[...] How horrible is man's condition! He does not own one happiness whose source does not lie in ignorance of some kind.
[...] observed Madame Grandet, with a timid glance at her husband, which in a woman of her age was a sign of complete matrimonial subjection, and revealed how thoroughly her spirit was broken,
[...] Pity had taken root in Grandet's heart and the lonely girl found it entirely acceptable, but there was something revolting in it. It was a vile miser's pity which cost the old cooper nothing and warmed his heart agreeably, while it was Nanon's whole sum of human happiness. Who can refrain fro…
It is a more serious accusation against him that his pleasant likable characters are so invariably the victims of his wicked ones, though it may be thought that this is not really too great a simplification of what is true in life. Mauriac speaks of 'the fundamental manichaeism of Balzac, for whom …
The tides that are sweeping France send their wash into the remote provincial town of Saumur. We watch the forces and passions that are changing the entire social scene in action in this backwater.
