Writing to his new love Natalie, Félix de Vandenesse tells the story of his neglected childhood and of Madame de Mortsauf, whom he met at a ball and loved for years at her home in the valley of the Indre. Bound to a moody, tyrannical husband and sick children, she offers Félix devotion but not herself, while Paris and another woman wait.
Among Balzac’s most lyrical novels, with landscapes drawn from the Touraine he grew up in. Download the free EPUB.