The Project Gutenberg EBook of Z. Marcas, by Honore de Balzac

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Title: Z. Marcas

Author: Honore de Balzac

Translator: Clara Bell and Others

Release Date: August, 1999 [Etext #1841]
Posting Date: March 3, 2010

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK Z. MARCAS ***

Produced by John Bickers, and Dagny

Z. MARCAS

By Honore De Balzac

Translated by Clara Bell and Others

DEDICATION

To His Highness Count William of Wurtemberg, as a token of the
Author's respectful gratitude.

DE BALZAC.

Z. MARCAS

I never saw anybody, not even among the most remarkable men of the
day, whose appearance was so striking as this man's; the study of his
countenance at first gave me a feeling of great melancholy, and at last
produced an almost painful impression.

There was a certain harmony between the man and his name. The Z.
preceding Marcas, which was seen on the addresses of his letters, and
which he never omitted from his signature, as the last letter of the
alphabet, suggested some mysterious fatality.

MARCAS! say this two-syllabled name again and again; do you not feel as
if it had some sinister meaning? Does it not seem to you that its owner
must be doomed to martyrdom? Though foreign, savage, the name has a
right to be handed down to posterity; it is well constructed, easily
pronounced, and has the brevity that beseems a famous name. Is it not
pleasant as well as odd? But does it not sound unfinished?

I will not take it upon myself to assert that names have no influence on
the destiny of men. There is a certain secret and inexplicable concord
or a visible discord between the events of a man's life and his name
which is truly surprising; often some remote but very real correlation
is revealed. Our globe is round; everything is linked to everything
else. Some day perhaps we shall revert to the occult sciences.

Do you not discern in that letter Z an adverse influence? Does it not
prefigure the wayward and fantastic progress of a storm-tossed life?
What wind blew on that letter, which,