Albert Savarus

Wonderful tale set in the provincial town of Besançon, and focusing on the de Watteville family – the fiercely religious and independently wealthy wife, the ineffectual husband, who absents himself, spending his days working his lathe and 19-year-old daughter, Rosalie. She falls in love with the mysterious stranger who took up residence a few yards away from her family’s home. Through her maid, herself in love with Savarus’s butler, Rosalie intercepts Savarus’s letters to Paris and learns why this brilliant man established himself in Besançon and what he proposes to achieve. She hopes to escape from the dull marriage her mother is planning for her and instead ride on Savarus’s growing success. Will Rosalie help Savarus succeed or will he unwittingly fail unaware of her selfish machinations? Written in 1842, „Albert Savarus” is a work of a circumstance at the same time a personal testimony. In correspondence since 1832, lovers in 1834, Balzac and Madame Hanska were promised to be married. But the death of the old is Mr. Hanski was waiting.