THE LILY OF THE VALLEY

Read this book online please click here http://cuyoo.com/?u=novel_display&id=25


Among his own novels this was one of Balzac's favorites. In 1835 he wrote to Madame Hanska: "I am writing a great and beautiful work, entitled Le Lys dens la Vallee, the heroine of which is to represent terrestrial perfection as Seraphita is to represent celestial perfection." A little later he wrote: "But the Lily! If the Lily is not a breviary for women, I am nothing! In it virtue is sublime and not at all tiresome." He also called it "the poetic pendant of The Country Doctor, and in his dedication to Dr. Nacquart he wrote: "Here is one of the most highly wrought stones of the second story of a literary edifice that is being slowly and laboriously constructed." The book was published in 1836, before which time parts of it had appeared in the Revue de Paris. It was not finished in that publication, because it was the occasion of a lawsuit, which Balzac won. An account of this appeared in the first edition. Some of the characters appear in other books: the hero, Felix de Vandenesse, in tine Fate d'Eve (" A Daughter of Eve"); his brother Charles in La Femme de Trente Ans ("The Woman of Thirty"); Madeleine de Mortsauf in Memoires de Deux Jeunes Mariees (" Memoirs of Two Young Wives") and Splendeurs et Miseres (" Splendors and Miseries"); and Natalie de Manerville in Le Contrat de Mariage ("The Marriage Contract"). When writing his introduction to the Comedic Humaine, Balzac remarked: "A sure grasp of the purport of this work will make it clear that I attach to common, daily facts, hidden or patent to the eye, to the acts of individual lives and to their causes and principles, the importance which historians have hitherto ascribed to the events of public national life. The unknown struggle which goes on in a valley of the Indre between Madame de Mortsauf and her passion is perhaps as great as the most famous of battles. In one, the glory of the victor is at stake; in the other, it is heaven."
1、致娜塔莉·德·玛奈维尔伯爵夫人的信
2、第一部分 两种童年
3、第二部分 情方萌芽
4、第三部分 两个女人
5、尾声
1、To Monsieur J. B. Nacquart, Member of the Royal Academy of Medicine.
2、Chapter I TWO CHILDHOODS
3、CHAPTER II FIRST LOVE
4、CHAPTER III THE TWO WOMEN
5、Henriette.