[*]
[*] "A round waist," he says, "is a sign of force; but women so
built are imperious, self-willed, more voluptuous than tender.
On the contrary, flat-waisted women are devoted, full of
finesse, inclined to melancholy." Elsewhere, he informs us that
"most women who ride horseback well are not tender." "Hands
like those of a Greek statue announce a mind of illogical
domination; eyebrows that meet indicate a jealous tendency. In
all great men the neck is short, and it is rare that a tall
man possesses eminent faculties."
To call his men and women mechanisms, while yet acknowledging their
intense vitality, may seem a contradiction; but nothing less than this
antinomy is adequate to indicate the fatality of Balzac's creatures.
None of them ever appear to be free agents. Planet-like they revolve
in an orbit, or meteor-like they rush headlong, and their course in
the one or the other case is guessable from the beginning. Not that
change or development is precluded. The conjuror provides for large
transformation; but the law of such transformation is one of iron
necessity, and, when he brings in at the end his interferences of
Providence, they shock us as an inconsequence.
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