Sarrasine (1830) is a novella by Honoré de Balzac, part of his Comédie Humaine. The stage is set around midnight during a ball, the narrator is sitting at a window. There is an unknown old man around the house, whom the family was oddly devoted to, and who frightened and intrigued the partygoers. When the man sits next to the narrator's guest, Beatrix Rochefide, she touches him, and the narrator rushes her out of the room. The narrator knows who the man is and says he will tell her his story the next evening. Then he portrays Ernest-Jean Sarrasine, a passionate, artistic boy, who after having trouble in school became a prodigy of the sculptor Bouchardon. Sarrasine, a talented young man, after one of his sculptures wins a competition, heads to Rome, where he sees a theatre performance featuring Zambinella. He falls in love with her, going to all of her performances and creating a clay mold of her. The old man is not Sarrasine. Who is he?
Honoré de Balzac, geboren am 20.5.1799 in Tours, gestorben am 18.8.1850 in Paris. Als Sohn eines Rechtsanwalts, verbrachte er eine freudlose Kindheit; die ersten vier Jahre unter der Obhut einer Amme, vom 7. bis 14. Jahr in einer strengen Klosterschule. Unter verschiedenen Pseudonymen verfasste er von 1822 bis 1825 über 20 Kolportageromane, von denen er kärglich lebte. Nach dem ersten literarischen Erfolg 1829 wurde er zum beliebten und berühmten Autor. (Quelle: Projekt Gutenberg)View all by Honoré De Balzac
