The Secret of Pleasure according to "Shagreen Skin" by Honore de Balzac. "Shagreen leather" - a unique masterpiece of genius The main idea of the work is shagreen leather

Honoré de Balzac's novel Shagreen Skin

French novelist, considered the father of the naturalistic novel. Honore de Balzac was born on May 20, 1799 in Tours, France. Honore de Balzac's father - Bernard Francois Balssa (some sources indicate the name of Waltz) - a peasant who became rich during the years of the revolution by buying and selling confiscated noble lands, and later became an assistant to the mayor of the city of Tours. Entering the service in the military supply department and being among the officials, he changed his "native" surname, considering it plebeian. At the turn of the 1830s. Honore, in turn, also modified the surname, arbitrarily adding to it the noble particle “de”, justifying this with a fiction about his origin from the noble family of Balzac d'Entreg.

In 1807-1813, Honore studied at the college of the city of Vendome; in 1816-1819 - at the Paris School of Law, while serving as a clerk in a notary's office. The father sought to prepare his son for advocacy, but Honore decided to become a poet. At the family council, it was decided to give him two years to make his dream come true. Honore de Balzac writes the drama "Cromwell", but the newly convened family council recognizes the work as useless and the young man is denied financial assistance. This was followed by a period of material hardships. Balzac's literary career began around 1820, when, under various pseudonyms, he began to print action novels and composed moralistic "codes" of secular behavior. Later, some of the first novels appeared under the pseudonym of Horace de Saint-Aubin. The period of anonymous creativity ended in 1829 with the publication of the novel Chouans, or Brittany in 1799. Honore de Balzac called the novel Shagreen Skin (1830) the "starting point" of his work. Beginning in 1830, short stories from modern French life began to be published under the general title Scenes of Private Life. Honore de Balzac considered Moliere, Francois Rabelais and Walter Scott to be his main literary teachers. Twice the novelist tried to make a political career, putting forward his candidacy for the Chamber of Deputies in 1832 and 1848, but both times he failed. In January 1849, he also failed in the elections to the French Academy.

Balzac's main creation is The Human Comedy. It unites all the works of the mature stage of his work, everything written by him after 1830. The idea to combine his separately published novels, short stories, short stories into a single cycle of works first arose from Balzac in 1833, and initially he planned to name the gigantic work "Social Studies" - a title emphasizing the similarity of the principles of Balzac the 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 mores of his century, and the writer's audacity of Balzac, who dreamed that his work would become for the present the same as Dante's "Divine Comedy" was for 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, in which the titles of 144 works appear; of these, Balzac managed to write 96. This is the largest work of literature of the 19th century, for a long time, especially in Marxist criticism, which has become the standard of literary creativity. The gigantic edifice of The Human Comedy is cemented by the personality of the author and the unity of style conditioned by it, the system of transitional characters invented by Balzac and the unity of the problematics of his works.

Since 1832, Balzac began to correspond with the Polish aristocrat E. Hanska, who lived in Russia. In 1843, the writer went to her in St. Petersburg, and in 1847 and 1848 - to Ukraine. The official marriage with E. Ganskaya was concluded 5 months before the death of Honore de Balzac, who died on August 18, 1850 in Paris. In 1858, the writer's sister, Ms. Surville, wrote his biography - "Balzac, sa vie et ses oeuvres d" apres sa correspondance ". The authors of biographical books about Balzac were Stefan Zweig ("Balzac"), Andre Maurois ("Prometheus, or Life of Balzac"), Würmser ("Inhuman Comedy") balzac shagreen leather novel

Shagreen leather is a work of extraordinary depth. Many researchers are attracted by its acuteness of the problem, unusual aesthetics, innovative methods of the author against the backdrop of the literature of the era. Each of the many aspects of the novel has great potential and offers different points of view. Balzac himself gives hints in which directions the scientist's thought can move. In his notes, he gave the following definitions of the novel: "philosophical study", "oriental tale", "system".

The novel is certainly a "synthetic" work. In it we will see the vicissitudes of the life of an individual, a stage in the development of society, a historical era, a philosophical idea and a whole worldview system. Each of these meanings deserves a detailed study, and together they give an idea of the scale of the novel and Balzac's work in general.

This work is devoted to the most interesting aspects of the work, and also paid attention to the artistic synthesis of Balzac. The purpose of the work is to familiarize with the various semantic facets of the novel, with the existing points of view of literary critics and critics.

The novel Shagreen Skin (1831) is based on the conflict of a young man's encounter 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, more clearly than in Stendhal, the connection between early realism and the previous literature of romanticism is manifested. This is one of Balzac's most colorful novels, with a dynamic whimsical composition, with a flowery, descriptive style, with fantasy that excites the imagination.

The idea of Shagreen Leather, as will be the case with many of Balzac's works, went through several stages. According to a contemporary, initially Balzac wanted to write a short story, where the idea of the power of the psyche over the vital forces had to be expressed differently. The properties of the talisman according to this plan were supposed to be an invention of the antiquary, the hero believed the gross deceit and died only from horror in front of his imaginary master. It is clearly seen how far the author was from mysticism - and this feature of the idea was completely preserved. Such a plan did not promise much artistic depth, and a major shift took place. Balzac announced a metamorphosis of the plot: the talisman would be "real". Fiction left inviolable the basis of the idea - the idea of an inextricable connection between the physical and spiritual principles, but complicated it: there was a contrast between two types of life, "economical" and "wasteful", the idea of switching energy from passions to "pure" contemplation and knowledge.

There are several entries in Balzac's workbook “Shagreen leather”: “Leather, personifying life, was invented. Eastern fairy tale. "Shagreen leather. Expression of human life as such, its mechanics. At the same time, the personality is described and evaluated, but poetically.

The creative history of the novel lay between two milestones: from the "oriental tale" to the "formula of the present century." The former meaning was synthesized with the burning modernity.

Shagreen Skin was written in the hot pursuit of the July Revolution of 1830, and the time of action in the novel almost coincides with the time of writing. The novel is replete with signs of those years. To depict this time with its spiritual atmosphere meant without fail to portray the discontent and deep disappointment that dominated the minds. "The disease of the century" - unbelief and longing for wholeness, for meaningfulness, involuntary egoism. Longing for the ideal, young people of the century asked the question in different ways: “O world, what have you done to me to arouse such hatred? What high hopes did you deceive? All these sentiments are embodied in the novel.

The protagonist of Shagreen Skin is Raphael de Valentin. The reader meets him at the moment when, exhausted by humiliating poverty, he 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 magical talisman - shagreen leather, fulfilling all the desires of the owner. However, as the desires are fulfilled, the talisman decreases in size, and with it the life of the owner is shortened. Rafael has nothing to lose - he accepts the gift of an antiquarian, not really believing in the magic of the talisman, and begins to waste his life in the desires for all the pleasures of youth. When he realizes that the shagreen skin is really shrinking, he forbids himself to wish for anything at all, but it’s too late - at the top of wealth, when he passionately loves him, 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 Valantin by birth 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 Restoration era. Balzac emphasizes that in post-revolutionary French society, ambitious desires naturally arise in a young man, and Raphael is overwhelmed by desires for fame, wealth, and the 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 problems shifts to a philosophical plane: what is the price that a person has to pay for the fulfillment of his desires? The problem of a career is posed in "Shagreen Skin" in its most general form - the boiling of pride, faith in one's own destiny, in one's own genius make Raphael try two paths to glory. The first is hard work in complete poverty: Raphael proudly tells how for three years he lived on three hundred and sixty-five francs a year, working on compositions 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, for two - milk, for three - sausages; you won’t die of hunger, and the spirit is in a state of special clarity.” But passions drag him away from the clear path of the scientist into the abyss: love for the “woman without a heart”, Countess Theodora, who embodies secular society in the novel, pushes Raphael to the gambling table, to insane spending, and the logic of “hard labor of pleasures” leaves him the last way out - suicide.

The sage antiquarian, passing the shagreen leather to Rafael, explains to him that from now on his life is only a delayed suicide. The hero will have to comprehend the relationship between two verbs that govern not just human careers, but all human life. These are the verbs to desire and to be able: “To desire burns us, and to be able destroys us, but to know gives our weak organism the opportunity to remain forever in a calm state.” Here is the symbolism of the talisman - in the shagreen skin, the ability and desire are connected, but the only possible price is set for its power - human life.

The protagonist is the embodiment of Balzac's ideas about the high mission of the artist-creator, combining a "true scientist", endowed with "the ability to compare and reflect", who considers it natural "to act in the field of fine literature".

Balzac called his novel "philosophical". “Shagreen leather represents a new quality of the genre. It combines the artistic devices of the philosophical story of the 18th century with the breadth and ambiguity of symbolic images and episodes. Balzac realized in the novel the idea of freedom from genre restrictions. This novel was both epic, and history, and pathetic satire; it was a "philosophical study" and a "fairy tale".

Balzac himself called this novel, later referred to as "philosophical studies", "the beginning of my whole business." In it, in the form of a parable, what will later be developed in a realistic plan in dozens of novels is clothed. The form of the parable does not change the fact that this work gives a condensed picture of real life, full of contrasts and seething passions. Rafael receives a talisman that grants wishes at the cost of his life. "To wish" and "to be able" - between these two words, according to the mysterious antiquarian - is the whole human life. The young man finds himself at a crossroads and must choose a path. The conquest of a position in society is the sale of one's own soul. This is one of the many cases in which Balzac's artistic generalization rises to the level of myth. A true myth is an image, a situation of the deepest content and of great universal significance. In myth, the eternal and the historical are merged as the general and the concrete.

Shagreen leather. Balzac's "symbol" is a broad concept, one of the central and most stable in his aesthetics. He also refers to his own types or those created by other artists as symbols.

The talisman, created by Balzac's imagination, has become a common symbol and has the widest appeal. It is constantly found in various contexts, in speech and literature, as a commonly understood image of necessity and an inexorable objective law. What exactly does the talisman embody in the novel? The symbol is far from unambiguous, and many very different answers have been given to this question. So, F. Berto sees in shagreen leather only the embodiment of consumption, devouring Raphael, turning the symbolism of the novel into an allegory of a fable type; B. Guyon is a symbol of the fundamental depravity and immorality of civilization, of any social system. M. Shaginyan and B. Raskin connect the power of the skin with "things", the power of things over people. I. Lileeva highlights the following idea in the novel: “In the form of shagreen leather, a generalization of bourgeois life is given, subordinated only to the pursuit of wealth and pleasure, a generalization of the power of money, the terrible power of this world, devastating and crippling the human person.” Most of the proposed solutions are not mutually exclusive and find their basis in the text of the novel, which, thanks to its artistic richness, naturally lends itself to many interpretations. All decisions have one common premise: shagreen leather is a symbol of the immutability of the objective law, against which any subjective protest of the individual is powerless. But what is the law according to the author's intention? What did Balzac see as the problematic axis of his novel? There is an Arabic inscription on the shagreen, the meaning of which is explained by the antiquarian: “All forms of two reasons are reduced to two verbs to desire and to be able ... to desire burns us, and the ability destroys us.” Longevity is achieved by a vegetative or contemplative existence, excluding debilitating passions and actions. The more intensively a person lives, the faster he burns out. Such a dilemma leaves a choice, and the essence of man is determined by this choice between opposite solutions.

The game. Rafael's visit to a gambling house and the loss of the last gold is an image of the ultimate despair caused by need and loneliness. The gambling house in all its squalor is a place where "blood flows in streams", but is invisible to the eyes. The word "game" is twice highlighted in the text in large print: the image of the game symbolizes the reckless self-squandering of a person in excitement, in passion. This is how the old wardrobe manager lives, losing all his earnings on the day of receipt; such is the young Italian player, whose face blew "gold and fire"; so is Rafael. In the sharp excitements of the game, life flows out like blood through a wound. The state of the hero after the loss is conveyed by the question: "Was he not drunk on life, or, perhaps, on death?" - a question that is in many ways the key to the novel, in which life and death are constantly and with all sharpness correlated with each other.

Antique shop. The antique dealer's shop confronts the roulette scene as a symbolic representation of a different way of life. On the other hand, the shop is a hyperbolic collection of values, opposites collide in the museum world, contrasts of civilizations are outlined. Raphael's thought, when examining the shop, seems to follow the development of mankind, he refers to entire countries, centuries, kingdoms. The shop fully reflects the mutual influence of verbal and fine arts. One of the symbolic meanings is that the shop represents a compressed image of world life of all ages and in all its forms. Also, the antique shop is called "a kind of philosophical garbage dump", "a vast marketplace for human follies." The law inscribed on the skin must appear as substantiated by the experience of centuries, therefore an antique dealer's shop is a worthy environment for a talisman.

Orgy. The next of the main symbolic scenes of the novel is a banquet on the occasion of the founding of the newspaper. An antique shop is the past of mankind, an orgy is a living modernity, which puts the same dilemma in front of a person in an aggravated form. Orgy - the fulfillment of Raphael's first requirement for a talisman. In the romantic literature of the thirties, descriptions of feasts and revelry were common. In Balzac's novel, the orgy scene has many functions in his "analysis of the sores of society". An excess of luxury expresses the reckless waste of vital forces in sensual passions and pleasures. Orgy - a review of the skepticism of the era in the main issues of social and spiritual life - in the "mass stage", where the characters of the interlocutors are clearly drawn in the replicas and the author's remarks. Balzac mastered the art of creating an image with the help of one or two replicas, one gesture.

In the complaints of the disappointed "children of the century" about unbelief, internal emptiness, the main place is occupied by the destruction of religious feelings, disbelief in love; unbelief in other matters of being seems to be derived from this main thing.

Revelry also has its own poetry; a peculiar experience of its explanation, almost a panegyric, is put into the mouth of Raphael. Revelry attracts to itself, like all the abysses, it flatters human pride, it is a challenge to God. But, having depicted the intoxication of feelings in its temptation, Balzac will draw the morning in a merciless light. It is the author's usual method to show both sides of the coin.

The fantastic image of shagreen leather, a symbol of waning life, combined generalization with the possibilities of an entertaining story. Balzac veils fantasy, drawing a fantastic action of the talisman, leaving room for a possible natural explanation of events. The fantastic is presented in such a way as not to exclude the substitution of the natural. The second path is truly original: Balzac brought together and correlated the fantastic theme with the scientific one, imbued fantasy with the spirit of science, transferring it to new tracks. Whenever fantasy is in action, the separation from the probable is gentle. The author achieves the impression of naturalness by various means. For Balzac, the miraculous, equal to the inexplicable, is really impossible and unthinkable, hence the realistic motivations. In his workbook it is written: “There is nothing fantastic. We imagine only what is, will be or was.

The artistic symbolism of the novel is at odds with tradition and is full of surprises. A pact with devilish power is a fairly common motif in pre-romantic and romantic literature, but there is no religious feeling in the novel, the pact is irreversible, the talisman is inalienable. While the skin exists outside the contract, it is neutral, but once associated with the owner, it comes to life.

The fantasy of Balzac develops in a different sphere than, for example, the fantasy of Hoffmann. The highest manifestations of life most of all destroy it, bringing it closer to death. In everyday life it is hidden. For Balzac, the truth is obvious that "the negation of life is essentially contained in life itself." His fantasy is like the accelerated scrolling of a film, "compressing" in time and making obvious the process that, due to slowness, is invisible to the eye.

Fantastic symbolism best suited the goal set by Balzac in this novel. And fantasy here is one of the means in his artistic arsenal.

Literature

1. Brahman, S.R. Balzac//History of foreign literature of the 19th century. - M., 1982. - S. 190-207.

2. Griftsov, B. The Genius of Balzac//Questions of Literature. - 2002. -№3. - P.122-131.

3. Reznik, R. How do we see Balzac//Questions of Literature. - 1990. -№6. - S.242-250.

4. Reznik, R.A. Balzac's novel Shagreen Skin. - Saratov, 1971.

5. Elzarova, G.M. "Fantastic" works of Balzac//Bulletin of the Leningrad University. Series 2. - 1986. - Issue 1. - P.180-110.

Preparing and holding a press conference.

Preliminarily, a conversation is held with the participants, in which the organizer briefly introduces the main facts of life. Explains how the event will take place. Recommends literature for participants to read, offers to read the works of the poet. Think about the topics that the poet covered. Learn your favorite poem or excerpts from the work by heart. Answer the questions: “What interested in the poetry of Honore de Balzac? What did the works make you think about?

Participants are divided into several creative groups and prepare in advance for a press conference.

1 group of participants. Let's call them leading (creativity researchers). They study the facts of the poet's life, select material for the script.
2 group. Readers . Poems are selected and read by heart.
3rd group. Graphic designers . They publish a newspaper, select musical accompaniment. Write posters with quotes.
4 group. Journalists (two) Covering the course of the press conference. They write short notes, which are read out at the end.
5 group. Librarians (two). They are preparing a review of books about the poet and his collections
6 group. Correspondents (two). Questions about the life and work of the poet are prepared in advance and asked to the participants.

A responsible person is assigned who control over the press conference . At the end of the event, he evaluates and reviews the work of each participant.

Making a press conference.

Exhibition of books and collections of poems, recordings of songs, poster:

Honore de Balzac ((06/22/1746-06/19/1829]) ...

If you don't believe in yourself, you can't be a genius.

Newspaper dedicated to the work of the poet.

Posters with quotes about creativity.

For the participants of the press conference, seats are allocated at separate tables with name cards. In the center of the hall, the presenter and correspondents.

Script for a press conference.

Leading: Today we are holding a press conference: “Meeting with the poet Honore de Balzac”, which is attended by correspondents and guests.

Creativity Explorers (hosts) and readers answer the questions of correspondents, they sit at tables No. 1, No. 2.

At table number 3 - graphic designers (names names), who designed the newspaper and posters.
At table number 4 - journalists. They will cover the course of the press conference and share their notes.
At table number 5 there are librarians who have prepared an exhibition and will introduce us to a review of the literature on the topic.

(The song sounds quietly. After the first verse, the music stops).

Reader 1:

In the mornings, the chill cuts through the skin,
And Moscow, as before, does not believe in tears.
Honore de Balzac, heavily addicted to coffee,
Heard nothing about Riga Balsam...

Eh, turkey-fate ... I would sit in a Russian sleigh,
Having overshadowed the sweeping Russian cross -
No, he desperately needs a Polish lady
With a double chin and a haughty finger.

But he could have been a gentleman, a blackthrope for game ...
A pack of frisky greyhounds and an obsequious kennel...
No, Monsieur dragged himself to get married in Berdichev,
And the vodka was poured for him by a local tavern maker.

And the villain ran through her veins like fire
And she killed the sufferer ... And there would be a balm -
He would drink it with pani - and he would live happily,
And Balzac would have finished his Comedy.

Purpose of the press conference.

Lead teacher: We cannot invite the poet Honore de Balzac for a conversation, so we will walk with you along his life poetic path, part of whose life is connected with French soil, with Tura. Let us listen to his word, discover for ourselves a poet with a piercing voice and a lofty soul of a citizen and patriot.

Correspondent 1: What losses did Balzac have to go through as a child?

Presenter 1 Honoré de Balzac was born in Tours in the family of a peasant from Languedoc, Bernard Francois Balssa (Balssa) (06/22/1746-06/19/1829). Balzac's father made a fortune by buying and selling confiscated noble lands during the years of the revolution, and later became assistant to the mayor of the city of Tours. Has no relation to the French writer Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597-1654). Honore's father changed his surname and became Balzac, and later bought himself a de particle. Mother Anne-Charlotte-Laura Salambier (1778-1853) was the daughter of a Parisian merchant.

The father prepared his son for advocacy. In 1807-1813, Balzac studied at the College of Vendome, in 1816-1819 - at the Paris School of Law, at the same time he worked as a scribe for a notary; however, he abandoned his legal career and devoted himself to literature. Parents did little for their son. He was placed at the College Vendôme against his will. Meetings with relatives there were forbidden all year round, with the exception of the Christmas holidays. During the first years of his studies, he repeatedly had to be in a punishment cell. In the fourth grade, Honore began to come to terms with school life, but he did not stop mocking teachers ... At the age of 14, he fell ill, and his parents took him home at the request of the college authorities. For five years, Balzac was seriously ill, it was believed that there was no hope of recovery, but soon after the family moved to Paris in 1816, he recovered.

Correspondent 2: The works of the poet were an illustration of his memoirs, and how did he write them?

Lead 2 In 1829 Balzac returned to writing. He established a truly “army” regime for himself: he slept in the evenings, and woke up around midnight, again took up the pen, supporting his strength with the help of numerous cups of strong black coffee. Balzac worked at an incredible speed - he could write several goose feathers in a day. After the release of the book "Chuans" finally received the deserved attention of Honore de Balzac, his works began to be published. Hard labor was rewarded, and after the release of the novel Shagreen Skin, the young writer began to be called a fashionable writer at all. Inspired by the success, he decided to create the epic "The Human Comedy". But this plan was not destined to be fully realized - Balzac managed to write only about a hundred books. The whole life of the heroes appeared before the eyes of the reader: their birth, growing up, falling in love, marriage and children. The publication of the novel from the cycle "The Human Comedy" brought the writer the fame of an unsurpassed novelist, so desired for him.

Reader 3: Honore de Balzac

Viktor Nikulin

Balzac Honore, you know, was not simple:
His literary growth was too rapid,
But I'll tell you everything in order,
I'll put everything on your knowledge bed.

Honore has been unlucky since childhood:
His young mother without unnecessary coquetry
The nurse pushed her son away for three years -
There was then, believe me, such a "fashion".

And he was bad at school:
I'll tell you without a catch
That he was short of money
So I dined - kukish with or without butter.

Everyone laughed at him for this.
The answer is: "I'll be famous!",
Balzac was already vulnerable to such an idea,
Becoming famous and rich quickly is his gambit.

The path to this, as he believed, was a literary work,
Parents gave their son a couple of years to do this,
And they promised to support him within his means,
To this parting word - work as an athlete;
Everything worked out for him - wizards do not lie:
They all do what they say.

Of course, Honore also had a hand in the miracle:
Balzac worked, lived without regret,
Even then he was addicted to coffee,
We will return to him when he became a “pro”.

To better study the customs of the people,
In a tattered outfit, he went to him,
He was not a pioneer in this - here you are right,
But there he found his heroes for books.

Until the age of twenty, Balzac was afraid of women -
After all, his appearance "gave a lot of cracks",
But taking eloquence to help, as if in pincers,
Any woman he could catch
To tell you in a simple way means to "chat".
And even with his grandmother he had and won a bet:
He conquered one of the bright women with which Paris thunders.

When Balzac became terribly famous
When his star rose to its zenith,
He found that his pockets did not ring again,
But for the reason previously opposite:
It is so difficult to get away from waste and luxury -
He himself ate and drank, fed countless friends,
In short, he did not consider his limit,
And he always asked the publishers for a loan.

After all, even his cane, and all Paris chatted about it,
(Decorated with turquoise, with a naked beauty)
Was borrowed by them "direct fire",
So his tribute was successfully collected by his arrogance.

But he kept his working room in simplicity:
Table, candlestick and wall cabinet,
He was superstitious - he carried a table with him,
When he moved from apartment to apartment.

All the women tirelessly whispered
(It was known that he was a magnificent lover -
He is not a thin pamphlet, but a multi-volume one),
They dream that a rally will go with him to love,
Thousands of letters were written to him,
All this, believe me, without signs of being tired,
They lent money and hinted
That with him we are ready for conditions, for everything -
Such was our Honoré, our monsieur.

Now back to coffee - remember I promised
(This is terrible then it will turn out to be a sling),
He cooked it himself
The strongest, black, mixing three varieties only:
Bourbon, Martinique and Mocha,
Dozens of cups a day he drank -
The mighty oak of that life style fell down like a tornado;

Judge for yourself - 15 thousand cups of coffee
Him, know, "Human - cost - a comedy",
Things are bad, it's close to disaster:
It is dangerous to live both vodka and coffee for a drinker,
Stomach pains began to torment him,
So he ended up in such a sad role,
A steep craving for a stimulant turned into such a tragedy.

No longer brought joy and a chic apartment,
And the fact that the woman he loved for a long time,
Agree to perform the deeds of marital duty,
And so it seemed, after all, that the time of happiness had come.

What should be the final
All the things he told you about?
Death is an ambulance from women, food, coffee satiety,
Although he had excellent health from his father
(That milk immeasurably absorbed cow's milk) -
Only fifty plus two years of his candle was burning.

And he was buried in a cemetery with the name Pere Lachaise -
Known for the great place of eternal rest,
He died, but he did not disappear from our memory:
Knew his own and knows our generation.

Lead teacher:

What thoughts, feelings, memories come up when you hear these lines? What makes you think about?

- About the difficult military and orphan childhood of the poet.
- Feeling of loneliness.
– Feeling of the way, movement. The traveler came and went on.
- Interest in the fate of the people.
- A sense of belonging, gratitude for a good deed.

Correspondent 1: What was the fate of the poet in love and work in the middle of his career?

Lead 3: The writer is especially popular among women who are grateful to him for penetrating into their psychology (Honore de Balzac was helped in this by his first lover, a married woman 22 years older than him, Laura de Berni). Balzac receives enthusiastic letters from readers; one of these correspondents, who wrote him a letter in 1832 signed "Foreigner", was a Polish countess, a Russian subject Evelina Ganskaya (née Rzhevuska), who became his wife 18 years later.

Despite the huge success that Balzac's novels enjoyed in the 1830s and 40s, his life was not calm. The need to pay off debts required intensive work; every now and then Balzac started adventures of a commercial nature: he went to Sardinia, hoping to buy a silver mine there on the cheap, bought a country house, for the maintenance of which he did not have enough money, founded periodicals twice that did not have commercial success

Correspondent 1: When was the birth of the poet Honore de Balzac? Can you name the exact date?

Presenter 7: How an elusive turn occurs, turning an ordinary writer into a real poet, it is impossible to answer in one word. In the years 1816-19, he studies at the School of Law and serves as a clerk in the office of a Parisian lawyer, but then refuses to continue his legal career. 1820-29 -search for oneself in literature. Balzac publishes action-packed novels under various pseudonyms, composes moralistic "codes" of secular behavior. The period of anonymous creativity ends in 1829, when the novel Chouans, or Brittany in 1799 is published. At the same time, Balzac was working on short stories from modern French life, which, starting from 1830, were published in editions under the general title Scenes of Private Life. These collections, as well as the philosophical novel Shagreen Skin (1831), brought Balzac great fame. Balzac is an apologist for the will, only if a person has a will, his ideas become an effective force. On the other hand, realizing that the confrontation of egoistic wills is fraught with anarchy and chaos, Balzac relies on the family and the monarchy - social institutions that cement society.

Presenter 7: In Shagreen Skin, one can find images and intonations characteristic of a mature Balzac, perception of the world, understanding of Russian fate. Past, present and future exist in his works simultaneously.

Host 8:“Many different divas” Balzac saw in his wanderings around our land, and yet he was drawn to his homeland, home, any reminder returned there, caused aching melancholy and understanding that the homeland is the starting point of everything in your life:

Host 8: Anyone who has ever left their father's house, who remembers the warmth of mother's hands, understands the feelings conveyed in the poem “My Quiet Homeland”.

Reader 6:

Quiet my home
I didn't forget anything.
My school is wooden!
The time will come to leave
The river behind me is foggy
Will run and run.
With every hut and cloud,
With thunder ready to fall
I feel the most burning
The very death penalty.

Lead teacher:

- What does the poem “My Quiet Homeland” make you think about?
– Why can it be read only quietly and penetratingly?
What feelings and images pop up in your memory? What pictures of the Motherland do you see?

(The facilitator calls for a conversation in which the participants share their impressions).

Correspondent 2: What can be said about the musicality of the poet Honore de Balzac?

Host 11: Balzac's works are melodious and melodious, composers turn to them, and then amazingly sincere songs are born.

(A song sounds to the words of Balzac "Gobsek").

Host 11: The French novelist F. Marceau writes in his book about Balzac: "Balzac is a whole world ... Just as Dostoevsky said:" We all came out of the "Overcoat", three-quarters of French writers could say: "We are all sons" Father Goriot. Is there anything that Balzac has not already discovered?

soul and nature become orphans
Because - shut up! - so no one will express them ...

Conclusion.

Lead teacher: Poetry has always been a tool that educates the soul and feelings of a citizen. The task of the reader is to again and again cling to the pure spring of Nikolai Rubtsov's poetry, to draw his strength from it.

Today we talked about love for the Motherland, about the beauty of native nature, about the ability to warm others, to give them a piece of your soul and thereby become richer and more sincere.

I would like to express my confidence that the star of poetry of the great French poet Honore de Balzac will always shine for you. And this meeting will be followed by others.

The word is given Librarians who will review the literature on the topic.

“I really enjoyed the press conference. The works of Balzac strongly take the soul and make you think about our Motherland, about the good that we have. And even if we still can’t understand everything, feel it in his works, but we can join and think about his thoughts and feelings…”

Symbolism in the work

Shagreen leather. Balzac's "symbol" is a broad concept, one of the central and most stable in his aesthetics. He also refers to his own types or those created by other artists as symbols.

Shagreen leather”, analysis of the novel by Honore de Balzac

Written in 1830-1831, the novel Shagreen Skin is dedicated to the problem of the collision of a young, inexperienced person with a society corrupted by numerous vices, as old as the world.

The protagonist of the work- the young, impoverished aristocrat Rafael de Valantin, goes through a difficult path: from wealth to poverty and from poverty to wealth, from a passionate, unrequited feeling - to mutual love, from great power - to death. The story of the character's life is drawn by Balzac both in the present tense and in retrospect - through the story of Raphael about his childhood, years of studying the art of law, acquaintance with the Russian beautiful Countess Theodora.

The novel itself begins with a turning point in Raphael's life, when, humiliated by his beloved woman and left without a single sou in his pocket, the young man decides to commit suicide, but instead acquires a wonderful talisman - a small, fox-sized piece of shagreen leather. Containing the seal of Solomon and a number of warning inscriptions on the reverse side, they say that the owner of an unusual item gets the opportunity to fulfill all desires in exchange for his own life.

According to the owner of the antiquities shop, no one before Raphael dared to “sign” under such a strange contract, which actually resembles a deal with the devil. Having sold his life for unlimited power, the hero, along with it, gives up his soul to be torn to pieces. Raphael's torment is understandable: having received the opportunity to live, he watches with trepidation how the precious minutes of his existence are flowing away. What until recently was of no value to the hero suddenly became a real mania. And life became especially desirable for Raphael when he met his true love - in the person of a former student, now a young and rich beauty, Pauline Godin.

Compositionally The Shagreen Skin novel 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 The Talisman, the plot of the whole novel is outlined and at the same time a story is given about the miraculous salvation from the death of Raphael de Valentin. In "A Woman Without a Heart" the conflict of the work is revealed and it tells 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 both a climax and a denouement, and a touching story about unfortunate lovers separated by an evil chance and death.

Genre originality The novel "Shagreen Skin" consists of the features of the construction of its three parts. "The Talisman" combines the features of realism and fantasy, being, in fact, a gloomy romantic tale in the Hoffmannian style. In the first part of the novel, the themes of life and death, games (for money), art, love, and freedom are raised. "A Woman Without a Heart" is an exceptionally realistic narrative imbued with a special, Balzacian psychologism. 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, ending in death in the arms of a beautiful lover.

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

Women's images novels also include two minor characters, who are persons of easy virtue. Raphael meets them at a dinner at Baron Taifer, a well-known patron of young scientists, artists and poets. The majestic beauty Akilina and her fragile friend Euphrasia lead a free life because of their disbelief in love.

The first girl's lover died on the scaffold, the second - does not want to tie the knot. Euphrasia in the novel takes the same position as Countess Theodora: they both want to save themselves, just at different prices. Poor Euphrasia agrees to live as she wants, and to die useless in the hospital. The rich and noble Theodora can afford to live according to her needs, knowing that her money will give her love at any stage - even in the most severe old age.

Love Theme in the novel is closely connected with the theme of money. Rafael de Valantin admits to his friend Emile that in a woman he appreciates not only her appearance, soul and title, but also wealth. The charming Polina does not attract his attention until she becomes the heir to a large fortune. Until this moment, Rafael suppresses all the feelings that a young student evokes in him.

Countess Theodora kindles his passion with everything she has: beauty, wealth, impregnability. Love for her for the hero is akin to conquering Everest - the more difficulties Raphael encounters on the way, the more he wants to solve the riddle of Theodora, which in the end turned out to be nothing more than emptiness ...

The Russian countess, in her hardness of heart, is not in vain correlated by Balzac with high society: the latter, like Theodora, strives only for contentment and pleasure. Rastignac wants to get married profitably, his literary friend wants to become famous at someone else's expense, the young intelligentsia wants to, if not cash in, then at least eat in the house of a wealthy philanthropist.

The true realities of life, such as love, poverty, illness, are rejected by this society as something alien and contagious. There is nothing surprising in the fact that as soon as Raphael begins to move away from the world, he immediately dies: a person who knows the true values of life cannot exist inside deception and lies.

Similar information.

At the end of October, a young man, Rafael de Valantin, entered the building of the Palais Royal, in whose eyes the players noticed some terrible secret, his features expressed the impassivity of a suicide and a thousand deceived hopes. Lost, Valentin squandered the last napoleondore and, in a daze, began to wander the streets of Paris. His mind was consumed by a single thought - to commit suicide by throwing himself into the Seine from the Royal Bridge. The thought that in the afternoon he would become booty for boatmen, which would be valued at fifty francs, disgusted him. He decided to die at night, "in order to leave an unidentified corpse to the society, which despised the greatness of his soul." Carelessly walking around, he began to look at the Louvre, the Academy, the towers of the Cathedral of Our Lady, the towers of the Palace of Justice, the Pont des Arts. To wait for the night, he went to the antiquities store to ask the price of works of art. There before him appeared a thin old man with an ominous mockery on his thin lips. The astute old man guessed the young man's mental anguish and offered to make him more powerful than the monarch. He handed him a piece of shagreen, on which the following words were engraved in Sanskrit: “Possessing me, you will have everything, but your life will belong to me. Desire - and your desires will be fulfilled. With every desire, I will decrease like your days .. ."

Raphael made an agreement with the old man, whose whole life consisted in saving the forces unspent in passions, and wished, if his fate did not change in the shortest possible time, that the old man fell in love with a dancer. On the Pont des Arts, Valentin accidentally met his friends, who, considering him an outstanding person, offered him a job in a newspaper in order to create an opposition “capable of satisfying the dissatisfied without much harm to the national government of the citizen king” (Louis Philippe). Friends took Rafael to a dinner party at the founding of the newspaper in the house of the richest banker Taifer. The audience that gathered that evening in a luxurious mansion was truly monstrous: “Young writers without style stood next to young writers without ideas, prose writers, greedy for poetic beauty, - next to prosaic poets. Here were two or three scientists created in order to to dilute the atmosphere of conversation with nitrogen, and a few vaudevillians, ready at any moment to sparkle with ephemeral sparkles, which, like sparks of a diamond, do not shine and do not warm. After a plentiful supper, the public were offered the most beautiful courtesans, subtle imitations of "innocent timid maidens." The courtesans Akilina and Euphrasia, in a conversation with Raphael and Emil, argue that it is better to die young than to be abandoned when their beauty fades.

Woman without a heart

Rafael tells Emil about the reasons for his mental anguish and suffering. From childhood, Rafael's father subjected his son to severe discipline. Until the age of twenty-one, he was under the firm hand of a parent, the young man was naive and longed for love. Once at a ball, he decided to play with his father's money and won an impressive amount of money for him, however, ashamed of his act, he hid this fact. Soon his father began to give him money for maintenance and share his plans. Raphael's father fought for ten years with Prussian and Bavarian diplomats, seeking recognition of the rights to foreign land holdings. His future depended on this process, to which Rafael was actively involved. When the decree on the loss of rights was promulgated, Rafael sold the lands, leaving only an island of no value, where the grave of his mother was located. A long reckoning with creditors began, which brought his father to the grave. The young man decided to stretch the remaining funds for three years, and settled in a cheap hotel, doing scientific work - "Theory of Will". He lived from hand to mouth, but the work of thought, studies, seemed to him the most beautiful work of life. The hostess of the hotel, Madame Godin, motherly took care of Rafael, and her daughter Pauline provided him with many services that he could not refuse. After a while, he began to give lessons to Polina, the girl turned out to be extremely capable and quick-witted. Having gone headlong into science, Rafael continued to dream of a beautiful lady, luxurious, noble and rich. In Polina, he saw the embodiment of all his desires, but she lacked salon gloss. "... a woman - be she attractive, like the beautiful Elena, this Homer's Galatea - cannot win my heart if she is even a little dirty."

One winter, Rastignac introduced him to the house "where all Paris had been" and introduced him to the charming Countess Theodora, the owner of eighty thousand livres of income. The Countess was a lady of twenty-two, of impeccable reputation, had a marriage behind her, but had no lover, the most enterprising red tape in Paris suffered a fiasco in the struggle for the right to possess her. Raphael fell in love with Theodora, she was the embodiment of those dreams that made his heart tremble. Parting with him, she asked him to visit her. Returning home and feeling the contrast of the situation, Rafael cursed his “honest respectable poverty” and decided to seduce Theodora, who was the last lottery ticket on which his fate depended. What sacrifices did the poor seducer make: he incredibly managed to get to her house on foot in the rain and maintain a presentable appearance; with the last money, he drove her home when they returned from the theater. In order to secure a decent wardrobe, he had to enter into an agreement to write false memoirs, which were supposed to be published under the name of another person. One day she sent him a note with a messenger and asked him to come. Appearing at her call, Rafael found out that she needed the patronage of his influential relative, the Duke de Navarren. The madman in love was only a means to the realization of a mysterious business, which he never found out about. Rafael was tormented by the thought that the reason for the countess's loneliness could be a physical handicap. To dispel his doubts, he decided to hide in her bedroom. Leaving the guests, Theodora entered her apartments and seemed to take off her usual mask of courtesy and friendliness. Raphael did not find any flaws in her, and calmed down; falling asleep, she said: “My God!”. The delighted Raphael made a lot of guesses, suggesting what such an exclamation could mean: “Her exclamation, either meaning nothing, or deep, or accidental, or significant, could express both happiness, and grief, and bodily pain, and concern” . As it turned out later, she only remembered that she had forgotten to tell her broker to exchange a five percent rent for a three percent one. When Raphael revealed to her his poverty and his all-consuming passion for her, she replied that she would not belong to anyone and would only agree to marry the duke. Raphael left the countess forever and moved to Rastignac.

Rastignac, having played in a gambling house with their joint money, won twenty-seven thousand francs. From that day on, friends went on a rampage. When the funds were spent, Valentin decided that he was a "social zero" and decided to die.

The story jumps back to when Rafael is in Tyfer's mansion. He takes out a piece of shagreen leather from his pocket and expresses a desire to become the owner of two hundred thousand annual income. The next morning, the notary Cardo informs the public that Raphael has become the full heir of Major O'Flaherty, who died the day before. The newly-made rich man looked at the shagreen and noticed that it had decreased in size. He was doused with a ghostly chill of death, now "he could do everything - and did not want anything anymore."

Agony

One December day, an old man came to the chic mansion of the Marquis de Valantin, under whose guidance Rafael-Mr. Porrique once studied. An old devoted servant, Jonathan, tells the teacher that his master leads a reclusive life and suppresses all desires in himself. The venerable old man came to ask the marquis that he should petition the minister for the restoration of him, Porrica, as an inspector at the provincial college. Rafael, tired of the old man's long outpourings, accidentally said that he sincerely wishes that he could achieve reinstatement. Realizing what was said, the marquis became furious, when he looked at the shagreen, she noticeably decreased. In the theatre, he somehow met a wizened old man with young eyes, while in his eyes now only echoes of obsolete passions were read. The old man led Raphael's acquaintance, the dancer Euphrasia, by the arm. At the inquiring look of the marquis, the old man replied that now he was happy as a young man, and that he misunderstood being: "All life is in a single hour of love." Looking at the audience, Rafael fixed his gaze on Theodora, who was sitting with another admirer, still beautiful and cold. On the next chair with Rafael sat a beautiful stranger, riveting the admiring glances of all the men present. It was Polina. Her father, who at one time commanded a squadron of cavalry grenadiers of the Imperial Guard, was taken prisoner by the Cossacks; according to rumors, he managed to escape and get to India. When he returned, he made his daughter the heiress of a million-dollar fortune. They agreed to meet at the Saint-Quentin Hotel, their former home, which kept the memories of their poverty, Pauline wanted to hand over the papers that Rafael had bequeathed to her when he moved.

Finding himself at home, Raphael looked longingly at the talisman and wished that Polina would love him. The next morning he was overwhelmed with joy - the talisman did not decrease, which means that the contract was violated.

Having met, the young people realized that they love each other with all their hearts and nothing prevents their happiness. When Rafael once again looked at the shagreen, he noticed that it had decreased again, and in a fit of anger he threw it into the well. What will be, will be, - the exhausted Rafael decided and lived soul to soul with Polina. One day in February, the gardener brought a strange find to the marquis, "the dimensions of which now did not exceed six square inches."

From now on, Rafael decided to seek the means of salvation from scientists in order to stretch the shagreen and prolong his life. The first to whom he went was Mr. Lavril, "priest of zoology." When asked how to stop the narrowing of the skin, Lavril replied: “Science is vast, and human life is very short. Therefore, we do not pretend to know all the phenomena of nature.

The second to whom the Marquis addressed was Professor of Mechanics Tablet. An attempt to stop the narrowing of the shagreen by applying a hydraulic press to it was unsuccessful. The shagreen remained intact and unharmed. The amazed German hit the skin with a blacksmith's hammer, but there was no trace of damage left on it. The apprentice threw the skin into the coal furnace, but even from it the shagreen was taken out completely unharmed.

The chemist Jafe broke his razor while trying to cut the skin, tried to cut it with an electric current, subjected it to a voltaic column - all to no avail.

Now Valentin no longer believed in anything, began to look for damage to his body and called the doctors. For a long time he began to notice signs of consumption, now it became obvious to him and Polina. The doctors came to the following conclusion: “a blow was needed to break the window, but who delivered it?” They attributed leeches, diet and climate change. Raphael smiled sarcastically in response to these recommendations.

A month later he went to the waters in Aix. Here he encountered rude coldness and neglect of those around him. He was avoided and almost to his face declared that "since a person is so sick, he should not go to the water." An encounter with the cruelty of secular treatment led to a duel with one of the brave brave men. Rafael killed his opponent, and the skin shrank again.

After leaving the waters, he settled in the rural hut of Mont Dor. The people with whom he lived deeply sympathized with him, and pity is "a feeling that is most difficult to endure from other people." Soon Jonathan came for him and took his master home. Polina's letters handed over to him, in which she poured out her love for him, he threw into the fireplace. The opium solution made by Bianchon plunged Raphael into an artificial sleep for several days. The old servant decided to follow Bianchon's advice and entertain the master. He called a full house of friends, a magnificent feast was planned, but Valentin, who saw this spectacle, fell into a violent rage. After drinking a portion of sleeping pills, he again fell into a dream. Polina woke him up, he began to beg her to leave him, showed a piece of skin that had become the size of a "periwinkle leaf", she began to examine the talisman, and he, seeing how beautiful she was, could not control himself. "Pauline, come here! Pauline!" he shouted, and the talisman began to shrink in her hand. Polina decided to tear her chest to pieces, strangle herself with a shawl in order to die. She decided that if he killed himself, he would live. Rafael, seeing all this, became drunk with passion, rushed to her and died immediately.

Epilogue

What happened to Polina?

On the steamer "City of Angers" a young man and a beautiful woman admired a figure in the fog over the Loire. “This light creature, now an undine, now a sylph, hovered in the air - so the word that you are looking for in vain hovers somewhere in your memory, but you can’t catch it. You might think that this is the ghost of the Lady, depicted by Antoine de la Salle, wants to protect her country from the invasion of modernity.

Written in 1830-1831, the novel Shagreen Skin is dedicated to the problem of the collision of a young, inexperienced person with a society corrupted by numerous vices, as old as the world.

"Shagreen Skin", a summary of the chapters of the novel by Honore de Balzac

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 the writer came up with a global idea - 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 art chronicle - an essay on post-revolutionary French history, art, everyday life and philosophy. The whole subsequent life of the prose writer will be devoted to the implementation of the above-mentioned global plan. As a result, the epic creation, entitled by the author "The Human Comedy" (a little ironic, isn't it?), Will include three parts:

Studies describing manners (called "Studies on manners", proper);
Reflections of a writer of a philosophical nature (titled, respectively, "Philosophical Studies");
And finally, the part called "Analytical Studies".

"Shagreen leather" is included in the part with the philosophical reflections of the author. The central theme of the Balzac work concerns the problems of the life of a naive, uncorrupted person in a society teeming with vices and sins. It is curious that the concept of the epic begins with Shagreen Skin, since the author prints a fragment of the novel back in 1830.

The writer entered the history of literature as an innovator. In the period when the writer was just beginning his career, romanticism dominated in France. As for the novel, at the time when Balzac worked, this genre was divided into several conditional subspecies:

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

The French innovative writer, 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 purpose of the author 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 - a bearer of 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 grandiose Human Comedy cycle. The author placed "Shagreen Skin" in the second section called "Philosophical Etudes".

The reader was already partly familiar with "Shagreen Skin" before the release of the official two-volume edition. Separate episodes of the novel are first published in the magazines Caricature, Revue de De Monde, Revue de Paris. Balzac's realistic fantasy appealed to fans. "Shagreen Skin" was a crazy success and only during the life of the writer was reprinted seven times.

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 for "Shagreen Skin" becomes a brilliant, insatiable, greedy Paris, which most clearly manifests its vicious traits in secular society.

The protagonist of the novel is a young provincial, writer, seeker Rafael de Valentin. Along with Valentin, Balzac introduces already familiar characters into the figurative structure of the work. One of them is the adventurer Eugene de Rastignac. He appeared more than once on the pages of the novels of the "Human Comedy" (somewhere in the main, somewhere in a minor role). So, Rastignac is the soloist in Père Goriot, is included in the figurative structure of Scenes of Political Life, The Secrets of the Princess de Cadignan, The Banking House of Nucingen, Cousin Bretta and The Captain from Arcy.

Another star of the "Human Comedy" is the banker Tyfer, who is also a "murderer drowning in gold." The image of Tyfer is colorfully displayed on the pages of the novels "Father Goriot" and "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: "The Talisman"

A young man named Raphael de Valentin wanders through Paris. Once this city seemed to him a valley of joy and inexhaustible opportunities, but today it is only a reminder of his defeat in life. Having experienced happiness and found it, disappointed and having lost everything, Rafael de Valentin made a firm decision to die. This night he will throw himself into the Seine from the Pont Royal, and tomorrow afternoon the townspeople will fish up 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. Rafael understood this truth perfectly.

Walking the streets of Paris for the last time, our hero wandered into an antique shop. Its owner, a dry, wrinkled old man with a sinisterly wry smile, showed the late visitor the most valuable item in his shop. It was a piece of shagreen leather (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 a shagreen, but a powerful magical artifact that can change the fate of its owner. On the reverse side there was an inscription in Sanskrit, an ancient message said: “Possessing me, you will have everything, but your life will belong to me ... Wish and your desires will be fulfilled. However, measure your desires with your life. She's here. With every desire, I will decrease, like your days. Do you want to own me? Take it. May it be so".

Until now, no one has dared to become the owner of this piece of shagreen and secretly sign an agreement that looks suspiciously like a deal with the devil. However, what to lose to the destitute poor man, who just wanted to part with his life?!

Rafael acquires shagreen skin and immediately makes two wishes. The first is for the old shopkeeper to fall in love with the dancer, and the second for him, Rafael, to take part in the orgy that night.

Before the eyes, the skin noticeably shrinks 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.

No sooner had Valentine crossed the Pont des Arts than he met a friend, 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 Tyfer. Here Raphael meets with various representatives of Parisian society: corrupt artists, bored scientists, tight wallets, elite prostitutes and many others.

Together with Raphael de Valentin, we are carried away many years ago, when he was still a very young boy and knew how to dream. Valentin recalls 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 the Napoleonic conquests is passing. Things are starting to go wrong for the Valentines. The head of the family dies, and the son has no choice but to quickly sell the land to pay off 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 a talent in himself, and therefore he rents an attic in a cheap Parisian hotel and starts working day and night on his literary brainchild.

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

Soon Valentin was lucky 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 of 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 an amorous feeling, but by calculation - the countess needs the patronage of a distant relative of Valentin, Duke de Navarren. The offended young man reveals his feelings to the tormentor, but she declares that she will never sink below her level. Only the Duke will become her husband.

A fiasco in love makes Valentin reconnect 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 amount of money, they squander it uncontrollably. And when there was nothing left of a solid win, Valentin realized that he was on the social bottom, 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 an antique shop ... The narrator stops the story. He completely forgot about the magical shagreen that grants wishes. You need to actually check it out! Valentin takes out a piece of skin and makes a wish - to receive 120 thousand annual income. The next day, Rafael is informed that his distant relative has died. He left Rafael a huge fortune, which totals exactly 120 thousand a year. Taking out a piece of shagreen, the newly-made rich man realized that magic works, the shagreen has decreased, which means that the period of his earthly existence has shortened.

Now Rafael 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 a constant control of his own desires. As soon as Raphael utters the phrase “I want” or “I want”, the shred of shagreen immediately decreases.

One day Rafael goes to the theatre. There he meets a wizened old man with a beautiful dancer on his arm. It's the same shopkeeper! But how the old man has changed, his face is still covered with wrinkles, but his eyes are burning, like those of a young guy. What is the reason? Raphael is surprised. It's all about love! - explains the old man, - A single hour of true love is worth more than a long life.

Rafael watches the dressed-down audience, a string of ladies' shoulders, gloves, men's tailcoats and collars. He meets Countess Theodora, as brilliant as ever. Only she no longer arouses in him his former admiration. It is as artificial and faceless as all high-society society.

Valentine's attention is attracted by one lady. What was Rafael's surprise when Polina turned out to be this secular beauty. The same Polina, with whom he spent long evenings in his miserable attic. It turns out that the girl became the heiress of a huge fortune. Returning home, Valentin wished Polina to fall in love with him. The shagreen cringed again treacherously. In a fit of anger, Raphael throws her into the well - come what may!

Raphael de Valentine'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 that Valentin once wanted to voluntarily part with now seems to him the greatest treasure, because he loves and is loved.

Rafael's health begins to fail, doctors discover signs of consumption in him and shrug his hands - his days are numbered. Everyone, except Polina, is indifferent to the doomed to death. In order not to torment himself, Rafael runs away from the bride, and when after a while their meeting does take place, he is unable to resist the beauty of his beloved. Shouting, "I want you, Polina!", Valentin falls dead ...

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