Eugenie Grandet PDF
Preview Eugenie Grandet
KPT SznOHRI p»ic£ 5121 $5.95 P @ PENGUUI,NN f/\ CLASSICS EUGENIE GRANDET HonoredeBalzacwasbornatToursin 1799,thesonofacivilservant. He spentnearlysixyearsasaboarderinaVendomeschool,thenwenttolive in Paris, working asa lawyer's clerk then as a hack-writer. Between 1820 and 1824 he wrote a numberofnovels undervarious pseudonyms, many ofthem in collaboration, after which he unsuccessfully tried his luck at publishing, printing and type-founding. At the age of thirty, heavily in debt, he returned to literature with a dedicated fury and wrote the first noveltoappearunderhisownname, TheCbouans. Duringthenexttwenty yearshewroteaboutninetynovelsand shorterstories,amongthemmany masterpieces,towhichhegavethecomprehensivetitle TheHumanComedy. Hedied in 1850, afew months after his marriage to Evelina Hanska, the Polishcountesswithwhomhehadmaintainedamorousrelationsforeigh- teen years. Marion AytonCrawford,whodiedin 1973,taughtEnglishLanguageand Literature in the Technical College at Limavady, Northern Ireland. She translated five volumes of Balzac for the Penguin Classics: Cousin Bette, DomesticPeaceandOtherStories, The Cbouansand OldGoriot. (i3 HONORE DE BALZAC Eugenie Grandet TRANSLATED BY MARION AYTON CRAWFORD PENGUIN BOOKS PENGUIN BOOKS PublishedbythePenguinGroup 27WrightsLane,Londonw8 5T2,England VikingPenguinInc.,40West23rdStreet,NewYork,NewYork 10010,USA PenguinBooksAustraliaLtd,Ringwood,Victoria,Australia PenguinBooksCanadaLtd,2801 JohnStreet,Markham,Ontario,Canada1.3a 11 PenguinBooks(NZ)Ltd, 182-190WairauRoad,Auckland 10,NewZealand PenguinBooksLtd,RegisteredOffices:Harmondsworth,Middlesex,England Thistranslationfirstpublished 1955 13 17 19 20 18 16 Translationcopyright©MarionAytonCrawford, 1953 Allrightsreserved MadeandprintedinGreatBritainby RichardClayLtd,Bungay,Suffolk SetinMonotypeGaramond ExceptintheUnitedStatesofAmerica, thisbookissoldsubjecttothecondition thatitshallnot,bywayoftradeorotherwise, belent,re-sold,hiredout,orotherwisecirculated withoutthepublisher'spriorconsentinanyformof bindingorcoverotherthanthatinwhichitis publishedandwithoutasimilarcondition includingthisconditionbeingimposed onthesubsequentpurchaser INTRODUCTION WhenBalzacas ayoungman oftwentywas livingandhalf- starving in a garret in Paris, given just sufficient time and money(twoyearsandfourfrancsaday),sohisparentshoped, toprove that he could be as he asserted a literary man, or to cure him of the foolish fancy for ever and induce him to follow the lawyer's career which had been marked out for him,theworkonwhichallhishopesandthoughtswerefixed was a tragedy in the classical style, Cromwell. Posterity has endorsedtheverdictpassedonitbytheprofessorialacquaint- ance ofhis brother-in-law's who was called onto considerit. He pronounced it to be completely lacking in any quality whichmightgivehopeofitssuccess.Buttheplayisimportant because ofthemodels Balzacstudiedas hewas writingit. He wastryingwithallhisfabulousintellectualenergyandpowers ofconcentrationto learn his chosenart, and his letters tell us of the passionate intensity of interest with which he was reading and analysing the works of the French classical theatreatthattime.IfBalzachadneverreadaplayorseenone actedhisstrongdramaticsensewouldcertainlystillhavefound expressioninthe characters and scenes ofhis novels; and his romantic addiction to the sensational and the complex places him outside the main stream ofthe austere French tradition forbothplaysandnovels. Yetitispossibletotraceinfluences from,andaffinitieswith,theplays hestudiedthen,inhislater novels; and of all the novels ofthe Comidie bumaine, EugSnie Grandet,in 1883,oneoftheearliest,isgenerallyconsideredthe most classical All the characters ofEuginie Grandet, like the characters of 17th-century drama, and like so many of the characters of Balzac's other novels, are drawn larger than life and appear simpler than real-life characters ever do, especially the char- acter ofGrandet, whose obsession dominates the book and gives rise to the tragedy. Balzac was intensely interested in psychological study, and his preoccupationwithitis obvious in all his novels, but it is not the complexities and subtleties ofmen'sminds,thediscordantelementsthatfightformastery in one human being, as the modern novelist sees them, that Balzac depicted. His characters are all ofa piece, but repre- sented with such power in their simplicity, or rather single- mindedness, that they become vehicles for the expression of universal truths, and the story of their lives has often an epic quality, or sometimes the direct working out of their apparently inevitable destiny seems to borrow from classical tragedy. Itisfromcomedy,however,thatatfirstsightGrandetseems tohavebeentaken.BalzachimselfcomparedhimtoMoliere's Harpagon. 'Moliere created the miser, but I have created Avarice,' he remarked with his customary lack of proper modesty. In fact neither ofthe two characters is a mere ab- straction, and of the two Balzac's is certainly the rounder figure, but their likeness is obvious. They areboth studies in avarice, both broadly drawn with marked personal idiosyn- crasiesandtricks ofspeechwhichimposethemonourminds. Both belong to the select band of the world's undying personalities.Theyarebothseenbytheircreatorsinablinding light which effaces all qualities but their dominant one, and illuminesthatoneunforgettably. Thedifferencesareclearenoughtoo.Moliere'spurposeand the purpose ofall those writers, like Jonson, who set living embodiments of human vices and follies in situations con- trivedto displaythem, was satirical, andthecharacters them- selves do not alter in the course of the play. Balzac is only incidentally a satirist. He does not hate or despise his char- acters for their weakness or wickedness. He loves them, and 6 displaysall their qualities, goodorbad,withenjoyment The extremeunlovablenessofsomeofthecharacterswhomBalzac managedto sympathizewithandfindpleasureinconsidering is notorious. A moreimportantdifferenceisthatBalzac'schiefcharacters arecapableofdevelopment, andvisibly changeundertheim- pact of circumstances in the course of the novel, as people alterinreallife.Itisevenpossibletosaythatthisdevelopment ofthecharactersis oneoftheprincipalthingsthenovels,and especiallythis novel, are'about*. And yet all these characters in all the vicissitudes and changes through which they pass holdfasttotheirdominantidea,to theinnerdreambywhich they live. In Grandet it is gold, in Madame Grandet God, in Eugenie her love ofCharles. ForNanon it is devotionto her master,forCharles socialposition. Whenthedominantideaamountstoanobsessionasitdoes in Grandet, and indeed this is true also ofall the characters whoholdafixedideasostrongly,developmentcanonlybein astraightline. WefindGrandetamiser andwatchhimgrow into a maniac, indifferent to the unhappiness ofthe daughter he once cared for, robbing her of her inheritance from her mother, grasping on his death-bed at theprecious metal ofa crucifix, ready to demand an account ofhis fortune frombe- yondthegrave. Inthis Grandetis less like Harpagonthanhe is like Othello or Macbeth, both destroyed by a developing weaknessintheirownnature,andspreadingdestructionround them because ofit, or like Racine's heroes and heroines, or like the characters ofthe Greek dramatists, pursued for their crimes by inescapable avenging Furies. In fact an English reader would more readily accept the particular truth to life that Grandet represents ifhe met him on the stage. He is the kindofdramaticcharacterwhomweexpecttoseerevealhim- selfin a plot which achieves its climax and end within a few hours; but Balzac has, perfectly successfully, set him in an actionlastingyears. Unlikethecharacters ofthe great tragic dramatists, Greek, French,English,Balzac'scharactersarenotsetapartfromthe massofmankindbynoblebloodandhighsocialposition,but onlybytheintensityoftheirpassion. When, within three days, with the coming ofNew Year's Day 1819,GrandetwasboundtodiscoverthatEugenie'sgold coins were gone, Balzac says, 'In three days a terrible drama would begin, a bourgeois tragedy undignified by poison, daggerorbloodshed, butto theprotagonists morecruelthan any of the tragedies endured by the members of the noble house ofAtreus.' Such a comparison is characteristic ofhim, not onlybecause he loved allusions to classical literature, but becausehewasveryconsciouslythefirstnovelisttoshowthat bourgeois tragedies were tragic, as tragic as any drama of classicaltragedytothoseconcerned,andhavingacomparably destructive effect upon the fabric ofsociety. The comparison tooservestoheightenthetensionandprepareforthedramatic scene which is to come. It is not less characteristic ofBalzac thatimmediatelyaftermakingthiscomparisonheshouldnote thatMadame Grandethad not completedthewoollen sleeves shewasknitting,andthatforwantofthemshecaughtachill. He is never afraid ofbathos. In spite ofthe way in which Grandet's figure bestrides it like a colossus the novel is called not OldGrandetbut Euginie Grandet and the greater and psychologicallymoreinteresting 9 tragedy is hers. It is a tragedy of the development of her immature character under the pressure ofpassion, which im- mediately brings her into collision with her father's passion and later with a similar passion which has developed in Charles. Inthisnovel,perhapsmoreurgentlythaninanyoftheothers, wearedriventoaskourselveswhatBalzacmeantbyFate,and to what extent he sees the tragedy in his characters' lives as preordained. Thereis no simpleanswer to that question. Per- hapsconsiderationofotheraspectsofthebookmayshedsome 8
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