Balzac, Brassens, Cheat Death, Vautrin: what a joke is played?

Honore de Balzac (1799 -1850)

Goriot (1835)

between these characters and others, Vautrin, man of forty years to favorites painted, served transition. It was one of those people whom the people said: This is a famous fellow! He had broad shoulders, chest well developed, visible muscles, hands, thick, square and strongly marked at the knuckles by clusters of bushy hair and a fiery red. His face, streaked with premature wrinkles, offered evidence of hardness that belied his manners and flexible binding. His baritone voice, in harmony with its large gay, not unpleasing. He was obliging and cheerful. If a lock was wrong, he was soon removed, patched up, oiled, file, recovery, saying: It knows me. He also knew everything, ships, sea, France, foreign affairs, people, events, laws, prisons and hotels. If someone complained too, he immediately offered his services. He had several times lent money to Vauquer and a few residents, but their deaths rather than be forced not to return it, as, despite his genial, he imparted to concern by some deep and full of light resolution. By the way he threw a jet of saliva, it announced an imperturbable coolness which should not shrink from doing a crime out of an equivocal position. Like a stern judge, his eyes seemed to get to the bottom of every question, of all consciousness, all the feelings. His manners were to leave after lunch to return for dinner, to decamp for the whole evening, and return around midnight, using a master key that he had entrusted Vauquer. Only he enjoyed the favor. But was he better with the widow he called Mom by grasping the waist, flattering little understood! The woman believed it even easier, while Vautrin alone had arms long enough to push this heavy circumference. A trait of his character was generously pay fifteen francs a month for gloria that he took the dessert. People are less superficial than were the young men carried away by the vortex of Parisian life, or indifferent to these old men that do not affect them directly, would not have arrested the impression that their dubious Vautrin. He knew or guessed the affairs of those around him, while no one could enter or her thoughts or pursuits. Though he had thrown his apparent good nature, his constant kindness and cheerfulness as a barrier between others and him, he often let break the appalling depth of his character. Often a joke worthy of Juvenal, and from which he seemed to delight in flouting the laws, whipping high society, to convince her of inconsistency with itself, was to assume that he bore a grudge against the social state and there was basically his life a mystery carefully concealed.

Balzac, Le Pere Goriot , I .

Especially in prison we believe in what we hope!
		Balzac extract The latest incarnation of Vautrin

"Ah ! you dare you to try to distinguish truth from falsehood, and gold tinsel !

you absolutely refuse to believe that the bladders are lanterns ! ... '

The latest incarnation of Vautrin, cheat death

"Falling into the third lower" , this term originated in theater. Indeed Opera had three floors of basements called respectively first, second and third below. These stories were used to receive, machines, machines and accessories in the words of Honore de Balzac.

"Let's can be the surprise of many, there is no language stronger, more colorful than the world underground, since the origin of empires capital, stirs in the cellars, in bilges , in the third below companies to borrow dramatic art and striking lively expression. The world is not it a theater? The Third-Dessous is the latest winery performed under the stage of the Opera, to conceal the machines, machinists, ramp, apparitions, the Blue Devils as hell vomits, etc.. "

Honore de Balzac, "Splendours and Miseries of Courtesans"

Part IV (the latest incarnation of Vautrin) ,

"Essay, linguistic and literary slang, girls and thieves"

Georges Brassens - cheat death + LYRICS

Georges Brassens, 1976.
cheated death

With this snow galore Who
cap, my cap fleece
can believe me at first glance
Gray in the harness.
Well, ladies and gentlemen,
is nothing but a smokescreen,
is nothing but comedy,
That parody.

In an attempt to cut short
In advance of fleeting time,
Persuade that old rascal
That any harm has been done already.
But underneath the wig I
My real hair color jet.
is not tomorrow the day, good God!
From my farewells.

And if I look less perky,
less solid on my knees,
If I walk slowly
On being a senator,
Do not say "It's lame" Do not
say "He can not go."
is nothing but comedy,
That parody.

History of sleep time,
Calculator unrepentant
From all scramble, confuse any
In the fateful hourglass.
In fact, behind the scenes,
As twenty years, I still trots.
is not tomorrow the day, good God!
From my farewells.

And if my heart beats less often and less quickly than before
,
If I hunt with less zeal
The gentes demoiselles,
Think not that I'm jaded
From their hugs, their kisses, nothing is
as comedy,
That parody. To convince

time fooled That my gallant
holidays are over,
What I retire backstage
Whether I will ever compete.
But I remain a sacred fellow
Always on, always lecher.
is not tomorrow the day, good God!
From my farewells.

And if the cemetery
One of these four, one door in the ground, like me
mistake,
A kind of stiff,
Do not drown the blower
Releasing the drain with your tears ,
This is nothing but comedy
Nothing but false exit.
Then turn of events when
The time has decamped,
Believing that the joke is played
Me happy, cheerful, I
m'exhumerai vault
To greet the cheers.
is not tomorrow the day, good God!
From my farewells.