The Purse (PDF)

La Bourse (The Purse) is a short story by the French novelist Honoré de Balzac. It was published in 1832 by Mame-Delaunay as one of the Scènes de la vie privée (Scenes of Private Life) in La Comédie humaine. Later editions of the work were brought out by Béchet in 1835 and by Charpentier in 1839, in both of which La Bourse was placed among the Scènes de la vie parisienne (Scenes of Parisian Life). It was, however, restored to the Scènes de la vie privée when Furne brought out the fourth and final edition in 1842; this heavily revised version of the story appeared as the third work in Volume 1 of La Comédie humaine.

The young painter Hippolyte Schinner falls from a step-ladder while working in his atelier and is knocked unconscious. The noise of his fall alerts two of his neighbours, Adélaïde Leseigneur and her mother Madame de Rouville, who occupy the apartment immediately below. The two women revive the young man and an acquaintance is struck up. Inevitably, the young painter falls in love with Adélaïde and over the following weeks he pays frequent visits to her apartment. There he is always warmly welcomed, but he cannot help noticing the unmistakable signs of poverty – a poverty that the two women are at obvious pains to hide. Hippolyte's suspicions are aroused. The mother and her daughter have different surnames; they are reluctant to reveal anything of their past; and what is Hippolyte to make of the two old friends of the mother, the Comte de Kergarouet and the Chevalier du Halga, who regularly visit her to play cards for money, but who always lose to her as though on purpose?

Hippolyte discovers that Madame de Rouville's late husband was a naval captain who died at Batavia from wounds received in an engagement with an English vessel. The Comte de Kergarouet, it transpires, is a former comrade of Baron de Rouville. Hippolyte offers to draw a portrait of Monsieur de Rouville, a fading sketch of whom is hanging in the apartment. Two months later, when the finished portrait is hung in Madame de Rouville's apartment, the Comte de Kergarouet offers Hippolyte 500 pistoles to have his own portrait painted in a similar style. Hippolyte, however, suspects that the old man is offering him the price of both portraits while paying for his own, and he declines the offer.

Despite his suspicions that the two women make are living in some mysterious and disreputable manner, Hippolyte continues his visits, for he is deeply in love with Adélaïde. One day, as he is leaving the apartment, he realizes that he has left his purse behind; but when he returns and inquires about it, Adélaïde brazenly insists that no such purse has been left in their apartment. The young man suspects he has been robbed by the women and he stops visiting them. Over the following week he pines away. His colleagues seem to confirm his worst suspicions – that Adélaïde is a prostitute and Madame de Rouville her procuress. Even his mother notices that he is out of sorts.

But a chance meeting on the stairs outside Adélaïde's apartment is enough to dispel all Hippolyte's suspicions. He decides that he was wrong to ignore the promptings of his heart. That evening he calls on the two women. Madame de Rouville suggests a game of cards. 

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