The Lily of the Valley
The second French romantic novel that influenced me greatly from the moment that I read it as a teenager till now is Balsac's The Lily of the Valley. The romance within the novel is one of a passionate, unconsummated affair between the young Félix de Vandenesse and the virtuous, married Henriette de Mortsauf, characterized by spiritual connection, deep affection, and profound longing amidst societal constraints and conflicting duties. Told through Félix's letter to his lover, the story explores the complexities of love, the tension between desire and restraint, and the limitations imposed by social conventions on women's lives.
As I began my second reading (when I was an adult in my twenties), I immediately sensed that something had changed in me from the first time. The novel read much more clearly: “Then, all of a sudden, I met the woman who was to be a constant spur to my ambitions and who was to crown them by throwing me into the very heart of royalty…. Deceived by my puny appearance, a woman mistook me for a child about to fall asleep while awaiting his mother’s good pleasure, and sat down beside me with the grace of a bird alighting on her nest.” The alluring scent and beauty of the woman (who is none other than Madame de Mortsauf) enthralls the young Felix, such that he kisses her perfect shoulder in a swoon of nascent sexual attraction. The woman stands up embarrassed, calls out “Monsieur!” to Felix, and moves on.
The first time I read The Lily of the Valley, I had much the same reaction as I had attempting to read Dante’s Paradiso. In both cases, the author attempts to describe life's ineffable and indescribable. On one hand, the novel makes an impression of having a rather static structure, but on the other hand, the first person narrative used is completely sincere and does not whilst reading have any false notes. Along the way Felix's own discoveries of the family secrets draws him even closer to Madame de Mortsauf: “We touch each other on so many points! … Do we not belong to that little band of creatures, privileged in pain and pleasure, whose sensitive qualities vibrate in unison and produce great inner reverberations; whose highly strung natures are in constant harmony with the principle of things?”
There is on one hand Felix’s sexual tension and on the other hand, Henriette’s real need for a friend who will serve as a bridge over troubled water for her. Reading about this, personally, it did make me think during the second read of my own youth and those now laughable missteps that characterized my own love life. Felix is torn between pleasing the Comtesse and indulging his own wants. This fight remains the tension that pervades The Lily of the Valley through the events that unfold in the next chapters. Then suddenly Balzac surprises us. The endless summer apparently has an end, and Felix informs the family de Mortsauf that he must leave in a week to comply with his father’s plans for him (about which we have not yet been informed). Henriette writes a long letter to Felix which she enjoins him not to read until he is in Paris. In the meantime: “In return for my flesh, left lying in pieces in her heart, she lavished the ceaseless, incorruptible beams of that love, which satisfies the soul alone. She rose to heights where the speckled wings of that passion which had thrown me ravenously on to her shoulders could not carry me. To reach her, a man would need to win the white wings of the seraphim.”
The time period is the one during the perilous Hundred Days after Napoleon has escaped from Elba but before he has been decisively smashed at Waterloo. Felix has been given a diplomatic assignment that involved some danger, as Napoleonic agents are on his trail; but he manages to avoid them and land himself back at Clochegourde with the Mortsaufs. Quite suddenly, Monsieur de Mortsauf has come down seriously ill. Felix and Henriette stay up alternate nights for almost two months nursing him slowly back to health. Eventually, he returns to some semblance of health, but remains nonetheless frail, and still subject to strange, destructive moods as ever. Balzac admits himself that Félix is a sacrificial character. The perfection of his love condemns him to immobility and contemplation. The end of the novel, with Henriette’s poignant regrets, seems to prove her completely wrong. She thought she was happy, because she told herself so. It’s not resignation, but it’s a mirage. The power of what we want to be, the power of our idea of perfection, outweighs what we are. Balzac put this down very well, comparing The Lily of the Valey to Séraphita, and that’s what makes this novel so extremely beautiful, as well as the secret disappointment it leaves behind
As I began my second reading (when I was an adult in my twenties), I immediately sensed that something had changed in me from the first time. The novel read much more clearly: “Then, all of a sudden, I met the woman who was to be a constant spur to my ambitions and who was to crown them by throwing me into the very heart of royalty…. Deceived by my puny appearance, a woman mistook me for a child about to fall asleep while awaiting his mother’s good pleasure, and sat down beside me with the grace of a bird alighting on her nest.” The alluring scent and beauty of the woman (who is none other than Madame de Mortsauf) enthralls the young Felix, such that he kisses her perfect shoulder in a swoon of nascent sexual attraction. The woman stands up embarrassed, calls out “Monsieur!” to Felix, and moves on.
The first time I read The Lily of the Valley, I had much the same reaction as I had attempting to read Dante’s Paradiso. In both cases, the author attempts to describe life's ineffable and indescribable. On one hand, the novel makes an impression of having a rather static structure, but on the other hand, the first person narrative used is completely sincere and does not whilst reading have any false notes. Along the way Felix's own discoveries of the family secrets draws him even closer to Madame de Mortsauf: “We touch each other on so many points! … Do we not belong to that little band of creatures, privileged in pain and pleasure, whose sensitive qualities vibrate in unison and produce great inner reverberations; whose highly strung natures are in constant harmony with the principle of things?”
There is on one hand Felix’s sexual tension and on the other hand, Henriette’s real need for a friend who will serve as a bridge over troubled water for her. Reading about this, personally, it did make me think during the second read of my own youth and those now laughable missteps that characterized my own love life. Felix is torn between pleasing the Comtesse and indulging his own wants. This fight remains the tension that pervades The Lily of the Valley through the events that unfold in the next chapters. Then suddenly Balzac surprises us. The endless summer apparently has an end, and Felix informs the family de Mortsauf that he must leave in a week to comply with his father’s plans for him (about which we have not yet been informed). Henriette writes a long letter to Felix which she enjoins him not to read until he is in Paris. In the meantime: “In return for my flesh, left lying in pieces in her heart, she lavished the ceaseless, incorruptible beams of that love, which satisfies the soul alone. She rose to heights where the speckled wings of that passion which had thrown me ravenously on to her shoulders could not carry me. To reach her, a man would need to win the white wings of the seraphim.”
The time period is the one during the perilous Hundred Days after Napoleon has escaped from Elba but before he has been decisively smashed at Waterloo. Felix has been given a diplomatic assignment that involved some danger, as Napoleonic agents are on his trail; but he manages to avoid them and land himself back at Clochegourde with the Mortsaufs. Quite suddenly, Monsieur de Mortsauf has come down seriously ill. Felix and Henriette stay up alternate nights for almost two months nursing him slowly back to health. Eventually, he returns to some semblance of health, but remains nonetheless frail, and still subject to strange, destructive moods as ever. Balzac admits himself that Félix is a sacrificial character. The perfection of his love condemns him to immobility and contemplation. The end of the novel, with Henriette’s poignant regrets, seems to prove her completely wrong. She thought she was happy, because she told herself so. It’s not resignation, but it’s a mirage. The power of what we want to be, the power of our idea of perfection, outweighs what we are. Balzac put this down very well, comparing The Lily of the Valey to Séraphita, and that’s what makes this novel so extremely beautiful, as well as the secret disappointment it leaves behind
