The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Magic Skin, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: The Magic Skin

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Ellen Marriage

Release Date: May, 1998 [Etext #1307]
Posting Date: February 22, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MAGIC SKIN ***

Produced by Dagny, and Bonnie Sala

THE MAGIC SKIN

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Ellen Marriage

To Monsieur Savary, Member of Le Academie des Sciences.

[omitted: a drawing representing the serpentine
path made by the tip of a stick when flourished.]

STERNE--Tristram Shandy, ch. cccxxii.

THE MAGIC SKIN

I. THE TALISMAN

Towards the end of the month of October 1829 a young man entered the
Palais-Royal just as the gaming-houses opened, agreeably to the law
which protects a passion by its very nature easily excisable. He mounted
the staircase of one of the gambling hells distinguished by the number
36, without too much deliberation.

"Your hat, sir, if you please?" a thin, querulous voice called out. A
little old man, crouching in the darkness behind a railing, suddenly
rose and exhibited his features, carved after a mean design.

As you enter a gaming-house the law despoils you of your hat at the
outset. Is it by way of a parable, a divine revelation? Or by exacting
some pledge or other, is not an infernal compact implied? Is it done to
compel you to preserve a respectful demeanor towards those who are about
to gain money of you? Or must the detective, who squats in our social
sewers, know the name of your hatter, or your own, if you happen to have
written it on the lining inside? Or, after all, is the measurement of
your skull required for the compilation of statistics as to the cerebral
capacity of gamblers? The executive is absolutely silent on this point.
But be sure of this, that though you have scarcely taken a step towards
the tables, your hat no more belongs to you now than you belong to
yourself. Play possesses you, your fortune, your cap, your cane, your
cloak.

As you go out, it will be made clear to you, by a savage