgeois public who demands from you pornography in frames and pictures, prostitution as an "addition" to the "sacred" performing art"
V I Lenin1
Reading “Lost Illusions” you involuntarily recall these passionate lines from V. I. Lenin’s famous article “Party organization and party literature,” written with the captivating eloquence of a revolutionary’s conviction and the wisdom of a genius. Not a single word from this article has lost its relevance. Today’s “gentlemen are bourgeois individualists” ( V. I. Lenin’s article was written in 1905) they boast that they live in a “free world” and enjoy “absolute freedom of absolutely individual ideological creativity”2 (I use V. I. Lenin’s ironic expression) Balzac’s novel shows what their “freedom” of the press is and their “freedom” of creativity Before us in living faces and living pictures appears the entire “kitchen” of the publishing industry, the entire ins and outs of the so-called “holy” art in the so-called “free” bourgeois world
Balzac wrote his novel during the years of complete and undivided dominance of the bourgeoisie in France. In 1830, it won the end
1 V I Lenin Poli sobr op T 12 S 103-104
- Ibid C 102
a decisive victory, expelling the last Bourbon (Charles X) and placing his king, bourgeois and financier, Louis Philippe d'Orléans, on the throne. The action of the novel dates back to the time of the Restoration (twenties of the 19th century), when the French aristocracy still dreamed and hoped to regain its dilapidated heraldic prerogatives, and meanwhile finally lost them under the pressure of the new ruler of France - the bourgeois.
Her absurd and ridiculous concerns about titles and class elitism are shown not without irony by Balzac, even though the writer declared himself a supporter of the “altar and the throne.” This is one of the paradoxical aspects of her work.
In abstract theoretical reasoning, he often contradicted himself as a writer and artist. In the novel you can find phrases that are close in spirit only to the most rabid reactionaries of that time. For example: “the sublime treatises of M. de Bonald and M. de Maistre, these two eagles of thought.” These “eagles of thought,” as we know, cursed the revolution of 1789-1794, the educational philosophy of the 18th century, and pulled France back “to the times absolute monarchy, omnipotence catholic church"(Joseph de Maistre "About the Pope", 1819), etc.
But the more valuable, the more convincing are the pictures of living life recreated by Balzac. The truth itself speaks here. Balzac set himself a grandiose task - to describe his generation - the whole society, all its states, classes, estates, social groups, ages - to paint a picture of the morals of his time. And he accomplished this task by publishing ninety volumes of The Human Comedy. He wrote: “There are two histories: the official, false history that is taught in school, the history ad usum Delphini 1, and the secret history that reveals real reasons events, shameful history."
The writer revealed this “shameful” story of his days on the pages of The Human Comedy.
1 Regarding the Latin expression ad usum Delphini (for the use of the Dauphin), which is used here by Balzac, more precisely, in the novel by Abbot Herrera, the French reference book Larousse gives an explanation that is not without interest for the Russian reader: “The name is given to luxurious editions of Latin classics, specially prepared for his son Louis XIV, from which too explicit passages were removed. This formula began to be applied in an ironic sense to all publications, cleaned and prepared depending on the assigned tasks.
In the novel "Lost Illusions" the world of art: poets, journalists, actors, publishers - and those who control this world: shopkeepers, financiers, money bags, stupid and immoral moneybags. They don’t care about the ideals with which poets rush, about talent, inspiration, about the artist’s duty to “sacred art -) - they pay. And the one who pays calls the tune. And the poet Lucien Chardon at the deathbed of his beloved, pouring himself in tears, writes vulgar, obscene poems to earn two hundred francs for the funeral. “If you bring me a dozen good songs tomorrow - drinking and free... do you understand? “I’ll pay you two hundred francs,” the publisher tells him.
This is the reality of this “free world” and “free art”. x x x
The writer invites you to get rid of illusions, but they are full of them. human life, and the first victims of disappointments, sometimes tragic, are young people. For Balzac, this is one of the main themes; he even created a corresponding aphorism: life experience is getting rid of the noble ideals that worry us in our youth. Let's listen to a confidential conversation between journalist Etienne Lousteau and Lucien Chardon, who arrived from Angoulême in Paris: “Poor boy, I came to Paris, like you, full of dreams, in love with art, driven by an irresistible impulse to glory; I came across the underside of our craft, the slingshots book trade, to the undeniability of need. My enthusiasm, now suppressed, my initial excitement hid from me the mechanism of life; I had the opportunity to experience the action of the entire system of wheels of this mechanism, hitting its levers ... "
The journalist goes on to tell how his heart was “cooled by the snowstorms of experience,” how “he indulged in cruelty in order to live,” how he “wrote articles, squandering the flowers of his wit for the sake of one scoundrel.”
The story of Lucien Chardon, the hero of the novel “Lost Illusions,” is the story of the moral fall of an honest, noble young man who began with enthusiastic dreams of serving art, beautiful and eternal, and ended with suicide in a prison cell, disgraced and rejected (“The Splendor and Poverty of Courtesans” ). In the preface to the first edition of the novel, Balzac bluntly stated his main idea: “The social system so adapts people to its needs and cripples them so much that they cease to be like themselves.” This is what happened with his Lucien Chardon.
Instead of “sacred art,” he found himself in a “dirty den of corrupt thought called newspapers,” he learned that “journalism is a real hell, an abyss of lawlessness, lies, betrayal,” that literature and all art are “trade in conscience, mind and thought.” .
He tried in vain to resist, to defend his moral principles, the cruel truth, which the journalist Lousteau told him, “fell like an avalanche on Lucien’s soul and instilled a chilling cold in it. For a moment he stood silently. Then his heart, as if awakened by this cruel poetry of obstacles , lit up. Lucien shook hands with Lousteau and shouted:
- I will triumph!
- Great! - said the journalist. - Another Christian enters the arena to be torn apart by the “beasts.”
And Lousteau turned out to be right, the “beasts” ultimately “torn to pieces” the ardent poet, who did not have enough will to fight and win, like hundreds and thousands of his fellow writers in the days of Balzac, like hundreds and thousands of Luciens in ours days in the so-called “free world”, where money rules everything. And Lucien not only died physically, but was also “harassed,” like the journalist Etienne Lousteau, and suffered from the consciousness of his moral failure.
“There, next to Coralie, sits a young man... What is his name? Lucien! He is handsome, he is a poet and, what is more important for him, an intelligent man; and what, he will enter the dirty den of corrupt thoughts called newspapers, he he will squander his best plans, wither his brain, corrupt his soul, and take the path of anonymous baseness, which in the war of words replaces stratagems, robberies, arson and transitions to another camp, according to the custom of condottieri. When will he, like a thousand others, waste his wonderful talent. for the needs of the newspaper's shareholders, these poison dealers will let him die of hunger."
The newspaper's shareholders - these days the Hearsts, the Springers - are the powerful kings of the press in the West. The state of things there has not changed at all since the time of Balzac, and now, as then - “The freedom of a bourgeois writer, artist, actress is only a disguised (or hypocritically disguised) dependence on a money bag, on bribery, on content.” x x x
Not everyone, however, is ground by the giant millstones of the bourgeois mill; there are individuals who maintain their moral purity - persistent, strong people. Balzac writes about them with the deepest respect.
1 V. I. Lenin. Poly. collection op. T. 12. P. 104.
nim. These are “people of deep knowledge, tempered in the crucible of need,” this is “a living encyclopedia of sublime minds.” This is the d'Artez circle in the novel. In a modest apartment on the rue Quatre-Van - "an oasis in the desert of Paris", d'Artez and his friends form a "federation of feelings and interests." Among them are “a tireless worker and a conscientious scientist” Leon Giraud, a medical student, “in the future one of the luminaries of the Paris Medical School” Horace Bianchon, “one of the best painters of the young school” Joseph Brideau and, finally, the head of the d’Artez circle himself , in which “they all foresaw a great writer.” In the latter, perhaps, Balzac portrayed himself, at least as he became after the ordeal and concessions to the world of profit (During his student period. literary activity he resembled his hero Lucien Chardon in many ways.)
In d'Artez's circle there was also the remarkable personality of the revolutionary Michel Chrétien. Balzac was attracted to similar personalities. “This great man, who could transform the face of society, fell at the walls of the Saint-Merri monastery, like a simple soldier. A shopkeeper's bullet felled one of the noblest creatures that ever existed on French soil."
The nine people who were part of d'Artez's circle constituted a “splendor of mental treasures.” They worked, each in the sphere of their talent, and did not waste their strength on trifles, did not seek fame, lived modestly, not burdened by poverty, and, in essence, were happy. Their judgments were distinguished by gentleness and tolerance, they did not know envy. Gathering together, they shared their wealth, that is, the gifts of their minds, “confided their works to each other, and with sweet youthful sincerity asked for friendly advice.”
Something in this friendly community was from Rabelaisian Thelema 1, something from utopia, from the dream that the writer allowed himself here, tired of pictures of evil and self-interest. However, life, real, cruel and harsh, constantly reminded itself of itself, and, having warmed itself by the friendly fireplace of d'Artez, sighing about honesty, nobility, about inspired work, not sold to anyone, the writer again turns to the “shameful” history of his society and tells about the troubles of the provincial printer and inventor David Seshar. Talented and simple-minded, Seshar falls into the clutches of competitors. Competition in the bourgeois world is like a fight of predators in the jungle. There is no mercy, here is a battle to the death. And David Seshar is broken, ruined, destroyed, his invention is stolen. and to top it all off
1 The Thelema monastery in Rabelais's novel "Gargantua and Pantagruel".
Thelema - desired (Greek).
one of his destroyers and enemies is his own father. The physical and moral portrait of this latter is very colorful: “Covered with shaggy eyebrows, looking like bushes dusted with snow, his small gray eyes shone cunningly from greed, which killed all feelings in him, even the feeling of fatherhood, and retained insight even when he was drunk.” . x x x
The troubles of David Sechard are the troubles of Balzac himself; the writer even gave some of his own features to the appearance of his hero. Like David Seshar, he planned to get rich by taking up the printing business, like David Seshar, he rushed around with the invention of a cheap type of paper, finally, like David Seshar, he found himself in the most disastrous situation, overwhelmed with debts, pursued by creditors, but now with excellent knowledge of the inexorable and cruel laws of bourgeois business. This great expert human soul, this insightful psychologist found himself helpless and unarmed, like a child, in front of people “with small eyes, cunningly sparkling with greed.” The writer made extensive use of his own life experience; his biographer can learn a lot from his books to characterize his personality. By the way, three major authors wrote a biography of Balzac - Stefan Zweig, Andre Maurois and Wurmser." Each looked at him in his own way, and each noted his significance. The Great Rodin created a sculptural portrait of him.
Balzac was born in May 1799. His father bore the peasant name Waltz, which later shocked his writer son; the name was changed to Balzac with the addition of the noble particle de (Honoré de Balzac). Great people have weaknesses; we have already talked about the paradoxes of his abstract theoretical judgments.
Bernard François Valls, a peasant who became rich by buying and selling confiscated noble lands during the revolution, and later assistant to the mayor of the city of Tours, prepared his son for lawyering. The son decided to become a poet. On family council it was decided to give him two years to fulfill his creative plans, and Balzac wrote the poetic drama "Cromwell" (the hero of the novel "Lost Illusions" Lucien Chardon brings the historical novel "The Archer of Charles IX" to Paris.) Later, at a similar family council, the drama was declared unfit for anything, and the author of the refusal
"Zweig S., Balzac; Maurois A. Prometheus, or the Life of Balzac; Wurmser A. Inhuman Comedy,
but in material assistance. A dark period of material adversity sets in. For some time, Balzac does what the hero of his novel, Lucien Chardon, did, that is, he sells his pen and writes alone. and in co-authorship with others (under a pseudonym) fashionable in those days, eagerly selling novels with darkly mysterious heroes, intricate intrigues. In 1829, a novel was published that he no longer had to be ashamed of - “The Chouans.” The novel brought him his first success. For the next twenty years, the writer is famous, works at night, supporting himself with coffee, works like an ox, like an ancient slave in the mines, strains himself and dies at fifty. Such is the life of this amazing man who created The Human Comedy - an epic poem of modern times, comparable only to Homer's Iliad.
Balzac spoke on the pages of his novel about the work of the writer. Talent alone is not enough. Labor is necessary - in essence, a feat in the name of art. Not everyone can do this. You need will, a gigantic strength of character. And the point here is not in the efforts of creativity itself, but in the moral fortitude of the creator, in his ability to nurture his talent, to protect it from commercialism. “Talent is a terrible disease... Truly one must be a great man in order to maintain a balance between genius and character,” writes Balzac. This moral fortitude was not found in the character of his hero Lucien Chardon, and he died; d'Artez had it in abundance, and he won. This moral fortitude led Balzac himself to the right creative path. He preserved and nurtured his talent. And what a talent !
Balzac is a great master of words. He writes in detail, perhaps even loquaciously. His pen needs space, and he uses this space with pleasure, devoting entire pages to the speeches of his heroes. His eyes are keen and attentive, he will look around, notice and describe all the details: his hero’s clothes, his physical appearance, his gestures, his manner of holding himself, speaking, he will describe the interior of the house in which his hero lives, the street, the city. And everything is necessary, everything is important, everything will fit harmoniously into the grandiose picture of morals. There is no dull description here. Despite all his loquaciousness, the writer is extremely laconic; his comparisons, metaphors, and epithets are spot-on, appropriate, vivid, and far from being a catchphrase. Balzac did not tolerate the “beauties of style,” which, it must be said, was the sin of his contemporary, Victor Hugo.
Here is a comparison of the everyday environment of two polar natures: the chaotic, morally disordered journalist Etienne Lousteau and the serious, thoughtful d'Artez. This room, dirty and deplorable, testified to a life that knew neither peace nor dignity: they slept here, worked hastily , lived unwillingly, dreaming
get out of here. What a difference there is between this cynical disorder and the neat, dignified poverty of D'Artez!
Balzac attached fundamental importance to everyday details; their description was part of his aesthetic program. “By depicting costumes, utensils, buildings, their interior decoration, home life, you will recreate the spirit of the era,” advises d’Artez to Lucien Chardon.
Balzac's generation, young authors of the twenties and thirties of the 19th century, following in the footsteps of Walter Scott, who introduced the so-called “local color” into fashion, that is, exactly what d’Artez speaks to Lucien, were carried away by the exoticism of ancient life.
Historical novels about the Middle Ages were very fashionable at that time. Balzac applied the principle of “local color” to modern times, and what for the romantics who wrote historical novels was exotic, often quite far from reality, for Balzac the realist became one of the powerful means of authenticity. recreating typical characters in a typical setting.
All of Balzac's heroes, like Shakespeare's heroes, are smart and witty. We can say that the French writer devoted a bit of his genius to each of them.
Baron du Châtelet, whom the writer did not at all intend to make into a genius (“he knew everything and knew nothing”) and, on the contrary, portrays him as a clever opportunist, crafty, immoral, far from any spiritual interests, this baron colorfully describes in the novel two eras in the then European literature, namely: pre-romanticism of the 18th century and romanticism of the 19th century. "Formerly we ventured into the Ossian mists. There were Malvinas, Fingals, cloud visions, warriors with a star in their foreheads, emerging from their graves. Now this poetic rags are replaced by Jehovah, sistrams, angels, wings of seraphim; all these paradise props, renewed by the words: immensity, infinity, loneliness, reason. There are lakes and a divine verb, a kind of Christianized pantheism, decorated with rare ornate rhymes...” This historical evidence can be completely transferred to a university course on the history of literature.
Abbot Herrera, who is also a thief and recidivist Vautrin, quotes the Bible, peppers his speech with Latin phrases and expresses paradoxes worthy of the most refined minds: he calls the Roman Catholic Church “a set of views that keep the people in obedience.”
He reasons: “In emigration, the aristocracy, now reigning in its Saint-Germain suburb, fell even lower: she was a moneylender, a merchant, baked pies, she was a cook, a farmer, tended sheep.” He embarks on historical excursions and gives bold
assessments of events, people, and even rises to aphorisms in the spirit of La Bruyère and La Rochefoucauld: “Of all types of loneliness, mental loneliness is the most terrible.”
Aphorisms, the most profound, fill the speech of both the author and his heroes. Here are some of them:
"Hoarders live in a world of imagination and the power of money." “For a miser, everything, even his sex, is concentrated in his brain.” “The first need of a person, be it a leper or a convict, an outcast or an ill person, is to find a comrade in fate... Without this all-consuming desire, would Satan really have found accomplices for himself,” etc., etc.
Balzac was often accused of immorality; it was said that he described the most horrific atrocities without emotional trepidation, with the cold dispassion of a recorder, caring only about the accuracy of the story - without anger and indignation. This, of course, is not true; Balzac's style itself contradicts such a statement. Every word, every phrase is full of emotions. His story is excited and dynamic. This is by no means the speech of an indifferent person. He writes: “The comparison of this skinny lawyer dressed in a tailcoat with a frozen viper naturally suggested itself,” or. “an old dandy from the times of the Empire... somehow immediately became overripe, like a melon that was still green the day before and turned yellow overnight,” or: “Mademoiselle de Lahe, a gloomy girl from the breed of grumpy, of a rather graceful build with whitish hair... and with aristocratic manners,” etc., etc. Here, as we see, there is not only a description, but also a judgment, in other words, the ideological position of the author.
In the novel we will find the most interesting thoughts on writing. Balzac generously scatters advice of the most valuable nature.
“What is art? - A clot of nature”, “The struggle of opposing principles is necessary in any work”, “Put it into action immediately”, “Tackle the plot either from the side or from the tail; in short, process it in different planes so as not to become monotonous "etc.
You can't miss a single line from Balzac. This will be a great loss for the reader. His judgments are not always correct, but they are always interesting, original, thought-provoking, and stimulating.
For example, for some reason he needed to look at an engraving by Robert Lefebvre depicting Napoleon, and a magnificent speech follows: “... a whole poem of fiery melancholy, secret lust for power, a hidden thirst for action. Look carefully at his face: you will see genius and isolation in him, cunning and greatness. The gaze is spiritual, like the gaze of a woman. The gaze seeks wide open space, burns with the desire to overcome obstacles..."
If we talk about any writer known throughout the world, Balzac will certainly express an opinion - an original one, striking us with its surprise and accuracy of observation.
“Walter Scott has no passion: either it is unknown to him, or is prohibited by the hypocritical mores of his homeland,” he writes about the idol of his contemporaries. The rating may be offensive to English writer and all of England, but true.
Balzac called his book "a big story about small things." This is out of modesty. There is nothing small in it, everything in it is grandiose and raised to a universal scale. This is the creation of a genius.
Sergei Artamonov
LOST ILLUSIONS
TO VICTOR HUGO
You, according to the happy lot of the Raphaels and Pitts, barely emerged from adolescence, were already a great poet; You, like Chateaubriand, like all true talents, rebelled against the envious people hiding behind the columns of the Newspaper or hiding in its basements. I would therefore like your victorious name to contribute to the victory of the work that I dedicate to you and which, according to some, is not only a feat of courage, but also a true story. Wouldn't journalists, like marquises, financiers, doctors, prosecutors, be worthy of the pen of Moliere and his theater? Why should not the Human Comedy, which castigat ridendo mores 1, neglect one of the social forces, if the Parisian Press does not neglect any?
I am happy, dear sir, to take this opportunity to bring you a tribute of my sincere admiration and friendship.
De Balzac
/ 1 Corrects morals with laughter (lat.).
Part one TWO POETS
At the time to which this story begins, Stanhope's printing press and ink rollers had not yet appeared in small provincial printing houses. Despite the fact that Angoulême's main trade was associated with Parisian printing houses, they still worked on wooden machines, which enriched the language with a now forgotten expression: bring the machine to a creak. In the local backward printing house there were still leather matzos soaked in paint, with which the press operator applied paint to the printing plate. The retractable board, where the form with typed type is placed, on which a sheet of paper is placed, was carved from stone and lived up to its name marble. The voracious mechanical presses of our days have so completely driven out of memory the mechanism to which, despite its imperfections, we owe the beautiful editions of Elseviers, Plantins, Aldoves and Didots, that we have to mention the old printing equipment, which aroused superstitious love in Jerome-Nicolas Séchard, for it plays a certain role in this great story of small affairs.
Séshar was formerly an apprentice maker - Bear, as the typographic workers who set the type call the makers in their jargon. This is, obviously, the name given to the squeezers because they, like bears in a cage, mark time in one place, swinging from the kipsey to the machine and from the machine to the kipsey. The bears, in retaliation, dubbed the typesetters Monkeys because the typesetters, with purely monkey-like agility, catch letters from one hundred and fifty-two branches of the typesetting desk where the type is located. At the terrible time of 1793, Sechard was about fifty years old and married. His age and marital status saved him from the general recruitment, when almost all the workers took up arms. The old squeezer found himself alone
in a printing house, the owner of which, in other words the Simpleton, died, leaving a childless widow. The enterprise seemed to be in danger of immediate ruin: the hermit Bear could not transform into a Monkey, because, being a printer, he never learned to read and write. Despite his ignorance, one of the representatives of the people, hastening to spread the remarkable decrees of the Convention, issued the printer a patent as a master of printing and obliged him to work for the needs of the state. Having received this dangerous patent, citizen Séchard compensated the owner’s widow for losses by giving her his wife’s savings, and thereby acquired printing house equipment at half price. But that was not the point. It was necessary to print republican decrees competently and without delay. Under such difficult circumstances, Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard was lucky enough to meet a Marseilles nobleman who did not want to emigrate, so as not to lose his land, nor remain in sight, so as not to lose his head, and was forced to get a piece of bread by any work. So, the Comte de Macomb donned the modest jacket of a provincial factor: he typed the text and kept the proofs of the decrees that threatened death to the citizens who sheltered the aristocrats. The Bear, who became a Simpleton, printed decrees, posted them around the city, and both of them remained safe and sound. In 1795, when the storm of terror had passed, Nicolas Séchard was forced to look for another jack of all trades, capable of combining the duties of typesetter, proofreader and factor. One abbot, who refused to take the oath and later, during the Restoration, became a bishop, took the place of Comte de Maukomb and worked in the printing house until the day when the first consul restored Catholicism. The count and the bishop then met in the House of Peers and sat there on the same bench. Although in 1802 Jérôme-Nicolas Séchard was no more literate than in 1793, by that time he had saved a considerable amount and was able to pay the factor. The apprentice, who looked so carelessly into the future, became a thunderstorm for his Monkeys and Bears. Stinginess begins where poverty ends. As soon as the squeezer sensed an opportunity to get rich, self-interest awakened in him practical intelligence, greedy, suspicious and insightful. His everyday experience triumphed over theory. He achieved the ability to determine by eye the cost of a printed page or sheet. He proved to ignorant customers that typesetting in bold type was more expensive than typesetting in light type; if speech