In 1827 a young Breton workman stands in a square of Provins, searching for the window of his childhood friend Pierrette Lorrain. She has been taken in by her cousins the Rogrons, a retired brother and sister of the drapery trade whose jealousy, pettiness and local ambitions turn the poor relation into a victim of domestic tyranny.
One of Balzac’s most affecting provincial scenes from The Human Comedy, in Katharine Prescott Wormeley’s translation. Download the free EPUB.