Introduction
_ THE COUNTRY DOCTOR
Translated by
Ellen Marriage and Clara Bell
"For a wounded heart--shadow and silence."
To my Mother
INTRODUCTION
In hardly any of his books, with the possible exception of /Eugenie Grandet/, does Balzac seem to have taken a greater interest than in /Le Medecin de Campagne/； and the fact of this interest, together with the merit and intensity of the book in each case, is, let it be repeated, a valid argument against those who would have it that there was something essentially sinister both in his genius and his character.
/Le Medecin de Campagne/ was an early book； it was published in 1833, a date of which there is an interesting mark in the selection of the name "Evelina," the name of Madame Hanska, whom Balzac had just met, for the lost Jansenist love of Benassis； and it had been on the stocks for a considerable time. It is also noteworthy, as lying almost entirely outside the general scheme of the /Comedie Humaine/ as far as

......
全部内容，请购买此书。