The Deputy of Arcis

Note.—­“The Deputy of Arcis,” of which Balzac wrote and published the first part in 1847, was left unfinished at his death.  He designated M. Charles Rabou, editor of the “Revue de Paris,” as the person to take his notes and prepare the rest of the volume for the press.  It is instructive to a student of Balzac to see how disconnected and out of proportion the story becomes in these later parts,—­showing plainly that the master’s hand was in the habit of pruning away half, if not more, of what it had written, or—­to change the metaphor and give the process in his own language—­that he put les grands pots dans les petits pots, the quarts into the pint pots.  “If a thing can be done in one line instead of two,” he says, “I try to do it.”

Some parts of this conclusion are evidently added by M. Rabou, and are not derived from Balzac at all,—­especially the unnecessary reincarnation of Vautrin.  There is no trace of the master’s hand here.  The character is made so silly and puerile, and is so out of keeping with Balzac’s strong portrait, which never weakens, that the translator has thought best, in justice to Vautrin, to omit all that is not absolutely necessary to connect the story.