The shagreen leather
The shagreen leather or the deadly wishes ( French: La Peau de chagrin ) is a novel by Honoré de Balzac . It appeared in 1831 with great success. In it Balzac describes French and especially Parisian society towards the end of the Restoration and at the beginning of the July monarchy .
content
The novel consists of three parts Le talisman (The talisman), La femme sans cœur (The heartless woman) and L'agonie (The agony).
The main character is the young Raphaël de Valentin , of noble birth, but orphaned and impoverished, who has always dreamed of becoming a writer and dedicating himself to his artistic nature. He is in a crisis and gambled away his last gold coin in the Palais Royal . This happened in the autumn of 1829. At this time, society fell apart, it romped about in big festivals, which meant a mistaken “way out” and an escape from the events for Parisian society. The desperate and hopeless Raphael says that the only way to solve his problems is by suicide. He thus goes to the dirty, cold Seine, which seems to be a logical consequence of his fate. However, he is stopped by a mocking and ironic old woman in rags. He decides to say goodbye in a "dignified" way, namely to drown himself at night and not in the middle of broad daylight; for if he lets himself fall down during the night, his corpse will no longer be recognizable.
So he decides to postpone his death for a few hours, but it turns out that he will postpone it for a few years without wanting to. He discovers an antiquarian bookshop in which he comes across an old man who presents him the shagreen leather , a piece of “donkey skin”. Raphael recognizes an engraved Arabic script that translates as follows: “You own everything if you own me. But your life is mine. So will the Lord God. Everything you wish should be fulfilled through me. But focus your desires on your life. That is there. Like your days, I will decrease with each of your desires. Do you want me So take me! God hears you! So let it be done! ”The shagreen leather is supposed to eliminate the destructive dichotomy between“ wanting ”and“ being able ”in it. However, with every wish that it fulfills for its owner, this talisman shrinks a little, and a complete disappearance means death, since the size of the talisman is proportional to the lifespan of its owner. Valentin buys the shagreen leather, which amounts to a pact with the devil .
Pun in the title
Chagrin is on the one hand the French word for "grief", on the other hand it describes (from Turkish sağrı for croup ) a type of leather from the back skin of horses, camels, donkeys, mules and other animals.
Edits
- Film adaptations: France 1909 or 1911 (directed by M. Carré), Slave of desire , USA 1923 (directed by GD Baker), Die unheimlichen Wünsche , Germany 1939 (directed by Heinz Hilpert ), La piel de Zapa , Argentina 1943 (directed by B. Herr) , France 2010 (TV-Movie, directed by Alain Berliner)
- Setting: Fritz Geißler , opera in seven pictures 1977/78 based on a libretto by Günther Deicke
- Giselher Klebe , Die tödlichen Wünsche , Opera 1959, 1962, premier June 14, 1959, Deutsche Oper am Rhein Düsseldorf under the direction of Reinhard Peters