Farewell

fiction, history, science, social · EN

In his haunting and poignant novella Farewell (Adieu), Balzac delves into the 19th-century literary landscape of the hysterical woman—sequestered, confined within her madness; voiceless, or eerily reciting chants in her isolated haven. The specter of the first Mrs. Rochester lingers, while the Lady of Shalott awaits the moment when the fragile illusion of her world will shatter. Soon, Freuds earliest patients will find themselves in the waiting room of the mind. During a hunting excursion, two friends stumble upon a mysterious, waif-like woman imprisoned in a crumbling chateau, whimsically named “the Palace of the Sleeping Beauty.” As the tale unfolds, we are plunged back into the grim reality of Napoleon’s 1812 retreat from Moscow, where a grotesque massacre haunts the heroine, separating her from her beloved. Their reunion becomes a desperate and tragic endeavor, mirroring past events in a bizarre attempt to confront madness and restore lost happiness… (Summary by Martin Geeson)