Louis Lambert Author:Honoré de Balzac General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1889 Original Publisher: Roberts Subjects: Fiction / Classics Fiction / Literary Juvenile Fiction / Classics Literary Criticism / European / French Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing te... more »xt. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: FACINO CANE. TO LOUISE. AS A MARK OF MY AFFECTIONATE GRATITUDE. I Was then living in a little street which you probably do not know, the rue de Lesdiguieres, which begins at the rue Saint-Antoine opposite to the fountain near the place de la Bastille, and opens into the rue de la Ceri- saie. Love of science had driven me to a garret, where I worked during the night, passing my days in the library of Monsieur, which was near by. I lived frugally, taking upon me the conditions of monastic life, so essential to workers. I seldom walked for pleasure as far as the boulevard Bourdon, even when the weather was fine. One sole passion drew me away from my studious habits; but even that was a form of study. I walked the streets to observe the manners and ways of the faubourg, to study its inhabitants and learn their characters. Ill-dressed as the workmen themselves, and quite as indifferent to the proprieties, there was nothing about me to put them on their guard. I mingled in their groups, watched their bargains, heard their disputes, at the hour when their day's work ended. The faculty of observation had become intuitive with me ; Icould enter the souls of others, while still conscious of their bodies, -- or rather, I grasped external details so thoroughly that my mind instantly passed beyond them ; I possessed, in short, the faculty of living the life of the individual on whom I exercised my observation, and of substituting myself for him, like the dervish in the...« less