The Wild Ass's Skin

by Honoré de Balzac

The union of the two powers makes the complete man; but this rare and happy concordance is not yet genius; or, put more simply, does not constitute the will that engenders a work of art.

  In addition to these two conditions essential to talent there occurs in poets or in writers who are true philosophers a psychological phenomenon, inexplicable and wonderful, which science can only grasp with difficulty. It is a sort of second sight which permits them to guess at truth in all possible situations; or, to put it better still, an indescribable power that transports them where they must be and where they want to be. They invent the truth, by analogy, or see the object to be described whether the object comes to them or they go towards the object.

  This author makes do with setting out the terms of this problem, without seeking a solution. Because for him it is a question of justifying himself and not of deducing a philosophical theory from it.

  So the writer must have analysed the characters, espoused all the customs and moralities, explored the whole globe, felt all the passions, before writing a book; or else passions, countries, customs, characters, natural or moral accidents all must come into his mind. He is a miser, or momentarily he conceives of avarice, as he traces the portrait of the Laird of Dumbiedykes.* He is a criminal, he conceives of crime, or summons it up and contemplates it, as he writes Lara.*

  We cannot find a term adequate for this proposition concerning the brain and literature.

  But for those who study human nature, it is quite obvious that the man of genius possesses both powers.

  He passes, in his mind, through space, just as objects, once he has observed them, are faithfully born again in him, beautiful in the elegance or terrifying in the horror with which they first seized hold of him. He has seen the world in reality or his soul has revealed it to him intuitively. Just as the most vivid and accurate painter of Florence never went to Florence, so a certain writer has been able wonderfully to depict the desert with its sands, its mirages, its palm trees, without ever travelling from Dan to Sahara.*

  Has man the ability to make the universe enter his mind, or is his mind a talisman with which he abolishes the laws of time and space? … Science will be undecided for a long time between these two equally inexplicable mysteries. It is certainly the case that inspiration opens out to the poet transfigurations without number and similar to the fantasmagorical magic of our dreams. Dreaming is perhaps the natural play of this singular power when idle …

  These admirable faculties that the world rightly admires, an author possesses them to a greater or lesser extent, possibly in proportion to the greater or lesser perfection or imperfection of his organs. Perhaps too the gift of creation is a feeble spark fallen from on high on to man, and the adoration due to great geniuses is a noble and elevated prayer! If it were not so, why is our esteem proportionate to the force, to the intensity of the celestial spark that shines in them? Or should we evaluate the enthusiasm with which we are seized for great men by the degree of pleasure they give us, by the greater or lesser usefulness of their works? … Let everyone choose between materialism and spiritualism! …*

  This literary metaphysics has dragged the author rather far from the question of personality. But although in the simplest production, in ‘Ricky the Tuft’* itself, there is the work of an artist, and a naive piece is often imbued with as much mens divinior* as shines forth from a vast poem, he does not pretend to have written this ambitious theory himself, in the manner of some contemporary authors whose prefaces are ‘little Childe Harold pilgrimages’.* He only desires to reclaim for writers the ancient privileges of the clergy* who passed judgement upon themselves.

  The Physiology of Marriage was an attempt to return to the fine, lively, satirical, and gay literature of the eighteenth century, when writers did not always hold themselves up so straight and stiff; when, without discussing drama, poetry, and morals at every turn, there was nonetheless drama, poetry, and work of a vigorous morality. The author of this book seeks to encourage the literary reaction now under way in minds that are sick of our modern vandalism and weary of seeing so many stones piled up and no monument rising from them. He does not understand the prudishness, the hypocrisy of our mores, and moreover denies people who are blasé the right to make difficulties.

  From all sides there are complaints about the bloody nature of modern writing. Cruelty, torture, people thrown in the sea, hanged men, gibbets, convicts, atrocities in hot and cold blood, executioners—everything is treated as farce!

  There came a time when the public no longer wished to show sympathy for sick youths, convalescents, and the sweet treasures of melancholy contained in the literary infirmary. It bade farewell to the sorrowing, the lepers, the languorous elegies. It wearied of nebulous bards and sylphs, just as today it is bored with Spain, the Orient, torture, pirates, and the Walterscotted* history of France. So what is there left for us?

  If the public condemns the efforts of the writers trying to restore respect for the honest literature of our ancestors, must we hope for a flood of barbarians, the burning of libraries, and a new Middle Ages? Then writers would more easily begin again the eternal circle in which the human spirit turns like horses on a merry-go-round.

  If Polyeucte* did not exist, more than one modern poet would be capable of redoing Corneille, and you would see this tragedy unfold in three theatres at once, not counting the vaudevilles where Polyeucte would sing his profession of Christian faith on some theme from La Muette.* In short, authors are often in the right when they hold modern times up to ridicule. Does the world ask of us beautiful paintings? Where would be the models? Your mean clothes, your failed revolutions, your bourgeois windbags, your dead religion, your extinct powers, your kings on half-pay,* are they then so poetic that we have to transfigure them for you?

  All we can do these days is jest. The whole literature of a moribund society is mockery. So the author of this book, subjected to all the hazards of his literary enterprise, awaits new accusations.

  Some contemporary authors are named in his work; he trusts that his profound esteem for their characters or writings will not be doubted; and he defends himself well in advance against the allusions to which the people in the pages of his book might give rise. He has tried not so much to draw portraits as to present types.

  In brief, the present passes so quickly, intellectual life overflows everywhere with so much force, that several ideas have become out of date, have been taken hold of and voiced in the time during which the author was publishing his book. He has sacrificed a few; the ones he has kept, unaware of their uses elsewhere, were no doubt necessary to the harmony of his work.

  EXPLANATORY NOTES

  THE TALISMAN

  Tristram Shandy: in ch. ccxii (not cccxxii), or in modern editions of Sterne’s novel ch. 4 of part 9, Corporal Trim traces this squiggly line in the air with his cane to illustrate the freedom of movement Uncle Toby will lose if he marries the widow Wadman.

  Savary: Félix Savary (1797–1841), professor of astronomy and mechanics at the École Polytechnique. The dedication was added in 1845.

  The Talisman: the first part of the novel was originally titled ‘The Wild Ass’s Skin’. In the preface to the first edition Balzac compares the poet’s mind to a talisman possessing the power to abolish the laws of time and space.

  last October: Balzac dates the opening scene in relation to the novel’s publication date of August 1831. Because this was never changed to ‘October 1830’ in any of the subsequent editions, it would seem that Balzac wanted to keep the immediacy of the original historical ‘moment’ of both Raphael’s story and his own narrative.

  Palais Royal: in the 1780s, the duc d’Orléans, father of the man who became King Louis-Philippe in 1830, had constructed a number of rental buildings around his Paris garden. Many of them were used for prostitution (until a crackdown in 1828) and gambling (banned in 1837). Until 1826 it was also the site of wooden galleries, commemorated in Balzac’s Lost Illusions, where publishers and booksellers did busin
ess.

  Guazacoalco: river in Mexico, the site of an unsuccessful attempt at French colonization.

  D’Arcet’s gelatinous soups: Jean-Pierre Joseph d’Arcet was a chemist who sought to turn the gelatine from bones into inexpensive food for the poor.

  Cerberus: in classical mythology the dog that guards the gates of the underworld.

  his last crown: in the fourth book of his educational treatise Émile (1762), Rousseau said he didn’t understand why a rich man would gamble, but he did not go on to make the dramatic declaration Balzac attributes to him. In Balzac’s day a crown (écu) was worth five francs.

  trente et quarante: game of cards that pits a banker against a variable number of players.

  Place de Grève: today the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville. Executions were carried out there until 1831.

  Tantaluses: in classical mythology Tantalus thought to please the gods by killing and cooking his son Pelops as a sacrificial meal for them. His punishment was to stand forever in a pool of water that receded whenever he tried to get a drink, and beneath a fruit tree that lifted its branches whenever he reached out to eat.

  ‘Faites le jeu … Rien ne va plus’: ‘Place your bets. The bets are placed. Betting is closed.’

  Rouge, pair, passe’: a phrase appropriate to roulette, not to the game played here.

  napoleon: a gold coin worth twenty francs, which after Napoleon’s fall was once again called by its pre-Revolutionary name, a louis. To call it a napoleon here is to evoke a leader known for his bold gambles in politics and war.

  Di Tanti Palpiti: ‘for all these heartbeats […I hope for mercy]’, a popular cavatina sung by the hero of Tancredi, an opera (1813; Paris premiere 1822) by Rossini, a composer greatly admired by Balzac. Note that the role of Tancred, a knight of medieval Syracuse, is played by a female singer.

  Sterne: Balzac was misled by a ‘Life of Sterne’ in the French edition he used into thinking Sterne had abandoned his children (in fact he had only one, a daughter named Lydia). The same edition contained largely apocryphal ‘Memoirs’ of Sterne (based on a hoax by Richard Griffith), including a lament for the King of Kaernavon (more often spelt Caernarvon or Caernarfon), i.e. Edward II of England, deposed in 1327.

  Castlereagh … Auger: Robert Stewart, Marquess of Londonderry, known as Lord Castelreagh, British Foreign Secretary at the time of Napoleon’s defeat, committed suicide in 1822. Louis-Simon Auger, secretary of the French Academy, did the same in 1829.

  les Halles: the central food market of Paris.

  Dacheux: inspector of these first-aid stations. The scene may be compared with ones in Dickens’s Our Mutual Friend.

  Savoyard: many chimney-sweeps and other street urchins came from Savoy, a poor, largely Italian-speaking region then part of the Kingdom of Piedmont. Catarina (Catherine) is probably just a play on carita (charity).

  Bernard Palissy: French Renaissance potter and favourite of Catherine de Medici. Balzac adds a noble ‘de’ to Palissy’s name, as he did to his own.

  Madame Jacotot … Sesostris: Marie-Victoire Jacquotot (1778–1855), porcelain painter who often copied paintings by Raphael. Sesostris was a legendary king of Egypt.

  Madame du Barry … la Tour: Mme du Barry was the mistress of Louis XV; she was guillotined in 1793. Maurice Quentin de la Tour (1704–88), leading portrait painter of the eighteenth century.

  yatagan: a Turkish sword.

  St John on Patmos: the author of the biblical book of Revelation, who experiences his visions on the Greek island of Patmos (Rev. 1: 9). Elsewhere Balzac cites John as one of history’s great visionaries, and in his novel Lost Illusions the hero Lucien writes a poem about him.

  Priapus: ancient fertility god, often depicted with an erect penis.

  chimera: a chimera is a monstrous creature composed of different animals, but is here used as the name for an erotic toy. A painting of a Roman woman with a chimera features in Balzac’s Girl with the Golden Eyes. In the 1831 preface to The Wild Ass’s Skin and elsewhere in his reflections on artistic creation Balzac also uses the word chimère in its common French sense of ‘cherished fantasy’ or ‘pipe dream’.

  Tibullus: the mistress of the Latin elegist Tibullus’ poetry is Delia, not Julia.

  Senatus Populusque Romanus: ‘the Senate and the People of Rome’, written on military standards as a badge of Roman power.

  bayadera: sacred dancer of India.

  Benvenuto Cellini: famous sixteenth-century silversmith and sculptor (1500–71).

  Pizarro: Francisco Pizarro (d. 1541), Spanish conqueror of the Incan empire.

  Ruysch’s cabinet: Frederik Ruysch (1638–1731) was a Dutch anatomist.

  Lara: poem (1814) by Byron, a poet admired and often cited by Balzac. Like other readers of his day, Balzac saw Lara as the sequel to The Corsair of the same year.

  madrepores: ‘mother of pores’, a species of coral.

  Teniers … Mieris … Salvator Rosa: Teniers is the name of two seventeenth-century Flemish painters, father and son. Mieris was the name of a family of Dutch painters, and Salvator Rosa an Italian painter of the same period.

  rebec: medieval stringed instrument.

  Jean Goujon: French Renaissance sculptor (1510–66) who decorated part of the Louvre.

  Claude Lorrain, a Gerard Dow: Claude Gellée (d. 1682), a painter known as Lorrain from the region of his birth. Gerard Dow, or Gerrit Dou (1613–75), was an inspiration for some of Balzac’s portrayals of humble life; the link to Sterne points to the element of whimsy or fantasy in some of his realistic paintings. His Man Weighing Gold is mentioned below.

  Raphael: Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483–1520) was perhaps the painter Balzac admired most. In an essay of 1830 he names him alongside Gutenberg, Christopher Columbus, and Voltaire as one of the thinkers whose discoveries changed the world. Note that at this point we have not yet been told the hero’s name is also Raphael: the irony here is retrospective.

  Corinna: the name is used by the Latin poets Ovid and Martial to refer to a mistress in their poems, but here it most likely designates an aristocratic, somewhat lascivious, lady of ancient Rome.

  Cuvier: Georges Cuvier (1769–1832), French anatomist and palaeontologist much admired by Balzac for his ability to reconstruct whole animals from fragmentary fossils; the ability to move from buried details to a global vision is a trait Balzac claims for himself, which explains why Cuvier is called a poet.

  Cadmus: legendary founder of the Greek city of Thebes. From the dragon’s teeth he sowed sprang forth an army of armed men.

  curule chair: in ancient Rome senior magistrates sat on this kind of stool, which was a symbol of their power.

  Brocken: German mountain, location of the legendary Witches’ Sabbath, portrayed in the first part of Goethe’s Faust, translated into French by Gérard de Nerval in 1828. Mephistopheles, Goethe’s diabolic tempter, is mentioned below.

  Descartes: in his Discourse on the Method (1637) the philosopher René Descartes (1596–1650) began his quest for certain knowledge by questioning all his beliefs, including his own existence, to see if there was at least one notion he could not doubt. The result was the famous ‘I think, therefore I am’.

  Moses: in the first editions the antiquary (who is never named) is said to be Jewish when Raphael meets him later at the opera, but in 1838 Balzac dropped any specific reference to his origin or identity. Balzac’s character bears some resemblance to a similar one in Charles Maturin’s Gothic novel Melmoth the Wanderer (1820).

  Gay-Lussac and Arago: the chemist Louis-Joseph Gay-Lussac (1778–1850), like the astronomer and physicist François Arago (1786–1853), was a leading figure in French science.

  Funambules: one of the ‘boulevard’ theatres which offered popular melodramas, often of such a lurid nature that the Boulevard du Temple, on which they were located, was called the ‘Boulevard of Crime’. They were originally prohibited from using dialogue, which was the monopoly of the Comédie Française, and so they relied on dance, pantomime, a
nd other vaudeville forms. The Funambules was originally a marionette theatre. Raphael will later tell how he escorted Foedora there.

  throaty rattle: this is also a characteristic of the mysterious old man, later discovered to be a castrato, in Balzac’s story ‘Sarrasine’ (1830).

  shagreen: the 1835 edition of the French Academy’s Dictionary defines the word chagrin as ‘a kind of grained leather, ordinarily made from the skin of a mule or an ass’, and gives as examples of its use ‘a book bound in chagrin’, ‘a case made of chagrin’. To have a peau de chagrin is to have rough skin. The word derives from the Turkish chagri (‘rump’); its etymology is discussed in Part Three of the novel. These definitions follow the primary meaning of chagrin as a noun (with a different etymology) meaning ‘sorrow, affliction, displeasure’ and sometimes ‘anger, spite’; and as an adjective meaning ‘melancholy’, ‘sad’, and ‘ill-humoured’. Because the play on these different meanings of the French word is crucial to the novel, and since an English translation cannot capture that play exactly, some of the more important instances of chagrin will be noted below.