Scott Sprenger
130
The “union” and the identity of the two people are only hinted
at by the narrator. The two most obvious referents are the old man and
Marianina, described by the narrator as follows: “Voir, auprès de ces
débris humains, une jeune femme…: ah! c’était bien la mort et la vie,
ma pensée, une arabesque imaginaire, une chimère” (p. 236). In a crucial scene, the old man offers a ring to Marianina, to which Madame
de Rochefide reacts: “Est-ce son mari? Je crois rêver. Où suis-je?” (p.
238)
But to conclude that the twenty-two-year old half of the union
is Marianina does not resolve anything since the symbolic marriage
between the old man and Marianina, occurring just a few pages later,
is itself a piece of the puzzle. The most important question asked by
Madame de Rochefide (“Est-ce son mari?”) about the ring exchange is
precisely the catalyst that prompts the narrator to recount Sarrasine’s
past as a key to solving the mystery of the marriage. The enormous
irony of “Sarrasine”, however, is that narrator never manages to solve
this mystery.
By this strange omission Balzac may be simulating a blockage
in order to make the reader look for the solution, requiring us to follow the allegorical logic of the tale. Described as “le type de cette
poésie secrète, lien commun de tous les arts, et qui fuit toujours ceux
qui la cherchent” (p. 229), Marianina plays a fundamental but hidden
role, according to Balzac, in his own artistic work. The narrator wants
us to discover his union with the old man, but cannot refer to himself
or to the union directly without causing a scandal. Marianina, personifying a resuscitated Sarrasine, provides the means to present to the
public a heterosexual union, but by linking it to Sarrasine the anonymity of the narrator remains intact. If the narrator manages to make us
believe that the two sides of the union of his personified thought are
the old man and Marianina, it is through a logic of contiguity, but also
because bourgeois conventions push us to find a union between man
and woman as a solution to the marital mystery. Marianina, as the
only young woman in the story, is therefore assumed to be the twentytwo-year old symbolic spouse of the old man.
The kernel of the entire narrative, the union on which all the
other events depend, but which remains nonetheless obscure, is the
union that Sarrasine fantasizes about with la Zambinella at the opera
in Rome, of which the memory is unsignifiable in a word. Balzac puts
us onto the scent by various indirect means, including literary tropes
130
The “union” and the identity of the two people are only hinted
at by the narrator. The two most obvious referents are the old man and
Marianina, described by the narrator as follows: “Voir, auprès de ces
débris humains, une jeune femme…: ah! c’était bien la mort et la vie,
ma pensée, une arabesque imaginaire, une chimère” (p. 236). In a crucial scene, the old man offers a ring to Marianina, to which Madame
de Rochefide reacts: “Est-ce son mari? Je crois rêver. Où suis-je?” (p.
238)
But to conclude that the twenty-two-year old half of the union
is Marianina does not resolve anything since the symbolic marriage
between the old man and Marianina, occurring just a few pages later,
is itself a piece of the puzzle. The most important question asked by
Madame de Rochefide (“Est-ce son mari?”) about the ring exchange is
precisely the catalyst that prompts the narrator to recount Sarrasine’s
past as a key to solving the mystery of the marriage. The enormous
irony of “Sarrasine”, however, is that narrator never manages to solve
this mystery.
By this strange omission Balzac may be simulating a blockage
in order to make the reader look for the solution, requiring us to follow the allegorical logic of the tale. Described as “le type de cette
poésie secrète, lien commun de tous les arts, et qui fuit toujours ceux
qui la cherchent” (p. 229), Marianina plays a fundamental but hidden
role, according to Balzac, in his own artistic work. The narrator wants
us to discover his union with the old man, but cannot refer to himself
or to the union directly without causing a scandal. Marianina, personifying a resuscitated Sarrasine, provides the means to present to the
public a heterosexual union, but by linking it to Sarrasine the anonymity of the narrator remains intact. If the narrator manages to make us
believe that the two sides of the union of his personified thought are
the old man and Marianina, it is through a logic of contiguity, but also
because bourgeois conventions push us to find a union between man
and woman as a solution to the marital mystery. Marianina, as the
only young woman in the story, is therefore assumed to be the twentytwo-year old symbolic spouse of the old man.
The kernel of the entire narrative, the union on which all the
other events depend, but which remains nonetheless obscure, is the
union that Sarrasine fantasizes about with la Zambinella at the opera
in Rome, of which the memory is unsignifiable in a word. Balzac puts
us onto the scent by various indirect means, including literary tropes