Mind as Ruin: Balzac’s “Sarrasine”
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both the illusion of ideal love and its catastrophic loss. The entire
story of “Sarrasine” is then a therapeutic retelling of these repressed
memories.
Evidence that the narrator’s consciousness is a double of Sarrasine’s is apparent in the laborious description of the old man, which
seems to lack significance, yet which, on examination, reveals the narrator’s emotional attraction or disturbance. Is a certain nostalgia for
the passion that he had known before his disillusionment not evident
in the simple fact that the narrator is “attristé de voir tant de ruines
[…]”(p. 235)? Why would this be if he had not been formerly so attached to the totality? And who else in his tale other than Sarrasine
had known la Zambinella in his perfection and would thus be in a position to regret his current ruined state?
There are other examples of a residual attachment: who other
than Sarrasine would see in the old man the image of a woman (we
know that Sarrasine had first perceived la Zambinella dressed as a
woman)? The narrator reveals that he had once closely scrutinized the
young version of the old man’s body: “Son excessive maigreur, la délicatesse de ses membres, prouvaient que ses proportions étaient toujours restées sveltes” (p. 234). Without appealing to the myth of the
omniscient narrator, who except Sarrasine would have known this
body sufficiently to make a comparison between present and past?
And who other than Sarrasine would associate la Zambinella symbolically with a Christian or dead Christianity: “Vous eussiez dit deux os
mis en croix sur une tombe” (p. 234). The Christological allegory of
love will be discussed later.
Let us now reflect on evidence of an identity between Sarrasine and the narrator, or, more precisely, of Sarrasine as the “otherof-the-self” of the narrator. Consider, for example, the strange event
that takes place immediately after the description of the old man: the
narrator personifies his thought and underscores this act so that the
reader does not fail to reflect on its content. The personified thought is
that of a union between an old man and somebody who is twenty-two
years old, and between life and death: “Par un des plus rares caprices
de la nature, la pensée de demi-deuil qui se roulait dans ma cervelle en
était sortie, elle se trouvait devant moi, personnifiée, vivante, elle avait
jailli comme Minerve de la tête de Jupiter… elle avait à la fois cent
ans et vingt-deux ans, elle était vivante et morte” (p. 233).
129
both the illusion of ideal love and its catastrophic loss. The entire
story of “Sarrasine” is then a therapeutic retelling of these repressed
memories.
Evidence that the narrator’s consciousness is a double of Sarrasine’s is apparent in the laborious description of the old man, which
seems to lack significance, yet which, on examination, reveals the narrator’s emotional attraction or disturbance. Is a certain nostalgia for
the passion that he had known before his disillusionment not evident
in the simple fact that the narrator is “attristé de voir tant de ruines
[…]”(p. 235)? Why would this be if he had not been formerly so attached to the totality? And who else in his tale other than Sarrasine
had known la Zambinella in his perfection and would thus be in a position to regret his current ruined state?
There are other examples of a residual attachment: who other
than Sarrasine would see in the old man the image of a woman (we
know that Sarrasine had first perceived la Zambinella dressed as a
woman)? The narrator reveals that he had once closely scrutinized the
young version of the old man’s body: “Son excessive maigreur, la délicatesse de ses membres, prouvaient que ses proportions étaient toujours restées sveltes” (p. 234). Without appealing to the myth of the
omniscient narrator, who except Sarrasine would have known this
body sufficiently to make a comparison between present and past?
And who other than Sarrasine would associate la Zambinella symbolically with a Christian or dead Christianity: “Vous eussiez dit deux os
mis en croix sur une tombe” (p. 234). The Christological allegory of
love will be discussed later.
Let us now reflect on evidence of an identity between Sarrasine and the narrator, or, more precisely, of Sarrasine as the “otherof-the-self” of the narrator. Consider, for example, the strange event
that takes place immediately after the description of the old man: the
narrator personifies his thought and underscores this act so that the
reader does not fail to reflect on its content. The personified thought is
that of a union between an old man and somebody who is twenty-two
years old, and between life and death: “Par un des plus rares caprices
de la nature, la pensée de demi-deuil qui se roulait dans ma cervelle en
était sortie, elle se trouvait devant moi, personnifiée, vivante, elle avait
jailli comme Minerve de la tête de Jupiter… elle avait à la fois cent
ans et vingt-deux ans, elle était vivante et morte” (p. 233).