I cannot imagine that the value of the novelist's picture, as
preparation for his drama, could be proved more strikingly than it is
proved in this book, where so much is expected of it. Eugenie Grandet
is typical of a natural bent on the part of any prudent writer of
fiction, the instinct to relieve the climax of the story by taxing it
as little as possible when it is reached. The climax ought to
complete, to add the touch that makes the book whole and organic; that
is its task, and that only. It should be free to do what it must
without any unnecessary distraction, and nothing need distract it that
can be dealt with and despatched at an earlier stage. The climax in
Grandet is not a dramatic point, not a single incident; it lies in the
slow chill that very gradually descends upon Eugenie's hope. Balzac
carefully refrains from making the book hinge on anything so
commonplace as a sudden discovery of the young man's want of faith.
The worst kind of disappointment does not happen like that, falling as
a stroke; it steals into a life and spreads imperceptibly. Charles's
final act of disloyalty is only a kind of coda to a drama that is
practically complete without it. Here, then, is a climax that is
essentially pictorial, an impression of change and decay, needing time
in plenty above all; and Balzac leads into it so cunningly that a
short summary of a few plain facts is all that is required, when it
comes to the point.
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