Mind as Ruin: Balzac’s “Sarrasine”
127
dent or “divine” love), but situated in post-revolutionary, postCatholic France (figured by Paris, “la société sans croyance”), the narrator’s fragmented “je” is not simply an “other” (to invoke the famous
line of Rimbaud “je est un autre”), it is rather an other country.
The peculiar position of the narrator illustrates the point: situated in the window-frame of the Lanty mansion, divided between two
worlds, two perspectives and two feelings, his dual perspective reflects an internal duality of consciousness:
Ainsi à ma droite, la sombre et silencieuse image de la mort; à ma gauche, les
décentes bacchanales de la vie [...]. Moi, sur la frontière de ces deux tableaux si
disparates, qui, mille fois répétés de diverses manières rendent Paris la ville la plus
amusante du monde et la plus philosophique, je faisais une macédoine morale,
moitié plaisante, moitié funèbre. (pp. 227-8)
The narrator does not immediately reveal the content of these
two disparate worlds which he views as a banality of modern Parisian
life, nor does he explain the psychological division between life and
death or between the exterior and interior worlds. This internal division may be connected to his catastrophic experience with the old man
since his perspective on him is also radically divided. On the one
hand, the old man is simply “le vieillard” (which the narrator reiterates
almost as if to reassure himself of this fact). On the other, the old man
is dead, in ruins, a spirit, a ghost, a source of cold, darkly-clothed and
smelling of a cemetery. What the narrator sees with his eyes (an old
man) corresponds neither to the emotions nor to the images that the
narrator associates with the old man’s younger incarnation that he
once knew (la Zambinella). An understanding of the historico-cultural,
and even “religious” stakes attached to the narrator’s crisis of consciousness will require a thematic and symbolic interpretation of the
old man.
At the thematic level the narrator’s divided psyche has an
identifiable cause: the disillusionment and symbolic death that he underwent as Sarrasine. The anonymous narrator, a double of Sarrasine,
emerges resuscitated from death and endeavours to explain the cause
and the consequences of the spiritual catastrophe to others. His narratorial dilemma is that his nineteenth-century reading-public will be
perplexed or scandalized by his love object, since he had fallen in love
with a man. Moreover, the love that la Zambinella revealed to Sarrasine was believed to be transcendent and even “religious”. It is un-
127
dent or “divine” love), but situated in post-revolutionary, postCatholic France (figured by Paris, “la société sans croyance”), the narrator’s fragmented “je” is not simply an “other” (to invoke the famous
line of Rimbaud “je est un autre”), it is rather an other country.
The peculiar position of the narrator illustrates the point: situated in the window-frame of the Lanty mansion, divided between two
worlds, two perspectives and two feelings, his dual perspective reflects an internal duality of consciousness:
Ainsi à ma droite, la sombre et silencieuse image de la mort; à ma gauche, les
décentes bacchanales de la vie [...]. Moi, sur la frontière de ces deux tableaux si
disparates, qui, mille fois répétés de diverses manières rendent Paris la ville la plus
amusante du monde et la plus philosophique, je faisais une macédoine morale,
moitié plaisante, moitié funèbre. (pp. 227-8)
The narrator does not immediately reveal the content of these
two disparate worlds which he views as a banality of modern Parisian
life, nor does he explain the psychological division between life and
death or between the exterior and interior worlds. This internal division may be connected to his catastrophic experience with the old man
since his perspective on him is also radically divided. On the one
hand, the old man is simply “le vieillard” (which the narrator reiterates
almost as if to reassure himself of this fact). On the other, the old man
is dead, in ruins, a spirit, a ghost, a source of cold, darkly-clothed and
smelling of a cemetery. What the narrator sees with his eyes (an old
man) corresponds neither to the emotions nor to the images that the
narrator associates with the old man’s younger incarnation that he
once knew (la Zambinella). An understanding of the historico-cultural,
and even “religious” stakes attached to the narrator’s crisis of consciousness will require a thematic and symbolic interpretation of the
old man.
At the thematic level the narrator’s divided psyche has an
identifiable cause: the disillusionment and symbolic death that he underwent as Sarrasine. The anonymous narrator, a double of Sarrasine,
emerges resuscitated from death and endeavours to explain the cause
and the consequences of the spiritual catastrophe to others. His narratorial dilemma is that his nineteenth-century reading-public will be
perplexed or scandalized by his love object, since he had fallen in love
with a man. Moreover, the love that la Zambinella revealed to Sarrasine was believed to be transcendent and even “religious”. It is un-