It detracts, rather, from the force of his effect; it
sets up a relation that has nothing to do with him, a relation between
Delphine and the reader, which only obstructs our view of the world as
Lucien sees it. Of the characters in the remoter planes of the action
(and that is Delphine's position in his story) no more is expected
than their value for the purpose of the action in the foreground. That
is all that can be _used_ in the book; whatever more they may bring
will lie idle, will contribute nothing, and may even become an
embarrassment. The numberless people in the Comedie who carry their
lengthening train of old associations from book to book may give the
Comedie, as a whole, the look of unity that Balzac desired; that is
another point. But in any single story, such of these people as appear
by the way, incidentally, must for the time being shed their
irrelevant life; if they fail to do so, they disturb the unity of the
story and confuse its truth.
Balzac's unrivalled power of placing a figure in its surroundings is
not to be explained, then, by his skill in working his separate pieces
together into one great web; the design of the Human Comedy, so
largely artificial, forced upon it as his purpose widened, is no
enhancement of the best of his books. The fullness of experience which
is rendered in these is exactly the same--is more expressive, if
anything--when they are taken out of their context; it is all to be
attributed to their own art.
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