The Purse

by Honore de Balzac
Translated by Clara Bell

To Sofka
"Have you observed, mademoiselle, that the painters and

sculptors of the Middle Ages, when they placed two figures in
adoration, one on each side of a fair Saint, never failed to

give them a family likeness? When you here see your name among
those that are dear to me, and under whose auspices I place my

works, remember that touchingharmony, and you will see in
this not so much an act of homage as an expression of the

brotherly affection of your devoted servant,
"DE BALZAC."

For souls to whom effusiveness is easy there is a delicious hour
that falls when it is not yet night, but is no longer day; the

twilight gleam throws softened lights or tricksy reflections on
every object, and favors a dreamy mood which vaguely weds itself

to the play of light and shade. The silence which generally
prevails at that time makes it particularly dear to artists, who

grow contemplative, stand a few paces back from the pictures on
which they can no longer work, and pass judgement on them, rapt

by the subject whose most recondite meaning then flashes on the
inner eye of genius. He who has never stood pensive by a friend's

side in such an hour of poetic dreaming can hardly understand its
inexpressible soothingness. Favored by the clear-obscure, the

material skill employed by art to produce illusion entirely
disappears. If the work is a picture, the figures represented

seem to speak and walk; the shade is shadow, the light is day;
the flesh lives, eyes move, blood flows in their veins, and

stuffs have a changing sheen. Imagination helps the realism of
every detail, and only sees the beauties of the work. At that

hour illusion reigns despotically; perhaps it wakes at nightfall!
Is not illusion a sort of night to the mind, which we people with

dreams? Illusion then unfolds its wings, it bears the soul aloft
to the world of fancies, a world full of voluptuous imaginings,

where the artist forgets the real world, yesterday and the
morrow, the future--everything down to its miseries, the good and

the evil alike.
At this magic hour a young painter, a man of talent, who saw in

art nothing but Art itself, was perched on a step-ladder which
helped him to work at a large high painting, now nearly finished.

Criticising himself, honestly admiring himself, floating on the
current of his thoughts, he then lost himself in one of those

meditative moods which ravish and elevate the soul, soothe it,
and comfort it. His reverie had no doubt lasted a long time.

Night fell. Whether he meant to come down from his perch, or
whether he made some ill-judged movement, believing himself to be

on the floor--the event did not allow of his remembering exactly
the cause of his accident--he fell, his head struck a footstool,

he lost consciousness and lay motionless during a space of time
of which he knew not the length.

A sweet voice roused him from the stunned condition into which he
had sunk. When he opened his eyes the flash of a bright light

made him close them again immediately; but through the mist that
veiled his senses he heard the whispering of two women, and felt

two young, two timid hands on which his head was resting. He soon
recovered consciousness, and by the light of an old-fashioned

Argand lamp he could make out the most charming girl's face he
had ever seen, one of those heads which are often supposed to be

a freak of the brush, but which to him suddenly realized the
theories of the ideal beauty which every artist creates for

himself and whence his art proceeds. The features of the unknown
belonged, so to say, to the refined and delicate type of

Prudhon's school, but had also the poeticsentiment which Girodet
gave to the inventions of his phantasy. The freshness of the

temples, the regular arch of the eyebrows, the purity of outline,
the virginal innocence so plainly stamped on every feature of her

countenance, made the girl a perfect creature. Her figure was
slight and graceful, and frail in form. Her dress, though simple

and neat, revealed neither wealth nor penury.
As he recovered his senses, the painter gave expression to his

admiration by a look of surprise, and stammered some confused
thanks. He found a handkerchief pressed to his forehead, and

above the smell peculiar to a studio, he recognized the strong
odor of ether, applied no doubt to revive him from his fainting

fit. Finally he saw an old woman, looking like a marquise of the
old school, who held the lamp and was advising the young girl.

"Monsieur," said the younger woman in reply to one of the
questions put by the painter during the few minutes when he was

still under the influence of the vagueness that the shock had
produced in his ideas, "my mother and I heard the noise of your

fall on the floor, and we fancied we heard a groan. The silence
following on the crash alarmed us, and we hurried up. Finding the

key in the latch, we happily took the liberty of entering, and we
found you lying motionless on the ground. My mother went to fetch

what was needed to bathe your head and revive you. You have cut
your forehead--there. Do you feel it?"

"Yes, I do now," he replied.
"Oh, it will be nothing," said the old mother. "Happily your head

rested against this lay-figure."
"I feel infinitely better," replied the painter. "I need nothing

further but a hackney cab to take me home. The porter's wife will
go for one."

He tried to repeat his thanks to the two strangers; but at each
sentence the elder lady interrupted him, saying, "Tomorrow,

monsieur, pray be careful to put on leeches, or to be bled, and
drink a few cups of something healing. A fall may be dangerous."

The young girl stole a look at the painter and at the pictures in
the studio. Her expression and her glances revealed perfect

propriety; her curiosity seemed rather absence of mind, and her
eyes seemed to speak the interest which women feel, with the most

engaging spontaneity, in everything which causes us suffering.
The two strangers seemed to forget the painter's works in the

painter's mishap. When he had reassured them as to his condition
they left, looking at him with an anxiety that was equally free

from insistence and from familiarity, without asking any
indiscreet questions, or trying to incite him to any wish to

visit them. Their proceedings all bore the hall-mark of natural
refinement and good taste. Their noble and simple manners at

first made no great impression on the painter, but subsequently,
as he recalled all the details of the incident, he was greatly

struck by them.
When they reached the floor beneath that occupied by the

painter's studio, the old lady gently observed, "Adelaide, you
left the door open."

"That was to come to my assistance," said the painter, with a
grateful smile.

"You came down just now, mother," replied the young girl, with a
blush.

"Would you like us to accompany you all the way downstairs?"
asked the mother. "The stairs are dark."

"No, thank you, indeed, madame; I am much better."
"Hold tightly by the rail."

The two women remained on the landing to light the young man,
listening to the sound of his steps.

In order to set forth clearly all the exciting and unexpected
interest this scene might have for the young painter, it must be

told that he had only a few days since established his studio in
the attics of this house, situated in the darkest and, therefore,

the most muddy part of the Rue de Suresnes, almost opposite the
Church of the Madeleine, and quite close to his rooms in the Rue

des Champs-Elysees. The fame his talent had won him having made
him one of the artists most dear to his country, he was beginning